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ZEN (禪)
“Before Enlightenment chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment chop wood, carry water." - Zen proverb -
Zen is just Zen. There is nothing comparable to it. It is unique—unique in the sense that it is the most ordinary and yet the most extraordinary phenomenon that has happened to human consciousness. -Osho, "Ah, This!, Discourse #1"
Zen is not a theology, it is a religion - and religion without a theology is a unique phenomenon. -Osho, "Zen - The Path of Paradox, Vol 1, #1“
Zen is not a morality. It never talks about right and wrong. It never talks about the saint and the sinner. It is so respectful of reality that nothing in the whole of history can be compared with this respectfulness. -Osho, "Zen: The Diamond Thunderbolt"
I call Zen the only living religion because it is not a religion, but only a religiousness. It has no dogma, it does not depend on any founder. It has no past; in fact it has nothing to teach you. -Osho, "Live Zen, #1"
I call Zen essentially freedom from oneself. You have heard about other freedoms, but freedom from oneself is the ultimate freedom - not to be, and allow the existence to express itself in all its spontaneity and grandeur. But it is existence, not you, not me. It is life itself dancing, not you, not me. That is the Zen Manifesto: freedom from oneself. -Osho, “The Zen Manifesto: Freedom From Oneself, #1“
ZAZEN
The word ‘zazen’ is beautiful. ’Sitting and looking into yourself’ – that is the meaning of it. -Osho, “This Very Body the Buddha, #6”
Immediacy, that is the whole insistence of Zen
Zen says : Buddhahood is not somewhere far away. You are just sitting on top of it. You are it! So there is no need to go anywhere; you just have to become a little alert about who you are. It has already happened! Nothing has to be achieved, nothing has to be practiced! Only one thing: you have to become a little more alert about who you are.
Zen teaches, therefore, not by words. Zen teaches, therefore, not by goals. Zen teaches by direct pointing. It hits you directly. It creates a situation, it creates a device.
- Osho, "Zen: The Path of Paradox, Vol 3, #1"
Zen has changed a very ordinary thing into an extraordinary experience. You will never forget drinking tea with a man of Zen. You will be fortunate if the master is present. Every gesture is filled with significance.
It is called a tea ceremony, not tea drinking. It is not a tea shop or a tea stall, it is a temple: here, ceremonies happen. This is only symbolic. In the whole of life, around the clock, you have to remember that wherever you are it is a holy land and whatever you are doing it is divine.
- Osho, "The Path of the Mystic, #22"
A Zen Master was asked, "What did you use to do before you became enlightened?" He said, "I used to chop wood and carry water from the well for my Master's house." The inquirer asked, "And now that you have become enlightened, what do you do?" He said, "I chop wood and carry water."
The inquirer was obviously puzzled. "Then what is the difference? You used to chop wood and carry water, you still chop wood and still carry water -- then what is the difference?"
The Master laughed. He said, "The difference is infinite! Before I simply used to chop wood not knowing the beauties that surrounded me. Now chopping wood is not the same because I am not the same. My eyes are not the same, my heart beats in a different rhythm -- my heart beats with the heart of the whole. There is a synchronicity, there is harmony.
"Carrying water from the well is the same from the outside, but my interior has become totally different. I am a new man, I am born again! Now I can see in depth, I can see into the very core of things, and each pebble has become a diamond, and each song of a bird is nothing but a call from God, and whenever a flower blooms, God blooms for me. Looking into people's eyes I am looking into God's eyes. Yes, on the surface I am carrying on the same activity, but because I am not the same the world is not the same."
Start becoming a little more alert and watch things, and you will be surprised. Life is mysterious, unexplainable -- life is absurd. You cannot prove anything for or against.
- Osho, "Be Still and Know, #5"
Truth is all around, but your interpretations are YOUR interpretations. God is speaking all the time, but you hear not, or even if you hear, you hear something else. You hear according to you, your mind comes in, and hence you go on missing.
Unless the mind is dropped you will not be able to know what truth is. Truth cannot be discovered by mind; mind is the barrier. It is because of the mind that you have not been able to discover it. It is not a question of how to train the mind to know the truth. The more the mind is trained and becomes capable, the less is the possibility to know the truth. The more skilled a mind, the farther away you are from the truth.
Mind is the barrier. No-mind is the door.
How to attain to no-mind? The only way -- the ONLY way -- is to be in the present. The only way is not to think of the past, not to think of the future. And you cannot think of the present. That is the whole secret: you cannot think of the present; there is not space enough for thought to move. Thought needs room to move. Can you think anything right now? If you think it, either it will be of the past or of the future.
This moment of silence. If you think, "Yes, this is a moment of silence," it is already past.
Or you say, "How beautiful!" It is already past. Utter a word "beautiful," and it is already past.
You cannot think. Thinking stops when you are in the present. So that is the only key, and it is a master key; it unlocks all the doors of being. Immediacy, that is the whole insistence of Zen.
If you go to a Zen Master and you ask something, it is unpredictable what he will do to you. He may hit you. Or he may not hit you; he may hit himself! Or he may say something absurd, totally irrelevant to what you have asked. Somebody asks, "How to attain Buddhahood?" and the Master says, "The cypress tree in the courtyard." Now what? How are they related? They are not, but the Master is indicating, "Please, drop all this nonsense. Look at this -- THIS -- cypress tree in the courtyard. What nonsense are you talking about? -- Buddha, and how to become a Buddha. You are talking about the past and the future. You have heard about Buddha in the past, so you have a greed, a desire. Now you want to become a Buddha in the future, so you have come to me. All nonsense." He simply gives something immediate; he says, "Look! The cypress tree in the courtyard." It is not relevant if you think in terms of the mind. If you think in terms of no-mind it is the only thing relevant.
A man comes to a Zen Master and asks, "What is the way?" And the Master says, "Listen," and everything becomes silent, and just by the side of the Master's hut flows a fountain, and the water is making the sound, the murmur. The sound of the water, the sound of the running water. For a moment everything is silent, the seeker, the questioner, is also. The Master says, "Listen. Hear. This is the way." The sound of the running water? That's all he has heard. And the Master says, "Hear! This is the way to become a Buddha, to attain to enlightenment." He is bringing the mind to an immediacy, to a state of immediacy.
What is he saying? He is not saying anything about the sound of the running water. In that moment, when suddenly the Master shocked the inquirer -- because he was asking about the way to attain to nirvana, and the Master says, "Listen", it is so out of context, it is so unrelated to his question, that for a moment, out of the shock of it, the sheer shock of it, everything becomes silent. And when the Master says, "Hear. This is the way." He is not saying anything about the running water or its sound. He is indicating the silent moment that has penetrated into the consciousness of the inquirer. He says, "Hear. This is the way."
If you become immediate you attain. If you live moment to moment you attain.
-Osho, "The First Principle, #7"
It depends how Total your intensity is
When you are in Zen you have started moving on the path -- the Way, Tao. And when you are on the path, Buddhahood is not far away. It can happen sometimes in a single instant, because it depends on your intensity. It is not a question of it being ten miles, or twenty miles, or twenty thousand miles. It depends on your intensity.
People of intense understanding can reach to Buddhahood in a single step. Just the winking of the eye. It depends how TOTAL your intensity is, how thirsty you are, how ready you are to stake all. If you can stake all, then in a single moment... the gestalt changes. You are no more the ordinary man, you are a Buddha. But if the intensity is not total -- partial, only lukewarm -- then you can take ages. Thousands of lives you can go on and on and on and the Buddhahood remains far away. So remember it: it depends on intensity how long the way will be.
Zen is meditation, Tao is the Way, and Buddhahood is your ultimate nature. If you can move totally in meditation, then this very moment -- the transformation.
-Osho, "Zen: The Path of Paradox, Vol 3, #5"
Zen is not a teaching but a device
Zen has no teaching, Zen has no doctrine. Zen gives no guidance, because it says there is no goal. It says you are not to move into a certain direction. It says you are already there, so the more you try to reach there, the less is the possibility of reaching. The more you seek, the more you will miss. Seeking is the sure way of missing it.
