Question 5: For zen it is: “eat when you are hungry and drink when you are thirsty.” For Patanjali it is: “regularity - niyam.” How to reconcile spontaneity and regularity? There is no need to synthesize. If you are really spontaneous you will become regular. If you are really regular you will become spontaneo...

Everything that we go on doing on the surface will be just like changing a name. Inside you will remain the same. Your persona can never become more than skin deep — your know ledge, your identity in the world is nothing but a persona, a dressing. Zen says you are wasting your life. Go deep, go beyond your kno...

The Key is to be Delivered Buddha had many enlightened people around him, yet he felt something special for this one enlightened person. Is there something different in enlightenments? Yes, Buddha, had many enlightened persons around, but the key can be given only to such a person who can become a master in hi...

A man of understanding is always available; whatsoever the message you bring, he is available. He has no prejudice and he has no pride. A man of such an enlightened consciousness as Gasan says, "Yes, you read it. I will listen to it." There is NOTHING any more to know! He knows the ultimate, but this humblenes...

Question 1 Osho, What is Zen? Sagar, IT IS ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO ANSWER because Zen is not a philosophy, it is not a doctrine. It is an experience, an experience of your own interiority, of your own subjectivity – not an objective experience. If it were some object outside you, there would be a possibility of d...

The Lion’s Roar All beings are from the very beginning Buddhas. It is like water and ice: Apart from water, no ice, Outside living beings, no Buddhas. Not knowing it is near, they seek it afar. What a pity! It is like one in the water who cries out for thirst; It is like the child of a rich house who has stray...

Osho on Zen paintings Question : You say: yet painting a picture, writing a poem, and solving a scientific problem all bring the same joy. The same joy! Yes, they can -- because art is just in the middle between both, equidistant from religion and science. Art has the qualities of both. One aspect of art is sc...

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 se...

Enlightenment is a Rebellion Against All Traditions Enlightenment is certainly the key, but almost all the traditions are against it — and there is a reason why they are against it. The most fundamental reason is that if enlightenment is a reality, God becomes an unreality. If your own illumination is the ulti...

LONG AGO, IN JAPAN, A BLIND MAN VISITING A FRIEND ONE NIGHT, WAS OFFERED A PAPER-AND-BAMBOO LANTERN TO CARRY HOME WITH HIM. 'I DO NOT NEED A LANTERN,' HE SAID, 'DARKNESS OR LIGHT IS ALL THE SAME TO ME.' 'I KNOW YOU DO NOT NEED A LANTERN TO FIND YOUR WAY, HIS FRIEND REPLIED, 'BUT YOU MUST TAKE IT BECAUSE IF YOU...

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 philos...

The Vertical Line Opens a Door to Eternity Question 1 Beloved Osho, You once said, “The moment is rare when eternity penetrates time.” Can you speak more on this? Vadan, the question seems to be simple but the answer is very complex. And the complexity becomes multidimensional, because the answer can come only...

on Zen Laughter Meditation and Zen Vision Question 3 In regards to the Zen monks who laugh as a meditation every morning -- Don't you think they are taking their Laughter a Little too Seriously? No, because they laugh again -- a second laugh -- for the first, that "How foolish we are! Why are we laughing?" If ...

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...

ON ONE OCCASION, JOSHU SAID TO HIS MONKS: I HAVE SINGLE-HEARTEDLY PRACTICED ZAZEN IN THE SOUTHERN PROVINCE FOR THIRTY YEARS. IF YOU WANT TO REALIZE ENLIGHTENMENT, YOU SHOULD REALIZE THE ESSENCE OF BUDDHISM, DOING ZAZEN. IN THE COURSE OF THREE, FIVE, TWENTY OR THIRTY YEARS, IF YOU FAIL TO GRASP THE WAY, YOU MAY...

Zorba and Zen Question 2 What is the relationship between Zorba and Zen? The whole past of humanity has tried to keep them separate, and this has been an unfortunate experiment. The Zorba has remained incomplete, just superficial. And Zen has remained incomplete; it has only the inner world, and the outer is m...

Zen people say that when you know, you have to say, knowing well that it cannot be said. You have to sing it. Zen Masters have been very creative. Either they were singers, dancers, or painters, or in some sort of art, calligraphy, pottery. Whatsoever they could do they did. That became the gesture of their ex...

Question : Why do Zen monks have to have been living near their masters for ten, twenty, or even for forty years for the sudden enlightenment to happen? Because of their stupidities. You can be enlightened in a single minute; you can wait for forty years. It depends how gross you are. You can wait for lives; i...

Question 1 : Beloved Osho, How does the Man of Zen take his Tea? For the man of Zen everything is sacred -- even taking a cup of tea. Whatever he does, he does as if he is in a holy space. There is a story about Moses. When he went on Mount Sinai to meet God and to receive the Ten Commandments, he saw a miracl...

