The 360º mind does not have any preconceived notions—not even the preconceived notion that there should not be any preconceived notions. The 360º mind is open, flexible and uncontrived. It is without blocks and always change-ready.

BREAKING FREE
A spiritual seeker felt suffocated in the world. Wanting to break free, he renounced the world. As a reward, he was taken to heaven. It was nice and cozy up there but, after a while, he was tired of the good things. So he renounced the heaven. As a bigger reward, he was taken to God. He liked being with God, but a time came when he had had enough of God’s company. So, he renounced even God.

Now there was nothing more to renounce. Yet the freedom that he had been seeking was nowhere in sight. After some uncertainty, he had a flash of insight and he renounced renouncing. And he was back into the world from where he had sought freedom in the first place. Free from being free, he had come full circle.

WHITE BELT
When a novice starts learning the martial arts, he wears a white belt, symbolic of innocence. After months of practice, the white belt gets dirty and turns brown, symbolic of the first degree of attainment. After more practice, the belt gets soiled and eventually turns black, symbolic of full attainment.

If the practitioner does not stop learning even after full attainment, the black belt starts getting frayed, turning almost white, symbolic of return to innocence. The frayed white belt represents technical competence of an experienced martial artist, combined with the innocence and receptivity of a beginner. It signifies going beyond technique and embracing no-technique—coming full circle.

PICASSO’S CHILD
Once Picasso said: “I used to draw like Raphael. But it has taken me a lifetime to draw like a child.”

Picasso was a competent artist when he drew like Raphael. He became a great artist only when he awakened the child in him and started drawing without any pre-determined technique.

The same is true of every art. For example, the contribution of technique in the work of a competent musician is 100 per cent. But the contribution of technique in the work of a great musician is only 10 per cent or so—the remaining 90 per cent being contributed by the child in the musician. Only when you transcend technique, you become great in your field. You come full circle.

KABIR’S COMPLAINT
Kabir never accepted any gift from his disciples. But his son Kamal never refused anything that his disciples brought to him. This made Kabir unhappy.

One day, he reproached his son: “I do not accept any gift because gifts mean nothing to me. But it pains me to know that you grab all that your disciples bring to you.”

Kamal said: “Father, if gifts mean nothing to you, why are you bothered whether I accept them or reject them?” Here, Kabir had a 180¬∫ mind, and Kamal a 360¬∫ one.

THE VIRTUOUS KING
When Boddhidharma visited China in the sixth century, he was invited to the King’s court. The king was proud of his spirituality and the good deeds he had done for his people. He narrated what all he had done to promote religion and then asked Boddhidharma’s opinion about the merit he earned.

Boddhidharma’s reply was blunt: “No merit.”

Obviously, being virtuous was not a great virtue in Boddhidharma’s scheme of things. The king had a 180¬∫ mind. Boddhidharma had a 360¬∫ mind. You can’t be spiritual as long as you wear the badge of spirituality. Taking off the badge is coming full circle.

NOTHING GREAT
Once there was a conference of religions to which all faiths sent their representatives. Every representative stated forcefully that his religion was great. When it was the turn of Zen’s representative, he stated truthfully: “There is nothing great in Zen.”

A member of the audience with a deep understanding of Zen got up and said: “Your saying that there is nothing great in Zen actually makes Zen sound as something great. So you should not have said there is nothing great in Zen.”

The Zen representative had a 180º mind. The member of the audience had a 360º mind.

A GOB OF SPIT
For years, Henry Miller lived the life of a would-be writer. He was 45 when he wrote his first book Tropic of Cancer in 1934. Here is what he writes in the opening page:

“I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive. A year ago, six months ago, I thought that I was an artist. I no longer think about it, I am (author’s italic). Everything that was literature has fallen from me. There are no more books to be written, thank God. This then? This is not a book. This is libel, slander, and defamation of character. This is not a book, in the ordinary sense of the word. No, this is a prolonged insult, a gob of spit in the face of Art, a kick in the pants of God, Man, Destiny, Time, Love, Beauty, what you will. I am going to sing for you, a little off-key perhaps, but I will sing. I will sing while you croak, I will dance over your dirty corpse.”

Henry Miller could not have written such a powerful book if he had not got over his romanticized visions of becoming a writer. He could write the book he did precisely because there were “no more books to be written.”

With the transition from “I thought that I was an artist” to “I am”, he had come full circle. As a result, he went beyond mere writing to “singing”‚Äînot to mention the funny things he did to God and the like in the process.

THE MUMBAI SCHOOL
Do you have free will? If you believe you do, then you have a 180º mind. The alternative seems to be the view that there is no free will.

A well-meaning, emerging school of thought in Mumbai, India, has been hammering into people’s minds that free will is an illusion and without God’s will you can’t make the slightest move. This viewpoint is also indicative of a 180¬∫ mind.

