Tag Archives: Zen

April 14, 2013 · 4:36 pm

A Bigger Container – Charlotte Joko Beck

At the age of ninety-five Genpo Roshi, one of the great Zen masters of modern times, was speaking of the “gateless gate,” and he pointed out that there truly is no gate through which we must pass in order to realize what our life is. Still, he said, from the standpoint of practice we must go through a gate, the gate of our own pride. And every one of us here, since the time we got up this morning, has in some way or another met our pride—every one of us. To go through this gate that is not a gate we have to go through the gate of our own pride.

Now the child of pride is anger. By anger I mean all kinds of frustration, including irritation, resentment, jealousy. I talk so much about anger and how to work with it because to understand how to practice with anger is to understand how to approach the “gateless gate.”

In daily life we know what it means to stand back from a problem. For example, I’ve watched Laura make a beautiful flower arrangement: she’ll fuss and fiddle with the flowers, then at some point she’ll stand back and look, to see what she has done and how it balances out. If you’re sewing a dress, at first you cut and arrange and sew, but finally you get in front of the mirror to see how it looks. Does it hang on the shoulders? How’s the hem? Is it becoming? Is it a suitable dress? You stand back. Likewise, in order to put our lives into perspective, we stand back and take a look.

Now Zen practice is to do this. It develops the ability to stand back and look. Let’s take a practical example, a quarrel. The overriding quality in any quarrel is pride. Suppose I’m married and I have a quarrel with my husband. He’s done something that I don’t like—perhaps he has spent the family savings on a new car—and I think our present car is fine. And I think—in fact I know—that I am right. I am angry, furious. I want to scream. Now what can I do with my anger? What is the fruitful thing to do? First of all I think it’s a good idea just to back away: to do and say as little as possible. As I retreat for a bit, I can remind myself that what I really want is to be what might be called A Bigger Container. (In other words I must practice my ABCs.) To do this is to step into another dimension—the spiritual dimension, if we must give it a name.

Let’s look at  a series of practice steps, realizing that in the heat of anger it’s impossible for most of us to practice as the drama occurs. But do try to step back; do and say very little; remove yourself. Then, when you’re alone, just sit and observe. What do I mean by “observe”? Observe the soap opera going on in the mind: what he said, what he did, what I have to say about all that, what I should do about it . . . these are all a fantasy. They are not the reality of what’s happening. If we can (it’s difficult to do when angry), label these thoughts. Why is it difficult? When we’re angry there’s a huge block that stands in the way of practice: the fact that we don’t want to practice—we prefer to cherish our pride, to be “right” about the argument, the issue. (“Do not seek the Truth—only cease to cherish opinions.”) And that’s why the first step is to back away, say little. It may take weeks of hard practice before we can see that what we want is not to be right, but to be A Bigger Container, ABC. Step back and observe. Label the thoughts of the drama: yes, he shouldn’t do that; yes, I can’t stand what he’s doing; yes, I’ll find some way to get even—all of which may be so on a superficial level, but still it is just a soap opera.

If we truly step back and observe—and as I said, it’s extremely difficult to do when angry—we will be capable in time of seeing our thoughts as thoughts (unreal) and not as the truth. Sometimes I’ve gone through this process ten, twenty, thirty times before the thoughts finally subside. When they do I am left with what? I am left with the direct experience of the physical reaction in my body, the residue, so to speak. When I directly experience this residue (as tension, contraction), since there is no duality in direct experience, I will slowly enter the dimension (samadhi) which knows what to do, what action to take. It knows what is the best action, not just for me but for the other as well. In making A Bigger Container, I taste “oneness” in a direct way.

We can talk about “oneness” until the cows come home. But how do we actually separate ourselves from others? How? The pride out of which anger is born is what separates us. And the solution is a practice in which we experience this separating emotion as a definite bodily state. When we do, A Bigger Container is created.

What is created, what grows, is the amount of life I can hold without it upsetting me, dominating me. At first this space is quite restricted, then it’s a bit bigger, and then it’s bigger still. It need never cease to grow. And the enlightened state is that enormous and compassionate space. But as long as we live we find there is a limit to our container’s size and it is at that point that we must practice. And how do we know where this cut-off point is? We are at that point when we feel any degree of upset, of anger. It’s no mystery at all. And the strength of our practice is how big that container gets.