Zen Koans are for meditation to help you to go beyond mind Someone has asked a very beautiful question. Really, the question is a Zen koan. First it will be useful to understand what a Zen koan is. Only then can this question be discussed. Zen has a special method of meditation. They call it 'koan' or 'ko-an'....

Question The zen masters say, "kill your parents, " and even, "if you meet the buddha on the way, kill him immediately." is it not shocking? is it not irreverent? It is shocking, but precisely, that is the purpose. A Master has to shock you to awake you. A Master is not a lullaby. A Master is not a tranquilize...

Zen people have always liked the bamboo. The bamboo is their symbol. And the reason? It is green all the year. In every season it is green — come rain, come summer, come winter, it is green. Nothing changes it. It lives a kind of eternity. Its greenness means its freshness, its youth, its radiance, its alivene...

Question 1 Is Zen the path of surrender? Then how come the basic teaching of Buddha is ‘Be a light unto yourself’? The essential surrender happens within you, it has nothing to do with anybody outside you. The basic surrender is a relaxation, a trust — so don’t be misguided by the word. Linguistically, surrend...

Enlightenment is Not an Experience Question 2 Beloved Osho, The other night when you talked about the false and the real, I came to a place inside of me that could for the first time really understand you. It was as if I was looking at myself from the outside, as a body that was given to me but was not really ...

Perhaps there is no other religion that has made your whole life, twenty-four hours a day, a meditative experience. Zen does not believe in meditating one hour in the morning, or one hour in the night. It does not make meditation a separate, particular act. It wants meditation to become a quality of your being...

I am taking away from you all that can create boredom in you. My whole effort is to give you again a natural life — wild, adventurous, dangerous; then boredom cannot exist. The new man will live dangerously. He will live like wild animals, not like tamed animals in a zoo. He will live like trees in a forest, n...

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 ...

on Zen Master Yoka Saying "Walking in Zen, Sitting in Zen" Question 1 Osho, Why have you called this series of discourses: "walking in zen, sitting in zen"? I am not ot blame. The whole blame goes to this old guy Yoka. Yoka is one of the rarest enlightened people; his sayings are tremendously beautiful. Very f...

The Satori Event Hubert Benoit calls Zen 'the doctrine abrupt' as opposed to all others which he names 'progressive doctrines'. For the first, for Zen, he uses the singular, and for the others the plural -- because the doctrine abrupt can only be one. But there can be as many progressive doctrines as there are...

Question 1 Beloved Osho, With the path of Sufism, the way of the heart behind us, where does the devotee fit in? Maneesha, the devotee fits in everywhere. Of course the context becomes different. In Sufism, the devotee is devoted to God to such an extent that al-Hillaj Mansoor started shouting, “I am God!” The...

Question 6: Beloved Osho, I am sitting silently doing nothing, and the weeds are growing all around me. Roderick, weeds are divine. Don't call them weeds. They are as spiritual as the buddhas. They partake of God as much as roses. Remove men from the earth -- will there be any difference between weeds and rose...

These are the two attitudes open to man: the attitude of a warrior and the attitude of a lover. It is your choice - you can choose. But remember... certain consequences will follow. If you choose the path of the warrior and you become a fighter with everything that surrounds you, you will always be in misery. ...

What Does “I” Mean Question 1 Osho, Please, in the question “Who am I?” What does “I” mean? Does it mean the essence of life? “Who am I?” is not really a question because it has no answer to it; it is unanswerable. It is a device, not a question. It is used as a mantra. When you constantly inquire inside, “Who...

Osho on Kakuan Ten Bulls of Zen Paintings We enter on a rare pilgrimage. The Ten Bulls of Zen are something unique in the history of human consciousness. Truth has been expressed in many ways, and it has always been found that it remains unexpressed whatsoever you do. Howsoever you express it, it eludes, it is...

Hara, the Third Eye and Zen Question 1: Beloved Osho, I heard you say that the center of our Buddhahood is at the hara point inside the body. Is there also a sleeping buddha energy in our hearts and in the third eye? Do we all have the same potential of remembering, each one with his or her unique expression o...

Zen is a very creative experience; it is not like other religions Question 2 I cannot put it into words how much i am always touched by the beauty of your expressions -- in your words, your gestures and now especially in your paintings. What exactly happens, when you are sitting in front of an empty paper? Is ...

Question : Osho, Are the Upanishads and Zen the same? They are not. The upanishad is a happening between the master and the disciple, Zen is the happening in the disciple himself. The master may help him, may create devices, show the path – but Zen is basically an individual experience. It is not like love. It...

In Zen, and only in Zen, something of great import has happened. That is, they don’t make any distinction between ordinary life and religious life; rather, they have bridged them both. And they have used very ordinary skills as UPAYA, as methods for meditation. That is something of tremendous import. Because i...