Getting it simply means getting the point that it is already available, that it has already happened, that it is the very nature of existence.
Enlightenment is not a goal but the quality of being herenow. How can it be a goal? because the goal is never herenow - it is always therethen, it is always somewhere else. It is like the horizon:
it is always distant and yet looks close by. And one feels that "If I travel a little bit, I will reach the horizon." But one never reaches, because the more you reach towards the horizon, the more the horizon goes on receding back - because in fact there is nothing. Just an illusion. [....]
Zen says: There is nowhere to go, so no guidance is needed. Then what is the purpose of a Zen master? His purpose is to bring you herenow. His purpose is to hit you so hard that you awake herenow. You have fallen asleep and you have started living in dreams.
Another story:
Zen student: "So, master, is the soul immortal or not? Do we survive our bodily death or do we get annihilated? Do we really reincarnate? Does our soul split up into com-ponent parts which get recycled, or do we as a single unit enter the body of a biological organism? And do we retain our memories or not? Or is the doctrine of reincarnation false? Is perhaps the Christian notion of survival more Correct? And if so, do we get bodily resurrected, or does our soul enter a purely Platonic spiritual realm?"
Master: "Your breakfast is getting cold."
That's the way of Zen: to bring you herenow. The breakfast is far more important than any paradise.
The breakfast is far more important than any concept of God. The breakfast is more important than any theory of reincarnation, soul, rebirth, and all that nonsense. Because the breakfast is herenow.
For Zen, the immediate is the ultimate, and the imminent is the transcendental. THIS moment is eternity... you have to be awakened to this moment.
So Zen is not a teaching but a device - a device to disturb your dreaming mind, a device somehow to create such a state that you become alarmed, that you have to get up and see, to create such strain around you that you cannot remain comfortably asleep.
And this is the beauty of Zen and the revolution that Zen brings to the world. All other religions are consolations; they help you to sleep better. Zen tries to awake you; it has no consolation at all. It does not talk about great things. Not that those great things are not there, but talking about them is not going to help.
People have a very stupid idea. They think... one of our favourite tricks is to pretend that by talking about a problem we are doing something about it. That is why psychoanalysis has become so important - and it is nothing but talking. The patient goes on talking about his problems and he thinks that by talking about his problems he is solving them.
People go on asking questions, AND getting answers, and they think that by asking a question and getting an answer they are doing something about their real problem. Answers that are given by others are not going to help you; they may help you only as consolations.
You ask somebody, "Is there survival after death?" and he says, "Yes." And you are freed of a fear - the fear of death. And you start thinking the soul is immortal.
Just see the people who believe in the immortality of the soul: you will find they are the greatest cowards there are. In this country it has happened. Down the ages, at least for five thousand years, this country has been believing in the immortality of the soul, and for one thousand years this country remained in slavery. People had become so cowardly they could not rebel against it. Not a single revolution has ever happened in India.
People who believe in the immortality of the soul should be absolutely courageous; they can face death because they are not going to die. But the case is just the opposite. In fact, their belief in the immortality of the soul is nothing but a protection, is just an armour around their cowardice. They are afraid of death, hence they believe in the idea that the soul is immortal. They go on clinging to the idea - against death. They don't know.
If you ask a Zen master, "Is the soul immortal?" he will not answer, because he knows it is your fear that is asking for the answer. Your fear wants to be calmed; you need a solace. You need somebody authoritative who can say, "Yes, don't be afraid." You need a father-figure.
It is not just a coincidence that Christians think of God as the father, or the Catholic priest is called 'the father'. Out of fear, people are searching for the father. They need fathers here and they need a great Father up in the heavens. These people are childish, immature; they can't stand on their own.
They can't live their lives on their own. They need someone to Lean to.
Zen does not talk about God. Not that God is not! but God is not a father. And God is not a mother either. You cannot conceive of God in any word. All your words are irrelevant. God can only be experienced in utter silence, in absolute silence. But there is no point in talking about it, because talking about it people start thinking they are doing great work. Then they read the scripture and they philosophize, and they go on polishing their concepts and doctrines, and go on believing. And nothing ever changes in their lives. Their belief never brings any light to their lives. In fact, their belief hinders the light.
Zen is not a belief system. It is a way of awakening. And the Zen master is bound to be tough. That is his compassion. He has to hit you. And he goes on finding devices how to hit you.
Just listen to this story:
A Zen master was worshipping at a statue of the Buddha. A monk came by and said, "Why do you worship the Buddha?"
"I like to worship the Buddha."
"But I thought you said that one cannot obtain enlightenment by worshipping the Buddha?"
"I am not worshipping the Buddha in order to obtain enlightenment."
"Then why are you worshipping the Buddha? You must have some reason!"
"No reason whatsoever. I like to worship the Buddha."
"But you must be seeking something; you must have some end in view!"
"I do not worship the Buddha for any end."
"Then why do you worship the Buddha? What is your purpose in worshipping the Buddha?"
At this point, the master simply jumped up and gave the monk a good slap in the face!
It looks so wild, unexpected. And the monk is not asking any irrelevant question: he is asking a simple human ques-tion out of curiosity. He should not be treated like that; there is no need to hit him. No Hindu priest would hit him, no Catholic priest would hit him. Their purposes are different - only a Zen master can hit him. His purpose IS different.
Why didn't he hit him in the first place? Why did he bother to answer so many questions and then hit him? He created the situation, the right situation. He created the heat. He created the curiosity more and more and more. He brought the monk to a state from where the hit could simply shock him to a kind of awareness.
He helped the monk to think about it more and more and more, to bring a peak of thinking - because only from the peak can the hit be of any help. But his hitting the monk is neither wild nor arrogant - it is not out of anger, remember. This story I have found in a book written by an American who thinks
the master became angry because of the persistent query of the monk, and out of anger he hit him back. This is stupid. You have missed the whole point. It is not out of anger! He is not offended by the question; he is enjoying the question. He is bringing the monk to a more and more feverish state by answering in such a way that the question is not answered but enhanced. Just see the difference.
Ordinarily, you answer a question so that the question is finished. The Zen master is answering so that the question becomes even more pointed and poignant. He is helping the question to arise with a totality. He is giving the idea to the monk that his question is very important and the master is unable to answer it. He is helping the ego of the monk to become a big balloon so a small prick and... the balloon bursts.
It is not out of anger; it has nothing to do with anger. He is not angry with the monk, he is not annoyed with the monk. He must be feeling perfectly happy with the monk that he has asked - now he is giving a chance for the master. But it is a device. He is not answering.
Even the slap is not the answer, remember. A few people start thinking as if the slap is the answer - that is not the answer either. The slap is just to give you a jerk, just to shake your foundations, so even if for a single moment you slip out of your thinking you will have a glimpse of reality. Then you will forget about God and about Buddha and worship... and you will just see that your breakfast is getting cold. You will come herenow.
ZEN is AN EXISTENTIAL APPROACH, not a philosophical approach towards life. And it has helped tremendously, it has brought many people to awakening.
Zen does not believe in analyzing a problem, because it does not believe that any problem can be solved at its own level. No problem can be solved unless your consciousness is raised a little higher than the problem. This has to be understood. This is something very fundamental.
You ask me a question. I can answer it, but you remain on the same level of consciousness. My answer cannot raise your consciousness. You ask, "Does God exist?" I can say yes or no - but you remain the same! Whether I say yes or no will not help you in any way to become more conscious.
It will not give you more being; it will only give you more knowledge this way or that.
If you are an atheist and you ask, "Is there a God?" and I say no, you will feel very happy. You will say, "So I was right." Or if I say yes, you will say, "This man is wrong. He does not know anything.
He is just a blind person. I have argued, I have looked into the matter deeply, and I can't find any proof for God."