As we do this practice we need to be charitable with ourselves. We need to recognize when we’re unwilling to do it. No one is willing all the time. And it’s not bad when we don’t do it. We always do what we’re ready to do.

The practice of making A Bigger Container is essentially spiritual because it is essentially nothing at all. A Bigger Container isn’t a thing; awareness is not a thing; the witness is not a thing or a person. There is not somebody witnessing. Nevertheless that which can witness my mind and body must be other than my mind and body. If I can observe my mind and body in an angry state, who is this “I” who observes? It shows me that I am other than my anger, bigger than my anger, and this knowledge enables me to build A Bigger Container, to grow. So what must be increased is the ability to observe. What we observe is always secondary. It isn’t important that we are upset; what is important is the ability to observe the upset.

As the ability grows first to observe, and second to experience, two factors simultaneously increase: wisdom, the ability to see life as it is (not the way I want it to be) and compassion, the natural action which comes from seeing life as it is. We can’t have compassion for anyone or anything if our encounter with them is ensnarled in pride and anger; it’s impossible. Compassion grows as we create A Bigger Container.

When we practice we’re cutting deep into our life as we’ve know it, and the way this process unfolds varies from person to person. For some people, depending on their personal conditioning and history, this process may go smoothly, and the release is slow. For others it comes in waves, enormous emotional waves. It’s like a dam that bursts. We fear being flooded and over whelmed. It’s as though we’ve walled off part of the ocean, and when the dam breaks the water just rejoins that which it truly is; and it’s relieved because no it can flow with the currents and the vastness of the ocean.

Nevertheless I think that it’s important for the process not to go too fast. If it’s going too fast I think it should be slowed down. Crying, shaking upset, are not undesirable things. That dam is beginning to break. But it’s not necessary that it break too fast. Better to slow it down, and if it breaks rapidly, that also is OK—it’s just that it doesn’t have to be done that way. We think we’re all the same; but probably the more repressive and difficult the childhood has been, the more important it is for the dam to give way slowly. But no matter how smooth our life may have been, there’s always a dam that has to busts at some point.

Remember also that a little humor about all this isn’t a bad idea. Essentially we never get rid of anything. We don’t have to get rid of all our neurotic tendencies; what we do is begin to see how funny they are, and then they’re just part of the fun of life, the fun with living with other people. They’re all crazy. And so are we, of course. But we never really see that we’re crazy; that’s our pride. Of course I’m not crazy—after all, I’m the teacher!

-Charlotte Joko Beck

From Everyday Zen, pages 49-52

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March 4, 2013 · 3:03 pm

The Fire of Attention – Charlotte Joko Beck

Back in the 1920’s, when I was maybe eight or ten years old, and living in New Jersey where the winters are cold, we had a furnace in our house that burned coal. It was a big event on the block when the coal truck pulled up and all this stuff poured down the coal shute into the coal bin. I learned that there were two kinds of coal that showed up in the coal bin: one was called anthracite or hard coal, and the other was lignite, soft coal. My father told me about the difference in the way those two kinds of coal burned. Anthracite burns cleanly, leaving little ash. Lignite leaves lots of ash. When we burned lignite, the cellar became covered with soot and some of it got upstairs into the living room. Mother had something to say about that, I remember. At night my father would bank the fire, and I learned to do this too. Banking the fire means covering it with a thin layer of coal, and then shutting down the oxygen vent to the furnace so that the fire stays in slow-burning state. Overnight the house becomes cold, and so in the morning the fire must be stirred up and the oxygen vent opened; then the furnace can heat up the house.

What does all this have to do with our practice? Practice is about breaking our exclusive identification with ourselves. This process has sometimes been called purifying the mind. To “purify the mind” doesn’t mean that you become holy or other than you are; it means to strip away that which keeps a person—or a furnace—from functioning best. The furnace functions best with hard coal. But unfortunately what we’re full of is soft coal. There’s a saying in the Bible: “He is like a refiner’s fire.” It’s a common analogy, found in other religions as well. To sit through sesshin is to be in the middle of a refining fire. Eido Roshi said once, “This zendo is not a peaceful haven, but a furnace room for the combustion of our egoistic delusions.” A zendo is not a place for bliss and relaxation, but a furnace room for the combustion of our egoistic delusions. What tools do we need to use? Only one. We’ve all heard of it, yet we use it very seldom. It’s called attention.