Question 1 Apparently sex was used by some zen masters - for example, ikkyu - as a way to transform energy. however, in no translation to date does evidence of this appear. it seems disciples excluded from their records about their master any mention of sex, for fear that their master would be misunderstood. W...

KNOWLEDGE IS not enough, to rely on it is dangerous. Knowledge is borrowed, it is not knowing. Knowing grows with you, knowing is a growth, an evolution, knowledge is implanted within you from me outside, knowledge is borrowed, it is counterfeit. It looks like knowing, it is not. It deceives, it gives you a fe...

Nothing is Unique Question How can I be nothing and unique? You can be unique only when you are nothing. If you are something, you are comparable. If you are somebody you can be compared with others, and that which can be compared cannot be unique. Unique means incomparable. Unique means you are alone, there i...

Zen is paradoxical because Zen is not a philosophy Question 5 : Why is Zen Paradoxical? Because life is paradoxical and Zen is a simple mirror-reflection of life. Zen is not a philosophy. Philosophies are never paradoxical, philosophies are very logical -- because philosophies are mind-constructions. Man makes...

Wake Up Here Now The Ancients said: “(Self)-cultivation takes an unimaginable time (while) Enlightenment in an instant is attained.” Enlightenment is attained in a single moment. Why?—because you are already enlightened. You have simply forgotten it. You have to be reminded, that’s all. The function of the Mas...

Question 1: What is the Zen attitude towards death? LAUGHTER. Yes, laughter is the Zen attitude towards death. And towards life too, because life and death are not separate. Whatsoever is your attitude towards life will be your attitude towards death, because death comes as the ultimate flowering of life. Life...

Osho Quotes on 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 h...

Question 1: Osho, I cannot understand the philosophy of Zen. What should I do to understand it? Baula, 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...

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 will you be able to ...

A Being Energy We all think we are aware; that is one of our unawarenesses. We are only functionally aware. We have learned to do things, to go to bed, to get up early in the morning, to go to the job. Everything has been learned. Even a robot can do the whole process. You are not needed. And that’s exactly wh...

He Understands Zen Intellectually Question 4 Beloved Osho, If I understand him rightly, Hubert Benoit seems to think that one does not need a Master to learn how to let go. He writes, “I have need of a Master to learn some movements that I wish to make with my limbs, but I have no need to learn how to decontra...

What is ZEN? What is Zen? Zen is a very extraordinary growth. Rarely does such a possibility become an actuality because many hazards are involved. Many times before the possibility has existed – a certain spiritual happening could have grown and become like Zen, but it was never realized to its totality. Only...

Question 2: Beloved Osho, I love this little zen story, as it also has the flavor of your childhood stories. Ikkyu, the zen master, was very clever even as a boy. His teacher had a precious teacup, a rare antique. Ikkyu happened to break this cup and was greatly perplexed. Hearing the footsteps of his teacher,...

Man ordinarily lives in these three states, sometimes waking, sometimes dreaming, sometimes fast asleep; this is the wheel man moves in. And because of these three states of mind many things have arisen into human consciousness and in human culture, civilization. The first kind of consciousness, waking, create...

Zen is not a morality. It never talks about right and wrong. Maneesha, 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 ...

Entering Into Your Veryness Question Is this just my refusal to grow up? Am I fooling myself? Are we all to embrace the Zen Manifesto no matter what ‘type’ we feel we are? There is no question of type. All types are just superficial. At the innermost core there is only one existence. The Zen Manifesto is not f...

A man of Zen is totally different from the man of Yoga, and the distinction has to be understood. The man of Yoga is in tremendous control. The whole methodology of Yoga is how to control yourself, how to control absolutely. The man of Yoga cannot be disturbed because he is in such utter control. The man of Ze...

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 s...

A Revolution in Religion Question 1 Beloved Osho, When I first heard you say, “Sitting silently, doing nothing, the spring comes and the grass grows by itself,” my Western mind thought this was a metaphor, and sought to find the meaning. Then I thought you really meant to sit silently—and I felt it was impossi...

Zen does not have any God, that’s its beauty. Friends, a new series of talks begins today: God Is Dead, Now Zen Is the Only Living Truth. The series is dedicated to Friedrich Nietzsche, who was the first man in the history of mankind to declare, “God is dead, therefore man is free.” It was a tremendous stateme...

Zen is rejoicing in purposelessness. Question 1 On commenting on ten zen bulls, nyogen senzaki and paul reps write in the book, `zen flesh, zen bones,' "may the reader, like the chinese patriarch, discover the footprints of his potential self, and carrying the staff of his purpose and the wine jug of his true ...

Ordinarily we think people who know answers are wise. They may be learned but they are not wise. They may be very well informed, but information has nothing to do with wisdom. People who are really wise, in fact, have no answers. They have a quest, an enquiry, a tremendous enquiry in them, but no answers. By a...