Whether I say yes or no, whether you are a theist or an atheist, either you will accumulate the knowledge, receive it if it fits with you, or, if it doesn't fit with you, you will reject it. That's what you are doing continuously in your mind. But your consciousness is not raised. And unless your consciousness is raised no problem can be solved. In the first place the problem is created because of your conscious-ness, and it can be solved, not by any answer - it can be solved only by helping your consciousness to go a little higher from where it is.
That's the work of Zen. It is not a transfer of knowledge - is a transfer of consciousness, being.
By slapping the monk, the master has simply helped the monk to become a little more alert. And if the monk becomes a little more alert, that slap is not only a slap - it is a Leap of the master's being into the disciple. But for that you need great love for the master, otherwise you will miss the slap.
You need great trust in the Master. [....]
Zen is a device, not an analysis of life.
And always remember, the universe is unknowable, absolutely, because it is alive. Analysis kills.
And remember also: only dead things can be known. Life remains unknown and unknowable.
The moment you know, you have killed something. And people go on killing. They kill love - once they analyze it, it is killed. People are so violent that even in love their violence is dearly there, loudly there. [....]
Zen people are not interested in knowledge because they are not interested in power. They are interested in life as it is. They are interested in the breakfast, not in God - not in heaven, not in the soul, not in past lives, not in future lives. Simply the breakfast. They are utterly for the immediate. [....]
There is the well-known incident about the Confucian scholar seeking enlightenment from a Zen master. The student constantly complained that the master’s account was somehow incomplete, that the master was withholding some vital clue. The master assured him that he was withholding nothing from him. The student insisted that there was something the master was withholding from him. The master insisted that he was not withholding anything from him.
Later on, the two went for a walk along the mountain path. Suddenly the master said, “Do you smell the mountain laurels?”
The student said, “Yes!”
The master said, “See! I am not withholding anything from you.”
A strange story, but of tremendous import. What is the master saying? The smell of the laurels . . . He says to the disciple, “Do you smell the mountain laurels?” They always bring you to the immediate: to the breakfast: to the mountain laurels. They don’t bother about philosophical things.
And the disciple smells and he says, “Yes!”
And the master says, “See! I am not withholding anything from you. Just as you can smell the mountain laurels, so you can smell Buddhahood right now, this very moment. It is in the mountain laurels. It is on this mountain path. It is in the birds; it is in the sun. It is in me; it is in you. What keys and clues are you talking about? What secrets are you talking about?”
Zen has no secrets it is said. Zen is all openness. Zen is not a fist: it is an open hand. It has no esoteric ideology. It is down-to-earth, very earthly, very simple. If you miss, that simply shows that you have a very complex mind. If you miss, that simply means that you have been looking for complex ideologies, and Zen simply drags you back to reality, to the breakfast, to the mountain laurels. To this bird calling. This is Buddha calling! To this utter silence – this is Buddha present.
This communion between me and you. This moment when I am not and you are not. All is open, all is available.[…]
All is one. Nothing is separate. We are not island. So the stones and the stars, all are joined together.
And everything is joined in this moment, is participating in this moment. If you become just this moment, all is attained. There is no other enlightenment.
Zen is a way back home – and the simplest way and the most natural way.
-Osho, "Take It Easy, Vol 1, #9"
Zen is neither Taoist nor Buddhist
Bodhidharma took Gautam Buddha's message to China. That was a different climate. Tao was the climate in China, and Tao is very life affirmative. So in China, a new development happened: the meeting of Bodhidharma and Tao, a totally new concept.
Zen is not just Buddhism; in fact, the orthodox Buddhists don't accept Zen even as Buddhism, and they are right. Zen is a crossbreed between Gautam Buddha's insight and Lao Tzu's realization, the meeting of Buddha's approach, his meditation, and Tao's naturalness.
In Tao, sex is not a taboo; Tao has its own Tantra. The energy of sex has not to be destroyed or repressed, it is not your enemy. It can be transformed, it can become a great help in the search of your ultimateness. So in Zen, the idea of celibacy was dropped. There was no insistence on it, it was your choice, because the question is meditation. If you can meditate and live your life in a natural way, it is acceptable to Tao.
Out of the meeting of Gautam Buddha and Lao Tzu, Zen is born. Zen is neither Buddhism, nor is it Tao; it is both, just as you are both your mother and your father. You are neither -- something of your father, something of your mother is flowing in you.
Zen has come to the highest point of expression. It has become almost synonymous with eternal life. Adam and Eve could not eat the fruit of the eternal life, they were expelled from the Garden of Eden. They had only eaten the fruit of knowledge. But Zen gives you the other tree, the tree of eternal life.
So in this series we will be discussing Zen, as equivalent to eternal life.
God is no where. Life is now here.
And Zen is the master key to open the doors of the mystery of life.
-Osho, "I Celebrate Myself - God Is No Where, #1, Q2"
Zen is not a philosophy at all. To approach Zen as if it were a philosophy is to start in a wrong way from the very beginning. A philosophy is something of the mind; Zen is totally beyond the mind. Zen is the process of going above the mind, far away from the mind; it is the process of transcendence, of surpassing the mind. You cannot understand it by the mind; mind has no function in it.
Zen is a state of no-mind; that has to be remembered. It is not Vedanta. Vedanta is a philosophy; you can understand it perfectly well. Zen is not even Buddhism; Buddhism is also a philosophy.
Zen is a very rare flowering - it is one of the strangest things that has happened in the history of consciousness - it is the meeting of Buddha's experience and Lao Tzu's experience. Buddha, after all, was part of the Indian heritage: he spoke the language of philosophy; he is perfectly clear, you can understand him. In fact, he avoided all metaphysical questions; he was very simple, clear, logical. But his experience was not of the mind. He was trying to destroy your philosophy by providing you with a negative philosophy. Just as you can take out a thorn from your foot with another thorn, Buddha's effort was to take out the philosophy from your mind with another philosophy. Once the first thorn has been taken out both thorns can be thrown away and you will be beyond mind.
But when Buddha's teachings reached China a tremendously beautiful thing happened: a cross- breeding happened. In China, Lao Tzu has given his experience of Tao in a totally non-philosophical way, in a very absurd way, in a very illogical way. But when the Buddhist meditators, Buddhist mystics, met the Taoist mystics they immediately could understand each other heart to heart, not mind to mind. They could feel the same vibe they could see that the same inner world had opened they could smell the same fragrance. And they came closer, and by their coming closer, by their meetings and mergings with each other, something new started growing up; that is Zen. It has both the beauty of Buddha and the beauty of Lao Tzu; it is the child of both. Such a meeting has never happened before or since.
Zen is neither Taoist nor Buddhist; it is both and neither. Hence the traditional Buddhists reject Zen and the traditional Taoists also reject Zen. For the traditional Buddhist it is absurd, for the traditional Taoist it is too philosophical, but to those who are really interested in meditation, Zen is an experience. It is neither absurd nor philosophical because both are terms of the mind; it is something transcendental.
The word "zen" comes from dhyan. Buddha used a certain language, a local language of his times, Pali. In Pali dhyan is pronounced "jhan"; it is from jhan that "zen" has arisen. The word comes from jhan; jhan comes from the Sanskrit dhyan.
To understand Zen you need not make a philosophical effort; you have to go deep into meditation.
And what is meditation all about? Meditation is a jump from the mind into no-mind, from thoughts to no-thought. Mind means thinking, no-mind means pure awareness. One simply is aware. Only then, Baula, will you be able to understand Zen - through experience, not through any intellectual effort.
-Osho, "Walking in Zen Sitting in Zen, #16, Q1"
Zen is just Zen
Zen is just Zen. There is nothing comparable to it. It is unique—unique in the sense that it is the most ordinary and yet the most extraordinary phenomenon that has happened to human consciousness. It is the most ordinary because it does not believe in knowledge, it does not believe in mind. It is not a philosophy, not a religion either. It is the acceptance of the ordinary existence with a total heart, with one’s total being, not desiring some other world, supra-mundane, supra-mental. It has no interest in any esoteric nonsense, no interest in metaphysics at all. It does not hanker for the other shore; this shore is more than enough. Its acceptance of this shore is so tremendous that through that very acceptance it transforms this shore—and this very shore becomes the other shore:
This very body the Buddha;
This very earth the lotus paradise.
