Zen Masters

 

 

Entering into the world of Zen is not like any other entering; it is entering in yourself. There is no door, and there is no possibility of doing anything. You have simply to relax so totally that you sink deep within yourself.

 

Remember, relaxation is not an activity. It is absence of all activity. And only in the absence of all activity, when you are relaxed to your very being, the door opens to all the mysteries of the world, all the miracles of existence.

 

It fills your being with great dance, although you cannot utter a single word. You hear the music that you have never heard, although there is no way to translate it to anyone else. You see flowers blossoming ... their colors are absolutely unknown to you. Your whole being becomes a fragrant luminosity. There is nothing to say about it; you can just be it. And the rays of your silence will start creating and weaving a field around you.

 

That's why a master in Zen is not simply a teacher. In all the religions there are only teachers. They teach you about subjects which you don't know, and they ask you to believe, because there is no way to bring those experiences into objective reality. Neither has the teacher known them -- he has believed them; he transfers his belief to somebody else. Zen is not a believer's world. It is not for the faithful ones; it is for those daring souls who can drop all belief, unbelief, doubt, reason, mind, and simply enter into their pure existence without boundaries.

 

But it brings a tremendous transformation. Hence, let me say that while others are involved in philosophies, Zen is involved in a metamorphosis, in a transformation. It is authentic alchemy: it changes you from base metal into gold. But its language has to be understood, not with your reasoning and intellectual mind but with your loving heart. Or even just listening, not bothering whether it is true or not. And a moment comes suddenly that you see it, which has been eluding you your whole life. Suddenly, what Gautam Buddha called "eighty-four thousand doors" open.

 

-Osho, “Zen: The Solitary Bird, Cuckoo of the Forest, #6“