Insisting that it is all God’s will is as much a concept as insisting that you have free will. When something happens, it just happens. Sometimes it seems that you made it happen. Some other times it seems that it happened by itself or God (or the totality) made it happen. How you view the happening is more a question of perspective than of fact. Which means that ‚Äòyour will‚Äô and God’s will are both labels. Taking off the labels is to come full circle.

THE MIRROR EFFECT
Certain things in the world appeal to you. Certain other things don’t. You have your considered opinions about different issues. You may believe there is a benign power somewhere that cares for you. You may believe it’s a chaotic world without any rhyme or reason.

How you perceive the world not only tells about the world, but it is also a reflection of how your mind works. Seeing your own mind in how the world appears to you is to come full circle.

ONE THING
When you strive for enlightenment, it’s a 180¬∫ vision. When enlightenment happens, it’s nothing like what you believed it to be. Then enlightenment and unenlightenment don’t seem to be two things.

Saying that they are two things and saying that they are one thing also don’t appear to be two things. With that realization, you come full circle.
ALL SAID AND DONE
The core of this piece does not lie in what has been stated but in what has not been stated. When you see that, you’ll come full circle.

With that hint, this piece too comes full circle.

Actually, these do-gooders are like Procrustes, the robber who kidnapped strangers and forced them to fit perfectly into a bed by either cutting off or stretching their legs. Values and laws are like the Procrustean bed. With pre-determined notions of good and bad, right and wrong, many societies are nothing but police networks. If you don’t fit the system, you are locked up in jail.

It was Lao Tzu who pointed out centuries ago that an abundance of laws produce an abundance of thieves. The increase in crime then ensures that policemen and judges get their salaries and perks. Just as laws are responsible for crimes, economists are responsible for the poverty in the world. Then these very economists are needed to alleviate the very same poverty that they created in the first instance.

Similarly, psychiatrists are the main cause of mental disorder among people. Parents who are keen to correct their children only end up passing their own anxiety to them. The children, in turn, display the same anxiety to correct things around them. Writers of self-help books, with their emphasis on methods, have robbed people of their natural instincts. Fairly intelligent people have read themselves stupid without benefiting from self-help literature.

In their zeal to correct people, moralists and self-help teachers are like the monkey who, wanting to save the fish from drowning, offers to carry it up the tree. The fish is perfectly happy being in the water but the monkey forces his own values on it! A moralist is indignant and intolerant and wants goodness to prevail at all costs, mostly at the cost of goodness itself.

But goodness can’t be enforced. When we teach goodness through moral imperatives, we are being harsh. Then we are not teaching goodness but harshness. Goodness after all is a direct outcome of love and compassion. A compassionate person is never indignant. He has no intention to set the world right. He lives his life based on compassion and has a way of touching others and transforming them without even their being aware of it.

It would seem that moralists are as much a threat as criminals. But years of evolution have given us just the right ratio of each type of person we need. It is in the nature of the things that there are just enough moralists and just enough criminals at a given time. So too there are just enough healers and just enough sick, just enough doers and just enough lazy people, just enough creative people and just enough idiots, and so on.

So do-gooders do have their place in society. Which means it’s ok to have laws. But then it’s ok if the criminal breaks them, if the policeman arrests him, if the judge gives him sentence and if the suffering criminal curses the society for its irrational laws.

With that kind of overview we are not likely to get upset at the seeming excesses of either the moralist or the criminally-inclined. The overview can do us a lot more good actually. We will have less of resentment, less of anger. We will not find fault with everything habitually. Why, we might as well develop love and compassion too which the moralist wants to enforce at all costs!

An unknown Taoist said a long time ago: It is true that this society is going to the dogs but the only way to stop it from doing so is not to stop it from doing so! Things always sort themselves out in ways that we can’t even begin to fathom.

Finally, it is ok if some of you do-gooders are indignant at the tone of this piece. It is ok too if I am indignant at your sense of indignation. Cheers!

THE PEAK EXPERIENCE
There is a story about a mountain that when you scale its peak, you’ll meet an old man who has the answers to all the questions. As you begin climbing, you look forward to meeting the old man as much as you want to make it to the top. Finally, reaching the summit is a great feeling. Time comes to a standstill as you drink in the view. Your heart expands. You are alive as never before. In that wonderful state, all questions disappear. The old man grins. You grin too. But no questions are asked. Because the meaning of life has already been glimpsed.

THE GREAT FLOW
Lucy was greatly bothered about the meaning of life. She approached a wise man for guidance. The wise man took her to a stream and filled a pitcher with stream water.

Wise man: (Pointing to the stream) What is that?
Lucy: A stream.
Wise man: (Pointing to the pitcher) What is this?
Lucy: A pitcherful of stream water.
Wise man: Why don’t you call it a stream?
Lucy: The water doesn’t flow in the pitcher. So it’s not a stream.
Wise man: How can it be a stream?
Lucy: When you let go of it.

As Lucy made the gesture of letting go, she understood what the wise man was driving at. Life is like a flowing stream and the meaning of life is only a pitcherful of water.