Hence it is ordinary. It does not want you to create a certain kind of spirituality, a certain kind of holiness. All that it asks is that you live your life with immediacy, spontaneity. And then the mundane becomes the sacred.
The great miracle of Zen is in the transformation of the mundane into the sacred. And it is tremendously extraordinary because this way life has never been approached before, this way life has never been respected before.
Zen goes beyond Buddha and beyond Lao Tzu. It is a culmination, a transcendence, both of the Indian genius and of the Chinese genius. The Indian genius reached its highest peak in Gautam the Buddha and the Chinese genius reached its highest peak in Lao Tzu.
And the meeting…the essence of Buddha’s teaching and the essence of Lao Tzu’s teaching merged into one stream so deeply that no separation is possible now. Even to make a distinction between what belongs to Buddha and what to Lao Tzu is impossible, the merger has been so total. It is not only a synthesis, it is an integration. Out of this meeting Zen was born. Zen is neither Buddhist nor Taoist and yet both.
To call Zen “Zen Buddhism” is not right because it is far more. Buddha is not as earthly as Zen is. Lao Tzu is tremendously earthly, but Zen is not only earthly: its vision transforms the earth into heaven. Lao Tzu is earthly, Buddha is unearthly, Zen is both—and in being both it has become the most extraordinary phenomenon.
The future of humanity will go closer and closer to the approach of Zen, because the meeting of the East and West is possible only through something like Zen, which is earthly and yet unearthly. The West is very earthly, the East is very unearthly. Who is going to become the bridge? Buddha cannot be the bridge; he is so essentially Eastern, the very flavor of the East, the very fragrance of the East, uncompromising. Lao Tzu cannot be the bridge; he is too earthly. China has always been very earthly. China is more part of the Western psyche than of the Eastern psyche.
It is not an accident that China is the first country in the East to turn communist, to become materialist, to believe in a godless philosophy, to believe that man is only matter and nothing else. This is not just accidental. China has been earthly for almost five thousand years; it is very Western. Hence Lao Tzu cannot become the bridge; he is more like Zorba the Greek. Buddha is so unearthly you cannot even catch hold of him—how can he become the bridge?
When I look all around, Zen seems to be the only possibility, because in Zen, Buddha and Lao Tzu have become one. The meeting has already happened. The seed is there, the seed of that great bridge which can make East and West one. Zen is going to be the meeting point. It has a great future—a great past and a great future.
And the miracle is that Zen is neither interested in the past nor in the future. Its total interest is in the present. Maybe that’s why the miracle is possible, because the past and the future are bridged by the present.
The present is not part of time. Have you ever thought about it? How long is the present?
The past has a duration, the future has a duration. What is the duration of the present?
How long does it last? Between the past and the future can you measure the present? It is immeasurable; it is almost not. It is not time at all: it is the penetration of eternity into time.
And Zen lives in the present. The whole teaching is: how to be in the present, how to get out of the past which is no more and how not to get involved in the future which is not yet, and just to be rooted, centered, in that which is.
The whole approach of Zen is of immediacy, but because of that it can bridge the past and the future. It can bridge many things: it can bridge the past and the future, it can bridge the East and the West, it can bridge body and soul. It can bridge the unbridgeable worlds: this world and that, the mundane and the sacred.
-Osho, "Ah, This!, Discourse #1"
Osho on Zen Approach towards Sex
Question : Osho, What is the Zen Approach towards Sex? The Zen people seem to have a neuter gender, or asexual aura around them.
Zen has no attitudes about sex, and that is the beauty of Zen. To have an attitude means you are still obsessed this way or that. Somebody is against sex -- he has an attitude; and somebody is for sex -- he has an attitude. And for and against go together like two wheels of a bullock cart. They are not enemies, they are friends, partners in the same business.
Zen has no attitude about sex. Why should one have any attitude about sex? That's the beauty of it -- Zen is utterly natural. Do you have any attitudes about drinking water? Do you have any attitudes about taking food? Do you have any attitudes about going to sleep in the night? No attitudes. I know there are mad people who have attitudes about these things too: that one should not sleep more than five hours. Sleep is a kind of sin, something like a necessary evil, so one should not sleep more than five hours; or in India there are people who think only three hours.
And I have come across one person who has not slept for ten years. And he is worshipped for this only; he has nothing else, no other creative talents. It is his only talent. Maybe he is just an insomniac. Maybe even this is not a talent, maybe he cannot sleep. He has gone so neurotic that he cannot relax, and he looks mad. One will become mad if for ten years one has not slept. And people come, crowds come, to worship him. He has attained something great. What has he attained? What is the attainment there? He is just an abnormal person, ill. To sleep is natural. And he is bound to be very tense -- he is tense. He must be boiling within. Just think, for ten years not sleeping! But now it has become a great investment, now it is paying. His madness has become an invest-ment, now thousands of people worship him -- only for this?
Down the ages this has been one of the greatest calamities -- that people have been worshipping uncreative things, and sometimes pathological things. Then you have an attitude about sleep. There are people who have an attitude about food. To eat this or to eat that; to eat only so much, not more than that. They don't listen to the body, to whether the body is hungry or not. They have a certain idea and they impose the idea on nature.
Zen has no attitudes about sex. Zen is very simple, Zen is innocent. Zen is childlike. It says there is no need to have any attitudes. Why? Do you have any attitude about sneezing? -- to sneeze or not, whether it is sin or virtue. You don't have any attitude. But I have come across one man who is against sneezing, and whenever he sneezes he immediately repeats a mantra to protect himself. He belongs to a small foolish sect. That sect thinks that when you sneeze the soul goes out. In the sneeze the soul goes out, and if you don't remember God it may not come back.
So you have to remember, you have to immediately remember so that the soul is given back. If you die while sneezing you will go into hell. You can have attitudes about anything. Once you have attitudes, your innocence is destroyed and those attitudes start controlling you. Zen is neither for anything nor against anything. Zen says whatsoever is ordinary is good. To be ordinary, to be a no one, to be a nothingness, to be without any ideology, to be without character, to be characterless....
When you have a character you have some kind of neurosis. Character means something has become fixed in you. Character means your past. Character means conditioning, cultivation. When you have a character you are imprisoned in it, you are no more free. When you have a character you have an armor around yourself. You are no more a free person. You are carrying your prison around yourself; it is a very subtle prison. A real man will be characterless.
What do I mean when I say he will be characterless? He will be free of the past. He will act in the moment according to the moment. He will be spontaneous; only he can be spontaneous. He will not look back into the memories for what to do. A situation has arisen and you are looking in the memory -- then you have a character. Then you are asking your past, "What should I do?" When you don't have any character you simply look into the situation and the situation decides what has to be done. Then it is spontaneous and there is response and not reaction. Zen has no belief-system about anything, and that includes sex too -- Zen says nothing about it. And that should be the ultimate thing.
Tantra has an attitude about sex. The reason? -- it tries to redress what the society has done. Tantra is medical. The society has repressed sex; Tantra comes as a remedy to help you redress balance. You have leaned too much to the left; Tantra comes and helps you to lean to the right. And to redress the balance sometimes you have to lean too much to the right, only then the balance is gained. Have you not seen a rope walker, a tightrope walker? He carries a staff in his hand to keep balance. If he feels he is leaning too much to the left, he immediately starts leaning to the right. Then again he feels that now he has leaned too much to the right, he starts leaning towards the left. This is how he keeps in the middle. Tantra is a remedy.