-Charlotte Joko Beck

From Everyday Zen, pages 31-32

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February 15, 2013 · 8:51 am

Ah, This! – Osho

 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 am I? Who am I?” you are not waiting for an answer. Your mind will supply many answers; all those answers have to be rejected. Your mind will say, “You are the essence of life. You are the eternal soul. You are divine,” and so on and so forth. All those answers have to be rejected: NETI NETI – one has to go on saying, “Neither this nor that.”

When you have denied all the possible answers that the mind can supply and devise, when the question remains absolutely unanswerable, a miracle happens: suddenly the question also disappears. When all the answers have been rejected, the question has no props, no supports inside to stand on any more. It simply flops, it collapses, it disappears. When the question also has disappeared, then you know. But that knowing is not an answer: it is an existential experience. Nothing can be said about it, or whatever will be said will be wrong. To say anything about it is to falsify it. It is the ultimate mystery, inexpressible, indefinable. No word is adequate enough to describe it. Even the phrase “essence of life” is not adequate; even “God” is not adequate. Nothing is adequate to express it; its very nature is inexpressible.

But you know. You know exactly the way the seed knows how to grow — not like the professor who knows about chemistry or physics or geography or history, but like the bud which knows how to open in the early morning sun. Not like the priest who knows about God; about and about he goes, around and around he goes.

Knowledge is beating around the bush: knowing is a direct penetration. But the moment you directly penetrate into existence, you disappear as a separate entity. You are no more.

When the KNOWER is no more then the knowing is. And the knowing is not ABOUT something — you are that knowing itself.

So I cannot say, what “I” means in the question “Who am I?” It means nothing! It is just a device to lead you into the unknown, to lead you into the uncharted, to lead you into that which is not available to the mind. It is a sword to cut the very roots of the mind, so only the silence of no-mind is left. In that silence there is no question, no answer, no knower, no known, but only knowing, only experiencing.

That’s why the mystics appear to be in such difficulty to express it. Many of them have remained silent out of the awareness that whatsoever you say goes wrong; the moment you say it, it goes wrong. Those who have spoken, they have spoken with the condition:

“Don’t cling to our words.”

Lao Tzu says: “Tao, once described, is no more the real Tao.” The moment you say something about it you have already falsified it, you have betrayed it. It is such an intimate knowing, incommunicable.

“Who am I?” functions like a sword to cut all the answers that the mind can manage. Zen people will say it is a koan, just like other koans. There are many koans, famous koans.

One is: “Find out your original face.” And the disciple asks the Master, “What is the original face?” And the Master says, “The face that you had before your parents were born.”

And you start meditating on that: “What is your original face?” Naturally, you have to deny all your faces. Many faces will start surfacing: childhood faces, when you were young, when you became middle-aged, when you became old, when you were healthy, when you were ill…. All kinds of faces will stand in a queue. They will pass before your eyes claiming, “I am the original face.” And you have to go on rejecting.

When all the faces have been rejected and emptiness is left, you have found the original face. Emptiness is the original face. Zero is the ultimate experience. Nothingness – or more accurately NO-THINGNESS — is your original face.

Or another famous koan is: “The sound of one hand clapping.” The Master says to the disciple, “Go and listen to the sound of one hand clapping.” Now this is patent absurdity: one hand cannot clap and without clapping there can be no sound. The Master knows it, the disciple knows it. But when the Master says, “Go and meditate on it,” the disciple has to follow.

He starts making efforts to listen to the sound of one hand clapping. Many sounds come to his mind: the birds singing, the sound of running water…. He rushes immediately to the Master; he says, “I have heard it! The sound of running water — isn’t that the sound of one hand clapping?”

And the Master hits him hard on the head and he says, “You fool! Go back, meditate more!”

And he goes on meditating, and the mind goes on providing new answers: “The sound of wind passing through the pine trees — certainly this is the answer.” He is in such a hurry! Everybody is in such a hurry. Impatiently he rushes to the door of the Master, a little bit apprehensive, afraid too, but maybe this is the answer….

And even before he has said a single thing the Master hits him! He is very much puzzled and he says, “This is too much! I have not even uttered a single word, so how can I be wrong? And why are you hitting me?”

The Master says, “It is not a question of whether you have uttered something or not. You have come with an answer — that is enough proof that you must be wrong. When you have REALLY found it you won’t come; there will be no need. I will come to you.”

