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The Zen poet, Manan, has written:

UNFETTERED AT LAST, A TRAVELING MONK, I PASS THE OLD ZEN BARRIER.

MINE IS A TRACELESS STREAM-AND-CLOUD LIFE.

OF THOSE MOUNTAINS, WHICH SHALL BE MY HOME?

This series is dedicated to the clouds, because they represent freedom of movement. They don't bother about the boundaries of nations, they don't carry passports, and they don't have to ask anybody - the whole sky is theirs! Man also should be as free as a cloud. Why should there be any boundaries? Why should there be any divisions between humanity? Why should a nation become a prison?

Rather than giving freedom, the nation makes you a slave. You don't feel it because the prison is big; you will feel it only when you want to cross the boundaries. Immediately you will be stopped:

"Where is your permission? Where are you going?"

The cloud does not believe in any boundaries; it is a pure symbol of freedom.

UNFETTERED AT LAST, A TRAVELING MONK, I PASS THE OLD ZEN BARRIER.

Even Zen finally has to be transcended. Finally you have to become so meditative that you don't need to meditate any more - meditation becomes your very being. That is what is called "the old Zen barrier." The day your very existence becomes meditative, when you don't have to sit down at a certain hour to meditate in a certain way; the day when whatever you do, you do it meditatively - you sleep in meditation and you wake up in meditation - you have passed the old Zen barrier.

MINE IS A TRACELESS STREAM-AND-CLOUD LIFE.

OF THOSE MOUNTAINS, WHICH SHALL BE MY HOME?

The cloud is going towards the mountains, towards the unknown, untraveled heights. Far away - farther than the reach of ordinary mortal human beings.

Saisho, another poet:

EARTH, MOUNTAINS RIVERS - HIDDEN IN THIS NOTHINGNESS.

IN THIS NOTHINGNESS - EARTH, MOUNTAINS, RIVERS REVEALED.

SPRING FLOWERS, WINTER SNOWS:

THERE'S NO BEING NOR NOT-BEING, NOR DENIAL ITSELF.

In this silence you can understand this purity of transcendence - neither life nor death, but pure eternity.

Kukoku has written:

RIDING BACKWARDS THIS WOODEN HORSE, I'M ABOUT TO GALLOP THROUGH THE VOID.

WOULD YOU SEEK TO TRACE ME?

HA! TRY CATCHING THE TEMPEST IN A NET.

A man of meditation certainly becomes so free that trying to catch him is like trying to catch a tempest in a net. All organizations are nets, and all nationalities and races are nothing but nets.

They are all trying to catch you in different boundaries, in different chains. And our unconsciousness is such that we even glorify our chains, because our chains are made of gold, they are very ancient, they are all that we have.

Man can become a cloud, passing through all barriers. He can attain to total freedom, where he is not a Hindu or a Mohammedan or a Christian, where he is not even his body or his mind - where he is pure consciousness, just being.

This moment you can enter into this being. It is available - you just have to stretch your hand a little.

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