The society has created a repressive mind, a life-negative mind, an anti-joy mind. The society is very much against sex. Why is the society so much against sex? -- because if you allow people sexual pleasure, you cannot transform them into slaves. It is impossible -- a joyous person cannot be made a slave. That is the trick. Only sad people can be turned into slaves. A joyous person is a free person; he has a kind of independence to him. You cannot recruit joyous people for war. Impossible. Why should they go to war? But if a person has repressed his sexuality he is ready to go to war, he is eager to go to war, because he has not been able to enjoy life. He has become incapable of enjoying, hence has become incapable of creativity. Now he can do only one thing -- he can destroy. All his energies have become poison and destructive. He is ready to go to war -- not only ready, he is hankering for it. He wants to kill, he wants to destroy.
In fact, while destroying human beings he will have a vicarious joy of penetrating. That penetrating could have been in love and would have been beautiful. When you penetrate a woman's body in love, it is one thing. It is spiritual. But when things go wrong and you penetrate somebody's body with a sword, with a spear, it is ugly, it is violent, it is destructive. But you are searching for a substitute for penetration. If society is allowed total freedom about joy, nobody will be destructive. People who can love beautifully are never destructive. And people who can love beautifully and have the joy of life will not be competitive either. These are the problems. That's why primitive people are not so competitive. They are enjoying their life. Who bothers to have a bigger house? Who bothers to have a bigger balance in the bank? For what? You are happy with your woman and with your man and you are having a dance of life. Who wants to sit in the marketplace for hours and hours and hours, day in, day out, year in, year out, hoping that in the end you will have a big bank balance and then you will retire and enjoy? That day never comes. It can't come, because the whole life you remain an ascetic.
Remember, the business people are ascetic people. They have devoted everything to money. Now a man who knows love and has known the thrill of love and the ecstasy of it will not be competitive. He will be happy if he can get his daily bread. That is the meaning of Jesus' prayer: "Give us our daily bread." That is more than enough. Now Jesus looks foolish. He should have asked, "Give us a bigger bank balance." He asks only for the daily bread?
A joyous man never asks for more than that. The joy is so fulfilling. It is only unfulfilled beings who are competitive, because they think life is not here, it is there. "I have to reach to Delhi and become the president," or to the White House and become this or that. "I have to go there, joy is there" -- because they know here there is no joy. So they are always on the go, go, go, go. They are always on the go, and they never reach. And the man who knows the joy, is here. Why should he be going to Delhi? For what? He is utterly happy herenow. His needs are very small. He has no desires. He has needs certainly, but no desires. Needs can be fulfilled, desires never. Needs are natural, desires are perverted.
Now this whole society depends on one thing and that is sex repression. Otherwise the economy will be destroyed, sabotaged. War will disappear and with it the whole war machinery, and the politics will become meaningless and the politician will no longer be important. Money will not have value if people are allowed to love. Because they are not allowed to love, money becomes the substitute, money becomes their love. So there is a subtle strategy. Sex has to be repressed, otherwise this whole structure of the society will fall immediately.
Only love released into the world will bring revolution. communism has failed, fascism has failed, capitalism has failed. All 'isms' have failed because deep down they are all sex repressive. On that point there is no difference -- no difference between Washington and Moscow, Beijing and Delhi -- there is no difference at all. They all agree upon one thing -- that sex has to be controlled, that people are not to be allowed to have innocent joy in sex.
To redress the balance comes Tantra; Tantra is a remedy. So it emphasizes sex too much. The so-called religions say sex is sin and Tantra says sex is the only sacred phenomenon. Tantra is a remedy. Zen is not a remedy. Zen is the state when the illness has disappeared; and of course, with the illness, the remedy too. Once you are cured of your illness you don't go on carrying the prescription and the bottle and the medicine with you. You throw it. It goes to the dustbin.
Ordinary society is against sex; Tantra comes to help humanity, to give sex back to humanity. And when the sex has been given back, then arises Zen. Zen has no attitude. Zen is pure health.
-Osho, "The Diamond Sutra, #2, Q3"
The Fundamentals of Zen
Zen is not a theology, it is a religion -- and religion without a theology is a unique phenomenon. All other religions exist around the concept of God. They have theologies.
They are God-centric not man-centric; man is not the end, God is the end. But not so for Zen. For Zen, man is the goal, man is the end unto himself God is not something above humanity, God is something hidden within humanity. Man is carrying God in himself as a potentiality.
So there is no concept of God in Zen. If you want you can say that it is not even a religion -- because how can there be a religion without the concept of God? Certainly those who have been brought up as Christians, Mohammedans, Hindus, Jews, cannot conceive of what sort of religion Zen is. If there is no God then it becomes atheism. It is not. It is theism to the very core -- but without a God.
This is the first fundamental to be understood. Let it sink deep within you, then things will become clear.
Zen says that God is not extrinsic to religion, it is intrinsic. It is not there, it is here. In fact there is no 'there' for Zen, all is here. And God is not then, God is now -- and there is no other time. There is no other space, no other time. This moment is all. In this moment the whole existence converges, in this moment all is available. If you cannot see it that does not mean that it is not available -- it simply means you don't have the vision to see it. God has not to be searched for, you have only to open your eyes. God is already the case.
Prayer is irrelevant in Zen -- to whom to pray? There is no God sitting there somewhere in the heavens and controlling life, existence. There is no controller. Life is moving in a harmony on its own accord. There is nobody outside it giving it commandments. When there is an outside authority it creates a kind of slavery... a Christian becomes a slave, the same happens to a Mohammedan. When God is there commanding, you can be at the most a servant or a slave. You lose all dignity.
Not so with Zen. Zen gives you tremendous dignity. There is no authority anywhere.
Freedom is utter and ultimate.
Had Friederich Nietzsche known anything about Zen he might have turned into a mystic rather than going mad. He had stumbled upon a great fact. He said, 'There is no God. God is dead -- and man is free.' But basically he was brought up in the world of the Jews and the Christians, a very narrow world, very much confined in concepts. He stumbled upon a great truth: 'There is no God. God is dead, hence man is free.' He stumbled upon the dignity of freedom, but it was too much. For his mind it was too much. He went mad, he went berserk. Had he known anything like Zen he would have turned into a mystic -- there was no need to go mad.
One can be religious without a God. In fact, how can one be religious with a God? That is the question Zen asks, a very disturbing question. How can a man be religious with a God? -- because God will destroy your freedom, God will dominate you. You can look into the Old Testament. God says, 'I am a very jealous God and I cannot tolerate any other God. Those who are not with me are against me. And I am a very violent and cruel God and I will punish you and you will be thrown into eternal hell fire.' How can man be religious with such a God? How can you be free and how can you bloom? Without freedom there is no flowering. How can you come to your optimum manifestation when there is a God confining you, condemning you, forcing you this way and that, manipulating you?
Zen says that with God, man will remain a slave; with God, man will remain a worshipper; with God, man will remain in fear. In fear how can you bloom? You will shrink, you will become dry, you will start dying. Zen says that when there is no God there is tremendous freedom, there is no authority in existence. Hence there arises great responsibility. Look... if you are dominated by somebody you cannot feel responsible.
Authority necessarily creates irresponsibility; authority creates resistance; authority creates reaction, rebellion, in you -- you would like to kill God. That's what Nietzsche means when he says God is dead -- it is not that God has committed a suicide, he has been murdered.
He has to be murdered. With him there is no possibility to be free -- only without him.
But then Nietzsche became very afraid himself. To live without God needs great courage, to live without God needs great meditation, to live without God needs great awareness -- that was not there. That's why I say he stumbled upon the fact, it was not a discovery. He was groping in the dark.
For Zen it is a discovery. It is an established truth: there is no God. Man is responsible for himself and for the world he lives in. If there is suffering, you are responsible; there is nobody else to look to. You cannot throw off your responsibility. If the world is ugly and is in pain, we are responsible -- there is nobody else. If we are not growing we cannot throw the responsibility on somebody else's shoulders. We have to take the responsibility.
When there is no God you are thrown back to yourself. Growth happens. You have to grow. You have to take hold of your life; you have to take the reins in your own hands.
Now you are the master. You have to be more alert and more aware because for whatsoever is going to happen you will be responsible. This gives great responsibility.