Sometimes years pass, and then one day it has happened, there is no answer. First the disciple knew that there was no answer to it, but it was only an intellectual knowing. Now he knows from his very core: “There is no answer!” All answers have evaporated. And the sure sign that all answers have evaporated is only one: when the question also evaporates. Now he is sitting silently doing nothing, not even meditating. He has forgotten the question: “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” It is no more there. It is PURE silence.

And there are ways…there are inner paths which exist between a Master and a disciple.

And now the Master rushes towards the disciple. He knocks on his door. He hugs the disciple and says, “So it has happened? This is it! No answer, no question: this is it. Ah, this!”

-Osho

From Ah This!, Chapter Two

Copyright© OSHO International Foundation

An MP3 audio file of this discourse can be downloaded from Osho.com, or you can read the entire book online at the Osho Library.

Many of Osho’s books are available online from Amazon.com and in the U.S. from OshoStore-Sedona and Osho Here and Now.

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December 23, 2012 · 4:36 pm

A State of Clarity, Not a State of Mind – Osho

What is meditation? Is it a technique that can be practiced? Is it an effort that you have to do? Is it something which the mind can achieve? It is not.

All that the mind can do, cannot be meditation — it is something beyond the mind, the mind is absolutely helpless there. The mind cannot penetrate meditation; where mind ends, meditation begins. This has to be remembered, because in our life, whatsoever we do, we do through the mind; whatsoever we achieve, we achieve through the mind. And then, when we turn inwards, we again start thinking in terms of techniques, methods, doings, because the whole of life’s experience shows us that everything can be done by the mind. Yes. Except meditation, everything can be done by the mind; everything is done by the mind except meditation. Because meditation is not an achievement — it is already the case, it is your nature.. It has not to be achieved; it has only to be recognized, it has only to be remembered. It is there waiting for you — just a turning in, and it is available. You have been carrying it always and always.

Meditation is your intrinsic nature — it is you, it is your being, it has nothing to do with your doings. You cannot have it, you cannot not have it, it cannot be possessed. It is not a thing. It is you. It is your being. […]

Once you understand what meditation is things become very clear. Otherwise, you can go on groping in the dark.

Meditation is a state of clarity, not a state of mind. Mind is confusion. Mind is never clear. It cannot be. Thoughts create clouds around you — they are subtle clouds. A mist is created by them, and the clarity is lost. When thoughts disappear, when there are no more clouds around you, when you are in your simple beingness, clarity happens. Then you can see far away; then you can see to the very end of existence; then your gaze becomes penetrating — to the very core of being.

Meditation is clarity, absolute clarity, of vision. You cannot think about it. You have to drop thinking. When I say, ‘You have to drop thinking,’ don’t conclude in a hurry, because I have to use language. So I say, ‘Drop thinking,’ but if you start dropping, you will miss, because again you will reduce it to a doing.

‘Drop thinking’ simply means: don’t do anything. Sit. Let thoughts settle themselves. Let mind drop on its own accord. You just sit gazing at the wall, in a silent corner, not doing anything at all. Relaxed. Loose. With no effort. Not going, anywhere. As if you are falling asleep awake — you are awake and you are relaxing but the whole body is falling into sleep. You remain alert inside but the whole body moves into deep relaxation.

Thoughts settle on their own accord, you need not jump amongst them; you need not try to put them right. It is as if a stream has become muddy…what do you do? Do you jump in it and start helping the stream to become clear; you will make it more muddy. You simply sit on the bank. You wait. There is nothing to be done. Because whatsoever you do will make the stream more muddy If somebody has passed through a stream and the dead leaves have surfaced and the mud has arisen, just patience is needed. You simply sit on the bank. Watch, indifferently. And as the stream goes on flowing, the dead leaves will be taken away, and the mud will start settling because it cannot hang forever.

After a while, suddenly you will become aware — the stream is crystal-clear again. Whenever a desire passes through your mind the stream becomes muddy. So just sit. Don’t try to do anything. In Japan this ‘just sitting’ is called zazen; just sitting and doing nothing. And one day, meditation happens. Not that you bring it to you; it comes to you.

And when it comes, you immediately recognize it; it has been always there but you were not looking in the right direction. The treasure has been with you but you were occupied somewhere else: in thoughts, in desires, in a thousand and one things. You were not interested in the only one thing… and that was your own being.

