Osho on Zen

 

 

Osho,
I cannot understand the philosophy of Zen. What should I do to understand it?

 
Zen is not a philosophy at all. To approach Zen as if it is a philosophy is to begin 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 severe. It is a very arduous path. It is not a game to play with, it is playing with fire. You will never be the same again once you enter into the world of Zen. You will be totally transformed, so much so that you will not be able to recognise yourself. The person who enters into the world of Zen and the person who comes out are two totally different entities. There is no continuity, you become discontinuous with your past. All continuity is of the mind; all identity is of the mind; all name, all form, is of the mind. When the mind is dropped you suddenly become discontinuous with the past -- not only with the past, you become unconnected with time.

 

And that is the whole secret of Zen: to become unconnected with time. Then you become connected with eternity. And eternity is here-now; eternity knows no past and no future; eternity is pure present. Time knows no present -- time is past and future. Ordinarily we think that time is divided into three categories: past, present and future. That is absolutely wrong. Time is divided only into two categories: past and future. The present is not part of time at all. Just watch, just see. When is the present? The moment you recognise that this is the present, it is already past. The moment you say, 'Yes, this is the present,' it is already gone, it is past. Or if you say, 'This is going to be the present,' it is still future. You cannot recognise present, you cannot finger present, you cannot indicate present. In the world of time there is no present.

-Osho, "Dang Dang Doko Dang, #1"
 

 

 

 

ZEN SAYS: Zen is like looking for the spectacles that are sitting on your nose already.

 

Sometimes it happens to people when they are in a hurry -- they have to catch a train or something -- and they start looking for their spectacles. And they are looking through the spectacles themselves. The spectacles are sitting on their noses. But they are in such a hurry they have forgotten.

 

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 practised! 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.

 

A man came to a Zen Master and asked, "I would like to become a Buddha." And the Master hit him hard.

 

The man was puzzled. He went out and asked some old disciple, "What kind of man is this? I asked such a simple question and he got so angry. He hit me hard! My cheek is still burning. Is it wrong to ask how to become a Buddha? This man seems to be very cruel and violent!"

 

And the disciple laughed. He said, "You don't understand his compassion. It is out of his compassion that he has hit you hard. And he is old, ninety years old; just think of his hand -- it will be burning more than your cheek! You are young. Think of his compassion, you fool! Go back!"

 

But the man asked, "But what is the message in it?"

 

And the disciple said. "The message is simple. If a Buddha comes and asks how to become a Buddha, what else is there to do? You can hit him and make him aware that you are it What nonsense you are talking about!"

 

If a rosebush starts trying to become a rosebush, it will go mad. It is ALREADY the rosebush. You may have forgotten. Zen says you are in a state of slumber, you have forgotten who you are, that's all. Nothing has to be done, just a remembrance. That's what Nanak calls SURATI, Kabir calls SURATI -- just a remembrance. You have only to REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE!

 

So Zen teaches not by words, not by scriptures, not by theories, but by direct pointing, by engaging us in a game in which the only answer is a new level of consciousness.

 

Listen to this story and you will understand how Zen creates situations. Zen is very psychological. The problem is psychological -- you have simply forgotten; it is not that you have gone anywhere. You have fallen asleep. Zen functions as an alarm. It hits you, hits at the heart, makes you awake

-Osho, "Zen: The Path of Paradox, Vol. 3, #1"

 

 

 

 

"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.

Mind is a small corner in you, a small mechanism. It is useful, if you understand its ways of working; but it is otherwise dangerous, because it tends to take possession of you, to become the master, and to lead you into the ways of power, money and prestige. You are lost in a jungle of desires, longings; you live thirsty and you die thirsty, while the source of all fulfillment is within you.

Zen cuts all nonsense out. It is twenty-four-carat gold, no mixture. That makes it very simple and also very difficult. It is difficult, because the simple is the most difficult thing in the world to understand. It is simple because it does not require you to do anything at all. Just sit silently, settle within yourself, and you have arrived at the place which is your home and has been always your home. It is your very being."

 

-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.

To impose character you will have to create fear and greed. Otherwise who will listen to you? You will have to be a B. F. Skinner and treat people like rats -- train them, punish them, reward them, so that they are forced into a certain pattern. That's what has been done to you. Your parents have done it, your education has done it, your society, state, has done it.

Zen says: Now it is enough, get out of it. Drop all this nonsense, start being yourself. That does not mean that Zen leaves you in chaos. No, just the opposite. Zen, instead of giving you a character, and a conscience to manipulate the character, gives you consciousness.

This difference has to be noted, remembered. All other religions give you conscience. Zen gives you consciousness. Conscience means, 'This is good, that is bad. Do this, don't do that.' Consciousness simply means, 'Be a mirror: reflect, respond.' Response is right, reaction is wrong. To be responsible does not mean to follow certain rules; to ke responsible means to be capable of response.

Zen makes you luminous from within. Not an imposition from the outside, not cultivation from the outside; it does not give you an armour, a defence-mechanism. It does not bother about your periphery, it simply creates a lamp inside at your center, at your very center. And that light goes on growing... and one day your whole personality is luminous.

How did this Zen attitude, this approach, arise? It arose out of meditation. It is the ultimate peak of a meditative consciousness. If you meditate, by and by you will see -- everything is good, everything is as it should be. TATHATA, suchness, arises. Then, seeing a thief you don't think that he should be transformed -- you simply respond. Then you don't think that he is bad. And when you don't think about a man that he is bad, evil, you are creating a possibility for the man to be transformed. You are accepting the man as he is. And through that acceptance is transformation."

 

-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.

Zen transforms, but it doesn't talk about transformation. It changes, but it is not concerned with change. It brings more beatitude to man than anything else, but it is not concerned with it at all. It comes as a grace, as a gift. It follows understanding. That is the beauty of Zen, it is unconditionally value-free. Valuation is the disease of the mind -- that's what Zen says. Nothing is good and nothing is bad, things are just as they are. Everything is as it is.

 

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 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."

 

-Osho, "Zen - The Path of Paradox, Vol 1, #1"

 

 

 

 

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"