BUKKO SAID: AT THE BEGINNING YOU HAVE TO TAKE UP A KOAN. THE KOAN IS SOME DEEP SAYING OF A PATRIARCH. ITS EFFECT IN THIS WORLD OF DISTINCTIONS IS TO MAKE A MAN'S GAZE STRAIGHT, AND TO GIVE HIM STRENGTH AS HE STANDS ON THE BRINK OF THE RIVER BANK. FOR THE PAST TWO OR THREE YEARS, I HAVE BEEN GIVING, IN MY INTER...

Just Being is Zazen Question 3 When energy goes inward it turns into thoughts, feelings, emotions, and when energy goes outward it turns into relationships with beings and nature. But when energy does not move inward or outward, it is just there pulsating, vibrating. Then it is one with the existence, one with...

Zen is a Deprogramming Question 1 In his book, ‘The Way of Zen,’ Alan Watts writes, “One must not forget the social context of Zen. It is primarily a way of liberation for those who have mastered the discipline of social convention, of the conditioning of the individual by the group. Zen is a medicine for the ...

The Key is to be Delivered Buddha had many enlightened people around him, yet he felt something special for this one enlightened person. Is there something different in enlightenments? Yes, Buddha, had many enlightened persons around, but the key can be given only to such a person who can become a master in hi...

Don’t Be Worried About Nothing Question 2 : Though you have infused the sutras with life and humor, for me, Zen remains the stark beauty of the desert, and I long for something else. Why can’t I drop the idea that my way is not via emptiness, but fullness? I still carry this longing for some kind of union, a m...

Question 5 : For zen it is: “eat when you are hungry and drink when you are thirsty.” For Patanjali it is: “regularity - niyam.” How to reconcile spontaneity and regularity? There is no need to synthesize. If you are really spontaneous you will become regular. If you are really regular you will become spontane...

First a few fundamentals.... 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 i...

The word warrior has lost its old meaning. Now there are no warriors; there are people who will come like a thief on the plane and drop bombs and escape. These cowards are not warriors. Scientific technology has destroyed in man so much that it is almost incalculable: for example, the warrior has disappeared; ...

Osho on Ten Bulls of Zen Ten Bulls of Zen. That is one of the most beautiful stories man has ever created. It is a collection of ten paintings.... In the first painting, the bull is lost, the owner is looking here and there, and there are trees all around, but there is no sign of the bull. In the second pictur...

Question 1: Osho, I love the expression, "take one step towards allah, and he will come running a thousand steps towards you." It seems to suggest that receptivity is not a totally inactive waiting but requires a certain participation. Even to receive a flower, doesn't one need to hold out one's hand? or am i ...

So, on the physical level, breathing is needed and on the psychological level, courage is needed. These two things are basically necessary for the development of the navel center. If there is something else or if you have some questions in your mind relating to this, I will talk to you about it tonight. But fi...

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 p...

The word 'zazen' has to be understood before I can start discussing the sutras that you have brought. Zen I have explained to you. It comes from the Sanskrit dhyan. Buddha never used Sanskrit as a part of his revolution. Sanskrit was the language of the learned, it has never been a language of the masses. Budd...

Question 1: Osho, How does the man of zen take his tea? For the man of Zen everything is sacred - even taking a cup of tea. Whatever he does, he does as if he is in a holy space. There is a story about Moses. When he went on Mount Sinai to meet God and to receive the Ten Commandments, he saw a miracle happenin...

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 ...

Question 2 Osho, In lecture yesterday you spoke about the Master’s work: keeping his disciples from settling for less than “freedom from the self”. In the West, much is made of the experience that “This is it,” that nothing can be different than it is – right now! Is this a copper mind experience? How can ther...

Question 3 : Is Zen against Politics? Zen is so much against politics that it never talks about it. It is so much against politics that it cannot even be against it. If you are against it, it will affect you. Then somehow you will remain in some way related to it. To be against is to be related. When you are v...

TANKA ASKED CHORO, "WHAT IS THE SELF BEFORE THE EMPTY EON?" AS CHORO WAS ABOUT TO ANSWER, TANKA SAID, "YOU'RE STILL NOISY - GO AWAY FOR NOW." ONE DAY, AS CHORO WAS CLIMBING BOL PEAK, HIS MIND OPENED UP INTO ENLIGHTENMENT. HE TOOK A SHORTCUT DOWN AND WENT BACK TO STAND BY TANKA, WHO SLAPPED HIM AND SAID, "I THO...

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 Bodhidhar...

Your Original Face Question 1 Beloved Osho, Will we recognize our original face, when we encounter it? Maneesha, encountering the original face simply means realizing what is real and what is reflection. You become a reflection when you see the real. It is just like standing before a mirror. It seems you are s...