When energy turns in — what Buddha calls parabvrutti: the coming back of your energy to the source — suddenly clarity is attained. Then you can see clouds a thousand miles away, and you can hear ancient music in the pines. Then everything is available to you.

-Osho

Excerpt from Ancient Music in the Pines, Chapter Seven   Ancient Music in the Pines

Copyright© OSHO International Foundation

An MP3 audio file of this discourse can be downloaded from Osho.com, or you can read the entire book online at the Osho Library.

Many of Osho’s books are available online from Amazon.com and in the U.S. from OshoStore-Sedona and Osho Here and Now.

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November 15, 2012 · 4:13 pm

With Growing Desirelessness – Osho

With growing desirelessness, sometimes the person becomes outwardly inactive. Is it lethargy and dullness? Why does it happen?

Many things are possible, and it will depend. Certainly many desires will drop and many actions also. Those actions which were just caused by desires will drop. If I was running for a particular desire, how can I run if the desire has dropped? My running will stop. At least the same running on the same route will stop. So when a person becomes desireless, at least for an interim period, for an interval – and how long it will be will depend on the individual – he will become inactive. The desires will have dropped – and all the actions that he had been doing were concerned with desires, so how can he continue? They will drop.

But by dropping desires and actions, energy will be accumulated – and now energy will begin to move. When it moves, how it moves will vary from individual to individual, but now it will move. There will be a gap, an interim period, an interval. This I call a pregnancy period. The seed is born, but now it will gestate for at least nine months. And it may seem strange, but it happens. This nine months period is meaningful. Near about this, eight months or ten months, will be the interim period, and you will just become inactive. This inactivity will also vary. Someone may become so inactive that people may think that he has just gone into a coma. Everything stops.

For Meher Baba it happened like that. For one year he was just in a coma. He couldn’t even move his limbs. Action was far off; he couldn’t stand up because even the desire to stand had gone. He couldn’t eat; he had to be forced. He couldn’t do anything! For one year continuously he became just helpless – a helpless child. This was a pregnancy period, and then, suddenly, a different man was born. The man who became inactive was no more: a new energy – energy accumulated.

Lives and lives of dissipated energy create this gap – because you do not have enough energy. When desire is not there to invoke, provoke, stimulate, you just drop. Your energy is not really energy, but just a pushing and pulling. Anyhow you go on running because the goal seems just nearby. A few moments’ endeavour more and you will reach! You pull yourself on; somehow you carry yourself and run. But when the goal is dropped, when there is no desire, you will drop. An inactivity will be there. If you can be patient in this inactivity period, after it you will be reborn. Then energy will begin to move without desires.

But I say it depends. It may happen suddenly as it happened for Meher Baba: that was a sudden case. It happened in Bombay. It happened by a kiss from an old lady, Babajan. Meher Baba was just passing, coming back from his school. Babajan was an old Sufi mystic, an old lady who was just sitting under a tree for years and years and years. Meher Baba was just coming, and Babajan called him. He knew this old lady. She was sitting for years under the tree, and he had passed by that street daily on his way towards his school and towards his home. She called and he came near. She kissed him – and he dropped as if dead just there. Then he had to be carried home.

For one year continuously the kiss remained on him and he was in a coma. It may happen suddenly like this. Mm? This was a great transfer, and Babajan died afterwards because she had just been waiting for this moment to give someone the whole energy. This was her last life, and there was not enough time even to explain what she was giving. And also, she was not the type to have explained. She was a silent mystic. She had not touched anybody for years. She was a only waiting for this moment when she was to kiss someone and the whole energy was to be transferred in a single transfer. Before this she had not even touched anyone, so this touch was to be total.

And this child was simply unaware of what was going to happen. He was ready – otherwise this transfer would not have been possible – but he was not aware. He had worked through his past lives. He was just coming up. He might have become aware later on, but just now he was completely unaware. This happened so suddenly that he had to go again through a second pregnancy. For one year he was as if not. Many medicines were given; many, many doctors and physicians tried to help, but nothing could be done. And the woman who could do something, she disappeared, she died. After one year he was a different man – totally different.