One starts becoming more alert, more aware. One starts living in a totally different way.
One becomes more watchful. One becomes a witness.
And when there is no beyond.... The beyond is within you, there is no beyond beyond you. In Christianity the beyond is beyond; in Zen the beyond is within. So the question is not to raise your eyes towards the sky and pray -- that is meaningless, you are praying to an empty sky. The sky is far lower in consciousness than you.
Somebody is praying to a tree.... Many Hindus go and pray to a tree, many Hindus go to the Ganges and pray to the river, many pray to a stone statue, many pray towards the sky or many pray towards a concept, an idea. The higher is praying towards the lower. Prayer is meaningless.
Zen says: only meditation. It is not that you have to kneel down before somebody. Drop this old habit of slavery. All that is needed is that you have to become quiet and silent and go withinwards to find your centre. That very centre is the centre of existence too. When you have come to your innermost core you have come to the innermost core of existence itself. That's what God is in Zen. But they don't call it God. It is good that they don't call it God.
So the first thing to remember is that Zen is not a theology, it is a religion -- and that too with a tremendous difference. It is not a religion like Islam. There are three fundamentals in Islam: one God, one book, and one prophet. Zen has no God,, no book, no prophet.
The whole existence is God's prophecy; the whole existence is his message.
And remember, God is not separate from this message either. This message itself is divine. There is no messenger -- all that nonsense has been completely dropped by Zen.
Theology arises with one book. It needs a Bible, it needs a holy Koran. It needs a book which pretends to be holy, it needs a book which tries to say that it is special -- that no other book is like this, this is a Godsend, a gospel.
Zen says everything is divine so how can anything be special? All is special. Nothing is non-special so nothing can be special. Each leaf of every tree and each pebble on every shore is special, unique, holy. It is not that the Koran is holy, not that the Bible is holy.
When a lover writes a letter to his beloved that letter is holy.
Zen brings holiness to ordinary life.
A great Zen Master, Bokoju, used to say, 'How wondrous this. How mysterious. I carry fuel, I draw water.'
'How wondrous this. How mysterious.' Carrying fuel, drawing water from the well and he says, 'How mysterious.' This is the Zen spirit. It transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary. It transforms the profane into the sacred. It drops the division between the world and the divine.
That's why I say it is not a theology. It is pure religion. Theology contaminates religion.
There is no difference between a Mohammedan and a Christian and a Hindu as far as religion is concerned but there is great difference as far as theology is concerned . They have different theologies. People have been fighting because of theology.
Religion is one; theologies are many. Theology means the philosophy about God, the logic about God. It is all meaningless because there is no way to prove God -- there is no way to disprove either. Argumentation is just irrelevant. Yes, one can experience but one cannot prove -- and that's what theology goes on doing. And theology goes on doing such stupid things -- logic chopping. When you look at it from a distance you will laugh. It is so ridiculous.
In the Middle Ages, Christian theologians were very much concerned, very much troubled, puzzled about problems which will not look like problems to you. For example, how many angels can stand on the point of a needle? Books have been written about it -- great argumentation.
[....]
Theology is crap. And because of theology, religion becomes poisoned. A really religious person has no theology. Yes, he has got the experience, he has the truth, he has that luminosity, but he has no theology. But theology has been of great help to scholars, pundits, the so-called learned people. It has been of great interest to the priests, to the popes, to the SHANKARACHARYAS. It has been of great benefit to them. Their whole business depends on it.
Zen cuts the very root. It destroys the very business of the priest. And that is one of the ugliest businesses in the world because it depends on a very great deception. The priest has not known and he goes on preaching; the theologian has not known but he goes on spinning theories. He is as ignorant as anybody else -- maybe even more so. But his ignorance has become very, very articulate. His ignorance is very decorated -- decorated with scriptures, decorated with theories; decorated so cunningly and cleverly that it is very difficult to detect the flaw. Theology has not been of any help to humanity but certainly it has helped many people: the priests. They have been able to exploit humanity in the name of foolish theories.
[....]
Theology is politics. It divides people. And if you can divide people you can rule them.
Zen looks at humanity with undivided vision -- it does not divide. It has a total look.
That's why I say that Zen is the religion of the future. Humanity is growing slowly towards that awareness where theology will be dropped and religion will be accepted purely as an experience. [....]
Zen means maturity. Zen means drop all wishes and see what is the case. Don't bring your dreams into reality. Clean your eyes completely of dreams so that you can see what is the case. That isness is called KONOMAMA or SONOMAMA. KONO or SONOMAMA means the isness of a thing -- reality in its isness. All ideologies prevent you from seeing. Ideologies are all blindfolds, they obstruct your vision. A Christian cannot see, neither can a Hindu, nor a Mohammedan. Because you are so full of your ideas you go on seeing what you want to see, you go on seeing what is not there, you go on projecting, you go on interpreting, you go on creating a private reality of your own which is not there. This creates a sort of insanity. Out of a hundred of your so-called saints, ninety-nine are insane people.
Zen brings sanity to the world, utter sanity. It drops all ideologies. It says: 'Be empty.
Look without any idea. Look into the nature of things but with no idea, with no prejudice, with no pre-supposition.' Don't be preoccupied -- that is one of the fundamentals. So theology has to be dropped otherwise you remain preoccupied.
Can you see the point? If you have an idea, there is every possibility that you will find it in reality -- because the mind is very, very creative. Of course, that creation will be only in imagination. If you are seeking Christ you may start having visions of Christ, and they will be all imaginary. If you are seeking Krishna you will start seeing Krishna, and they will be all imaginary.
Zen is very down-to-earth. It says that imagination has to be dropped. Imagination comes out of your past. From childhood you have been conditioned for certain ideas. From childhood you have been taken to the church, to the temple, to the mosque; you have been taken to the scholar, to the pundit, to the priest; you have been forced to listen to sermons -- all kinds of things have been thrown into your minds. Burdened with all that, don't come to reality -- otherwise you will never come to know what reality is.
Unburden. That unburdening is Zen. [....]
Zen is simple and yet difficult. Simple as far as Zen is concerned -- it is the most simple thing, the simplest, because it is a spontaneous thing -- but very difficult because of our conditioned minds, because of the insane world in which we live, by which we have been brought up, by which we have been corrupted.
The second thing: Zen is not a philosophy, it is poetry. It does not propose, it simply persuades. It does not argue, it simply sings its own song. It is aesthetic to the very core, it is not ascetic. It does not believe in being arrogant, aggressive, towards reality, it believes in love. It believes that if we participate with reality, reality reveals its secrets to us. It creates a participatory consciousness. It is poetry, it is pure poetry - just as it is pure religion.
Zen is very, very concerned with beauty -- less concerned with truth, more concerned with beauty. Why? Because truth is a dry symbol. It is not only dry in itself but people who become too much concerned with truth become dry also. They start dying. Their hearts shrink, their juices flow no more. They become loveless, they become violent, and they start moving more and more in the head. [....]
Zen is passive -- that's why in Zen, sitting became one of the most important meditations.
Just sitting -- zazen. Zen people say that if you simply sit doing nothing, things will happen. Things will happen on their own; you need not go after them, you need not seek them, you need not search for them. They will come. You simply sit. If you can sit silently, if you can fall into a tremendous restfulness, if you can 'unlax' yourself, if you can drop all tensions and become a silent pool of energy, going nowhere, searching nothing, God starts pouring into you. From everywhere God rushes towards you. Just sitting, doing nothing, the spring comes and the grass grows by itself.
And remember, when Zen says 'just sitting' it means just sitting -- nothing else, not even a mantra. If you are repeating a mantra you are not just sitting, you are again getting into some tommyrot, again into some mind thing. If you are not doing anything whatsoever....
Thoughts are coming, coming; they are going, going -- if they come, good; if they don't come, good. You are not concerned with what is happening, you are simply sitting there.
If you feel tired you lie down. If you feel your legs getting tense you spread them. You remain natural. Not even watching. Not making any effort of any kind. That's what they mean by just sitting. Just sitting it happens.
