Out of the meeting of Gautam Buddha and Lao Tzu,
Zen is born. Zen is neither Buddhism, nor is it Tao
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.
-Osho, "The Zen Manifesto: Freedom from Oneself, #8"
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"