If it happens so suddenly, then it will be a deep coma. If it happens through some exercises, then it will never be so deep a coma. If you are doing awareness exercises, meditation, then it will never happen so suddenly. It will come so gradually, so gradually, that you will never even become aware of when it has happened. By and by, inactivity will be there, activity will be there, and very gradually inside everything will have changed. And the desire will drop, the activity will drop, but no one will ever feel that you have been lethargic or that you have become inactive.

This is the gradual process. So those who follow yoga or any method will not feel the suddenness. There are also methods in which sudden happenings become possible, but one can be prepared. Babajan never prepared this boy; she never even asked his permission. It was a one-way affair. She just transferred the energy.

Zen monks also transfer, but before transferring they prepare the ground. A person can be made ready to receive the energy, then this reaction will not be there. He may feel lethargy for some days, for some months, but no one will feel outside that inside everything has become inactive. But that needs preparation, and that can happen only in schools. And when I say “school”, I mean a group working.

Babajan was alone; she never made anyone her disciple. There was no school; there was not a following in which she could have prepared anyone. And, also, she was not the type. She was not the teacher type; she couldn’t teach. But she had to give to someone, to whomsoever passed and she felt: “Now is the moment, and this one will be able to carry it,” so she could just deliver it.

So it depends. Inactivity is bound to be there – more or less, but it will be there, a period will be there. And only then can you be reborn, because the whole mechanism has to change completely. The mind drops, old roots drop, the old habits drop, the old association of consciousness and desires, consciousness and mind, drops – everything old drops and everything has to be new.

A waiting is needed, patience is needed. And if one is patient, one has not to do anything: just to wait is enough. The energy begins to move by itself. You just sow the seed and then wait! Don’t be in a hurry; don’t go every day to pull the seed out and see what is happening. Just put it inside and wait. The energy will take its own course. The seed will die, and the energy will sprout and will begin to move. But don’t be impatient. One has to wait.

And the greater the seed, and the greater the possibility, the potentiality of the tree that is going to be, the more will be the waiting. But it comes. It comes! The deeper the waiting, the sooner it comes.

-Osho

From The Ultimate Alchemy, V.1, Chapter Four

Copyright© OSHO International Foundation

An MP3 audio file of this discourse can be downloaded from Osho.com, or you can read the entire book online at the Osho Library.

Many of Osho’s books are available online from Amazon.com and in the U.S. from OshoStore-Sedona and Osho Here and Now.

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November 4, 2012 · 1:08 pm

The Ultimate in Meditation – Osho

We are to stand and let the waters settle on their own, why all the active meditations?

If you can sit, there is no need for meditations. In Japan, for meditation they have the word zazen. It means just sitting, doing nothing. If you can sit, not doing anything, this is the ultimate in meditations. There is no need for any other thing.

But can you sit? There is the crux of the whole problem. Can you sit? Can you just sit doing nothing? If that is possible – just sit, do nothing – everything settles by itself, everything simply flows by itself. You are not needed to do anything. But the problem is – can you sit?

It happened on a small hillock near a village, a man was standing. Just it was morning and the sun has arisen, and three persons had gone just for a morning walk and they looked at the man. And, as minds go, they started talking about what this man was doing there. One man suggested that he must be there looking for his cow. “Sometimes his cow gets lost. Then he goes to the hilltop and looks for it. From there you can look on all sides.” The other man said, “But he is not looking on all sides. He is simply standing, so that cannot be the cause. I feel he must have come for a morning walk with a friend, and the friend has been left behind, so he’s waiting for him.” The third one said, “This is not right. Because if you are waiting for someone, sometimes you look back. He’s not looking back at all.” The third said “I think he is meditating. And look at his robes; he is a sannyasin. He must be meditating.” Their discussion become so hot that they said, “Now we will have to go to the hilltop and ask this man himself, ’What are you doing here?’ ”

They walked miles to reach to the hilltop. The first man asked, “What are you doing here? I think you have lost your cow and you are looking for it.” The man opened his eyes and he said, “No.” The second man stepped forward and asked, “Then I must be right. Are you waiting for somebody who has been left behind?” He said, “No.” Then the third was happy. He said, “Then I was absolutely right. Are you meditating?” The man said, “No.” All the three were at a loss, and they all three said, “What are you saying? You say ’no’ to everything. Then what are you doing?” The man said, “I am just standing here doing nothing.”