Zen is the feminine approach and religion is basically feminine. Science is male, philosophy is male -- religion is female. All that is beautiful in the world -- poetry, painting, dance -- has all come from the feminine mind.
It may not have come from women because women have not been free to create yet.
Their days are coming. When Zen becomes more and more significant in the world, the feminine mind will have a great upsurge, a great explosion. [....]
The third thing: Zen is not science but magic. But it is not the magic of the magicians, it is magic as a way to look into life. Science is intellectual. It is an effort to destroy the mystery of life. It kills the wonder. It is against the miraculous. Zen is all for it -- for the miraculous, for the mysterious.
The life mystery has not to be solved because it cannot be solved. It has to be lived. One has to move into it, cherish it. It is a great joy that life is a mystery. It has to be celebrated.
Zen is magic. It gives you the key to open the miraculous. And the miraculous is in you and the key is also in you.
When you come to a Zen Master he simply helps you to be silent so that you can find your key which you are carrying all along the way, and you can find your door -- which is there -- and you can enter into your own innermost shrine.
And the last fundamental: Zen is not morality, it is aesthetics. It does not impose a code of morality, it does not give you any commandments: do this, don't do that. It simply makes you more sensitive towards the beautiful, and that very sensitivity becomes your morality. But then it arises out of you, out of your consciousness, Zen does not give you any conscience as against consciousness; it simply gives you more consciousness and your More consciousness becomes your conscience. Then it is not that Moses gives you a commandment, it is not that it comes from the Bible or Koran or Vedas... it is not coming from outside. It comes from your innermost core.
And when it comes from there it is not a slavery, it is freedom. When it comes from there it is not that you are doing it as a duty, reluctantly. You enjoy doing it. It becomes your love.
These are the fundamentals.
-Osho, "Zen: The Path of Paradox, V.1, Discourse #1"
ZAZEN- Sitting and looking into yourself -
When all doing disappears and you are simply there, just there, a presence, then the meditation has happened.
Sitting silently, doing nothing, the spring comes and the grass grows by itself.
That is the meaning of the word ‘zazen’. ‘Za’ means sitting doing nothing. And ‘zen’ means: in that sitting when you are not doing anything you fall upon yourself, you encounter yourself, you see yourself. That is zen, dhyana, meditation. The word ‘zazen’ is beautiful. ’Sitting and looking into yourself’ – that is the meaning of it.
-Osho, “This Very Body the Buddha, #6”
What is zazen? Zen is, just once or twice a day... in the early morning when the sun is rising and the birds are singing, you sit silently by the side of the ocean or the river or the lake. It is not something that you have to do continuously. It is just like any other activity. You take your bath - that does not mean that for twenty-four hours you have to continue taking a shower. Zazen exactly means that:
taking a shower continuously. Zen is a periodic effort to see the truth. Zazen is a twenty-four hour, around-the-clock remaining aware, alert, in the state beyond mind. Your activities should show it, your words should show it. Even your walking should show it - the grace, the beauty, the truth, the validity, the authority.
So zazen is an extension of Zen around the clock. Just because of zazen, monasteries came into existence. Because if you are living an ordinary life of a householder you cannot manage to contemplate, to be in the state of Zen twenty-four hours a day. You have to do many other things.
And there is every possibility that while you are doing other things you may forget the undercurrent.
So monasteries came into existence. The society decided that the people who want to go deeper into their being are doing such a great experiment for the whole humanity, because if even one man becomes a buddha, with him the whole humanity rises a little bit in consciousness.
It may not be apparent. It is just like when the Ganges... a big river, so big that by the time it reaches to meet the ocean its name, from Ganga, becomes Gangasagar, "the ocean of Ganges." It becomes oceanic - so vast. As it moves into the ocean, the ocean certainly rises a little bit. The ocean is so vast that even hundreds and thousands of rivers never create a flood in the ocean, but certainly even a single dewdrop raises the level. At least you can comprehend it: a single dewdrop losing itself in the ocean, and the ocean is something more than it was before - one dewdrop more.
The people of those days were certainly more subjective, of more clarity that the real evolution of man is not in developing machines, technology; the real evolution has to happen in the consciousness of man. His consciousness has to become a pinnacle, an Everest, a peak that rises high above the clouds. If even a single man succeeds, it is not only his success, it is also the success of all men - past, present, future - because it gives a clear-cut indication that we are not trying; otherwise we could also be buddhas. Those who have tried, have become. It is our intrinsic nature.
The society supported the monks, supported the monasteries. There were thousands of monasteries with thousands of monks who were not doing anything. Society allowed them - "We are engaged in production. We will provide you with food and clothes. You go totally into your effort of reaching the highest peak of consciousness. Your success is not going to be only your success.
If thousands of people become buddhas, the whole humanity, without any effort, will find a certain rise in consciousness."
This was a great insight. And society took over the burden of thousands of monks, of thousands of monasteries; all their needs were fulfilled by the society. Today, that society has disappeared because today even the concept that you are a hidden buddha has disappeared. A strange idea has caught humanity, that every man is an island. And that is sheer nonsense. Even the islands are not islands. Just go down a little deeper and they are joined with the continent.
Everybody is joined, it is just a question of going a little deeper. Our roots are entangled with each other, our source of life is the same.
It was a tremendous insight of those days that they decided - particularly, for example, in Tibet:
every family had to contribute one child to the monastery, and in the monastery he had to do only zazen. He had no other work to distract him.
But now that possibility does not exist. Hence, I have managed different devices in which you can remain in the world - no need to go to a monastery, because there is nobody to support you. You can be in the world and yet manage an undercurrent of fire that slowly slowly becomes like your breathing. You don't have to remember it.
-Osho, "Joshu: The Lion’s Roar, #4"
Osho on ZEN
The Zen attitude towards life is that of laughter, of living, of enjoying, of celebrating. Zen is not anti-life it is life-affirmative. It accepts all that is. It does not say deny this, deny that. It says all is good: live it, live it as totally as possible. Being total in anything is to be religious. Being partial in anything is to be worldly. And live so totally that when death comes you can live death totally too.
- Osho, "This Very Body the Buddha, #8, Q1"
Zen is not a religion, not a dogma, not a creed, Zen is not even a quest, an inquiry; it is non-philosophical. The fundamental of the Zen approach is that all is as it should be, nothing is missing. This very moment everything is perfect. The goal is not somewhere else, it is here, it is now. Tomorrows don't exist. This very moment is the only reality. Hence in Zen there is no distinction between methods and goals, means and goals.
- Osho, "The Goose is Out, #1, Q1
"I call Zen the only living religion because it is not a religion, but only a religiousness. It has no dogma, it does not depend on any founder. It has no past; in fact it has nothing to teach you. It is the strangest thing that has happened in the whole history of mankind – strangest because it enjoys in emptiness, it blossoms in nothingness. It is fulfilled in innocence, in not knowing. It does not discriminate between the mundane and the sacred. For it, all that is, is sacred. Life is sacred whatever form, whatever shape. Wherever there is something living and alive it is sacred."
- Osho, "Live Zen, #1"
"One of the fundamentals of Zen that makes it a totally unique religion, more than any other religion of the world, is that it does not want to exclude anything from your life. Your life has to be inclusive. It has to comprehend all the stars and the sky and the earth. It is not a path of renouncing the world."
- Osho, "The Original Man, #2"
"Perhaps Zen is the only path that has led thousands of people to the ultimate reality. And in a way, it is so simple. There have been arduous ways, there have been self-torturing systems of belief. There are religions which are nothing but moralities, which are very temporary, having no relationship to the ultimate values of existence.
Zen is not a morality. It never talks about right and wrong. It never talks about the saint and the sinner. It is so respectful of reality that nothing in the whole of history can be compared with this respectfulness. It is not only respectful to human beings, but to this cricket, to these cuckoos, to these crows. Wherever life is, the Zen experience is that it is the same life. There is no categorization; nobody is lower or higher, but just different forms of the abundance of existence. It blossoms in many forms, in many colors; it dances in many ways and in many forms, but hidden within it is the same eternal principle.