THE PERSIAN RUG
In somerset Maugham‚Äôs Of Human Bondage (1915), Cronshaw gifts an intricately woven Persian rug to Philip Carey, telling him that it might answer his question about the meaning of life. Philip can’t make out anything initially. Later the message of the Persian rug dawns upon him.

Just as the weaver makes patterns for the joy of doing so, a man too can look at his life as a pattern. There is as little need as use for a particular kind of pattern. It’s the uniqueness of the pattern that counts. Out of the manifold events of his life, his deeds, his feelings, and his thoughts, a man creates a design, regular, elaborate, complicated, or beautiful. Philip is thrilled by this new way of looking at things.

To quote from the book: “His (Philip’s) life had seemed horrible when it was measured by its happiness, but now he seemed to gather strength that it might be measured by something else. Happiness mattered as little as pain. They came in, both of them, as all the other details of his life came in, to the elaboration of the design. He seemed for an instant to stand above the accidents of his existence, and he felt that they could not affect him again as they had done before. Whatever happened to him now would be more motive to add to the complexity of the pattern, and when the end approached he would rejoice in its completion. It would be a work of art, and it would be nonetheless beautiful because he alone knew of its existence, and with his death it would at once cease to be.”

JUST PLAY IT
A new monk in a monastery had just finished his breakfast. Finding the master alone, he approached him and asked: “What is the meaning of life?” The master said: “Have you had breakfast?” “Yes,” the monk replied. “Then go and wash your bowl,” said the master.

When a ball comes your way, you play it. Life is also a ball game. It’s about doing what needs to be done here and now. When you finish your breakfast, you wash your bowl. The bowl washed, there’s another ball to be played.

The unknowability of the next moment is intrinsic to the nature of life. You never know what is going to come your way. If you knew that, it would be no fun playing.

THE SILVER PLATTER
Speculating about the miracles that people look forward to all their lives, Henry Miller says in Tropic of Cancer (1934): “What if at the last moment, when the banquet table is set and the cymbals clash, there should appear suddenly, and without warning, a silver platter on which even the blind could see that there is nothing more, and nothing less, than two enormous lumps of shit.

“That, I believe would be more miraculous than anything which man has looked forward to. It would be miraculous because it would be undreamed of…

“Somehow the realization that nothing was to be hoped for had a salutary effect upon me. For weeks and months, for years, in fact, all my life I had been looking forward to something happening, some extrinsic event that would alter my life, and now suddenly, inspired by the hopelessness of everything, I felt relieved, felt as though a great burden had been lifted from my shoulders.”

It would be a mistake to look at the hopelessness of Miller as despair. For him, hopelessness is a positive factor. It consists of, to borrow from Ana√Øs Nin, “a wild extravagance, a mad gaiety, a verve, a gusto, at times almost a delirium.” His hopelessness is about savouring life as it unfolds instead of waiting for something to come your way on a silver platter. It is about abandoning the dream of a magical future and waking up to the magic of this moment.

BUDDHA NAGAR
Jason had heard that there was a place called Buddha Nagar where everyone was enlightened. He set out looking for this mythical town. After years of wandering, he came to a river. Across the river was Buddha Nagar.

Jason got onto a boat. The cool breeze felt so good. A wave of joy swept through him. At last, he had made it to Buddha Nagar. He congratulated himself on the success of his mission. His patience, his struggles had borne fruit. As he looked around with a sense of satisfaction, his eyes fastened onto a corpse floating away. He looked carefully. Why, it was his own corpse. In a single moment, all his achievements, his virtues, his spirituality, even his making it to Buddha Nagar were gone forever. What a loss!

In deep sorrow, Jason started crying, first slowly and then uncontrollably. Then through his tears, he looked at the corpse a second time only to find that his sorrow and sense of loss too had floated away. An all-enveloping peace descended on him. He was liberated from joy and sorrow. So, when you can see your own corpse, when you can see your judgments floating away, every place is Buddha Nagar. Then you come alive for the first time.

THE CHATTERBOX
Gautam Buddha is said to have been the greatest chatterbox of all times. For forty-nine years, he went from place to place and gave thousands of discourses. And yet there were moments when he was dumbstruck. He just wouldn’t open his mouth. This happened every time he was asked metaphysical questions‚Äîabout God, about the unknown, about the purpose of life. Buddha maintained that life was too short to bother about these questions. The closest he ever came to answering these was when he said, “When a poisoned arrow pierces your flesh, you don’t bother about where it has come from. You take it out and dress the wound.”

If you lived in Buddha’s time and were tired of his continuous chatter, you only had to ask him the meaning of life and the chatter would come to a stop.

ALL SAID AND DONE
Life is an imponderable puzzle, the mother of all koans. All other koans have, in fact, been derived from this one. Anything that can be stated about life can be contradicted‚Äîincluding this statement. So if you think you understand the meaning of life, you don’t.