Zen does not belong to the ordinary category of religions either, because it has no theology, no God, none of the nonsense questions which have troubled people for centuries. It has reduced the whole of religiousness to a single point within you. These anecdotes again and again reinforce the same point. Remember, the ultimate is within you but it is not within your mind. It is beyond the mind but within you.
- Osho, "Zen: The Diamond Thunderbolt"
"Zen comes closer to science than any other religion for the simple reason that it does not require any faith. It requires of you only an intense inquiry into yourself, a deepening of consciousness, not concentration - a settling, a relaxing of consciousness, so that you can find your own source. That very source is the source of the whole existence."
- Osho, "The Original Man, #6"
"Zen is the very principle of existence. Whether there is anyone who teaches it or not, whether there is anyone who learns it or not, it is there. Zen is the very heartbeat of existence. It is not dependent on any teaching, not dependent on any masters, not dependent on disciples. Masters come and go, disciples come and disappear; Zen remains. Just as it is. It is always just as it is."
- Osho, "Live Zen, #5"
"Now, even in Japan, Zen has become just a scholarly study. Zen is not a scholarly study. Zen is an existential quantum leap. It is not of the mind. It is going beyond the mind."
- Osho, "The Original Man, #5"
"Zen is non-judgemental, Zen is non-evaluative, Zen imposes no character on anybody. Because to impose character, you will need valuation - good and bad. To impose character you will have to make shoulds and should-nots; you will have to give commandments. To impose character you will have to be a Moses -- you cannot be a Bodhidharma.
- Osho, "The Path of Paradox, Vol 2, #1"
"Zen has nothing to do with any god. No sincere man, no intelligent man has anything to do with any fiction. He searches within. He looks within - because he is life, so there must be some center within himself from where the life arises."
- Osho, "The Original Man, #6"
"Zen is so strange as far as intellectual understanding is concerned. It looks almost absurd. That is one of the reasons why it has not grown into a vast tree around the world, but has remained a small stream of only those who can see beyond the mind, who can feel it, even though it is illogical, irrational."
- Osho, "Zen - The Diamond Thunderbolt, #1"
"Zen is not interested in anybody's transformation. AND it transforms -- that is the paradox. It is not concerned with how you should be, it is only concerned with what you are. See into it, see into it with loving, caring eyes. Try to understand what it is. And out of this understanding, a transformation comes. And the transformation is natural -- you have not to do it, it simply happens on its own accord.
In Zen a totally new dimension opens, the dimension of effortless transformation. The dimension of transformation that comes naturally, by clearer eyes, by clarity. By seeing into the nature of things more directly, without any hindrance of prejudices."
- Osho, "Zen - The Path of Paradox, Vol 2, #1"
"Zen says: Remain true to your freedom. And then a totally different kind of being arises in you, which is very unexpected, unpredictable. Religious, but not moral. Not immoral - amoral: beyond morality, beyond immorality. This is a new dimension that Zen opens into life."
- Osho, "Zen - The Path of Paradox, Vol 2, #1"
"Zen is against effort, Zen is a let-go. All the religions of the world are for effort. Hence this statement will not be criticized anywhere except by a man of Zen. Zen is not effort. Effort is tension, effort is work, effort is to achieve something. Zen is not something to achieve. You are already that. Just relax, relax so deeply that you become a revelation to yourself."
- Osho, "The Original Man, #5"
"The bamboo is very much loved by the Zen poets for its tremendous quality of being hollow. Out of this hollowness of the bamboo, a flute can be made. The bamboo will not sing, but it can allow any song to pass through it. In meditation you have to become hollow, just like a bamboo, so that the whole, the existence itself, can sing its song through you. You become simply a part, dancing, because the wind of the whole is passing through you. The energy of the whole has taken possession of you. You are possessed, you are no more, the whole is."
- Osho, "Zen - The Diamond Thunderbolt, #1"
"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."
- Osho, "Zen - The Diamond Thunderbolt, #1"
"Zen is not a renunciation, it is a rejoicing. It is the manifesto of dance and celebration."
- Osho, "The Zen Manifesto: Freedom From Oneself, #7"
"This is a totally different outlook. Nothing is denied, nothing is excluded. Zen is all-inclusive. It never denies, it never says 'no' to anything; it accepts everything and transforms it into a higher reality. It is very synergic. Zen is a synergic fulfillment. All energies have to meet and become one energy. Nothing should be denied because if you deny something you will be that much less rich."
- Osho, "Zen: The Path of Paradox, Vol 1, #7"
Zen is a totally different kind of religion. It brings humanness to religion. It is not bothered about anything superhuman, its whole concern is how to make ordinary life a blessing. Other religions try to destroy your ordinary life and make you somebody extraordinary. These are ego trips and they will not make you happy. They condition you"
- Osho, "Zen - The Path of Paradox, Vol 1, #5"
"When Buddha’s teachings reached China a tremendously beautiful thing happened: a crossbreeding happened. In China, Lao Tzu has given his experience of Tao in a totally non-philosophical way, in a very absurd way, in a very illogical way. But when the Buddhist meditators, Buddhist mystics, met the Taoist mystics they immediately could understand each other heart to heart, not mind to mind. They could feel the same vibe, they could see that the same inner world had opened, they could smell the same fragrance. And they came closer, and by their coming closer, by their meetings and merging with each other, something new started growing up; that is Zen. It has both the beauty of Buddha and the beauty of Lao Tzu; it is the child of both. Such a meeting has never happened before or since.
Zen is neither Taoist nor Buddhist; it is both and neither. Hence the traditional Buddhists reject Zen and the traditional Taoists also reject Zen. For the traditional Buddhist it is absurd, for the traditional Taoist it is too philosophical, but to those who are really interested in meditation, Zen is an experience. It is neither absurd nor philosophical because both are terms of the mind; it is something transcendental."
- Osho, "Walking in Zen, Sitting in Zen, #16"
Zen believes in a life which you are not acquainted with, a love that you have not even dreamt of. It lives in a totally different dimension, a dimension where everything is a dance, a celebration.
Zen is the only religion of life. Others are worshippers of the dead. Life contains millions of things, from the very small trivia to the greatest sacred peaks of consciousness. Zen does not renounce anything but transforms it as a stepping stone towards the higher.
It is the only life-affirmative religion that has arisen during the past centuries. Its affirmation is total. All other religions are religions of denial. Anything that seems to be a hindrance, they escape from it. Zen tries to turn it from a hindrance into a help – and it has succeeded. Its success is of profound interest for the coming new man.
The new man will not think of Christianity as a religion, or Hinduism or Mohammedanism or any other religion, because they are all carrying a dead past. Life has escaped from them long before. They have not laughed for centuries; they have not been in tune with the universal music. They have forgotten the language of dance.
Zen alone seems a possibility for the future man. It will survive – when all other religions are gone, Zen will be the only religion around the earth. In fact, all other religions are already dead. Just because of old habit, old conditioning, we go on carrying them, but they have not contributed anything to human consciousness. Rather than contributing they have destroyed much. They have enslaved man, they have oppressed man, they have put man against man; they have created immense violence, war, massacre.
Zen is a religion of flowers, is a religion of songs, is a religion of ecstasy. It has nothing in it which in any way tries to avoid life in any form. It lives life in its totality – and the miracle is that by living totally, each moment becomes so precious… there is no way to measure the beauty of the moment when a person is total, herenow.
- Osho, “Joshu: The Lion’s Roar, #7”
Many times blessings come in disguise, and those who are ready to accept even misfortunes joyfully, they transform the misfortune into a joy. Just by accepting them, without any resistance, is the way of transforming them into a beautiful space.
SO BE IT.
Whatever happens, don't have any grudge, don't have any complaint against existence. That is the purest message of Zen.
-Osho, "RinzaI - Master of the Irrational, #8"
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