If it is possible, this is the ultimate in meditation. If it is not possible, then you will have to use techniques because through techniques only this will become possible. Through techniques, one day you will realize the whole absurdity. All techniques of meditation are just like pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. Meditation is absurd but one has to realize it. It is a great realization. When one realizes that his meditation is absurd, then it simply drops.

There is Maharishi Mahesh Yogi: technique-oriented, as if technique is all. And there is Krishnamurti, absolutely against techniques. And here I am – for techniques, and against also.

A technique leads you to a point where you can drop it. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is dangerous. He will start many people on the path, but they will never reach the goal because the path is thought to be so important. He will start millions of people on technique, and then the technique becomes so important, and there is no way how to drop it. Then there is Krishnamurti-harmless, but useless also. He can never harm anybody. Because how can he harm? – He never starts anybody on the path; he talks about the goal, and you are very, very far away from the goal. You will fall in the trap of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Krishnamurti may appeal to you intellectually, but will not be of any help. He cannot harm. He’s the most harmless man in the world.

And then I am here. I give you a path just to take it away. I give you a technique – not a technique, many techniques – like toys to play with. And I wait for a moment when you will say to all the techniques, “Swaha, go to the fire!”

-Osho

From Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, V. 3 (retitled Yoga: the Mystery Beyond Mind), Chapter Four  

Copyright© OSHO International Foundation

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August 17, 2012 · 9:02 am

Mind is Never Where You Are – Osho

Says Rinzai, “When I eat, I only eat, and when I sleep, I only sleep.”

Somebody said, “But nothing is special in that, everybody is doing it.”

Rinzai laughed and said, “If everybody is doing it, everybody is a Buddha, everybody is enlightened then.”

Eating – simply eat, be with it. Walking – simply walk, be there. Don’t go ahead, don’t jump here and there. Mind always goes ahead or lags behind. Remain with the moment.

In the beginning it will be very difficult to remain with the moment. And sometimes the moment may not be very happy. You are angry, then the mind starts thinking of repentance or tries to do something so that the anger never happens again. Sometimes you are sad; you put on the radio or the TV, you start reading a book, because you would not like to be sad. You want to divert the mind.

And because miserable moments are more than happy moments it becomes a constant habit. And when it is fixed, even when happiness comes, you are not found at home. You are somewhere else.

Make it a point: whatsoever – sadness, anger – whatsoever – depression, unhappiness – be with it.

And you will suddenly become surprised that if you remain with sadness, sadness changes into a beautiful thing, sadness becomes a depth. If you remain with anger, not thinking about, just being with, anger is transformed; it becomes forgiveness. If you remain with sex, sex takes on a different quality; it becomes love.

If you start living with the moment you will see your being with is a miracle, it has a magic to it.

Happiness will become deeper. Ordinarily your happiness is just on the surface. Deep down you carry millions of things; just on the surface it is. If you remain with it, it will become deeper and deeper and deeper. If you start living with, everything is transformed because you bring a new quality of being, of awareness, of witnessing. Don’t fight against sadness and don’t hanker for happiness, because that is going away, astray.

Have you observed? – If you go for a holiday to the Himalayas or to Switzerland, for months you plan to arrive there, and the moment you arrive your mind has started already to plan when to depart, how to go back home. Look! For months you plan how to arrive and when you arrive – or even before you arrive, just on the way – your mind has started to go back: How to depart?

Your every arrival is just the beginning of a departure. And you are never there because you cannot be there. Again back home you will start thinking. Back home you will start thinking about what happened in the Himalayas, what beautiful experiences you went through – and you were never there. It is as if you have read about them it is as if somebody else has told you. You look at the memory as if the memory functions on its own; it takes photographs and becomes an album. Back home you will open the album and see, and you will say to friends, “Beautiful!” And you will start planning – again next year you are going to the Himalayas.

Mind is never where you are: awareness is always there where you are. Drop more and more mind, and minding, and become more and more aware and alert. Bring yourself together in the moment.

Difficult in the beginning. Mind, because of the old habit, will go away again and again. Bring it back. No need to fight! Simply call it back: “Come.” Again it will go… within seconds it will not be there. Call it back again.

And by and by, when you start enjoying THIS moment – the eternal now, the only time that there is, the only existence that there is, the only life that there is – when you start enjoying it, more and more the mind will be coming to it. Less and less it will be going.

Then a tuning happens. Suddenly you are here, at home, and the reality is revealed. The reality was always there, YOU were not there. It is not the truth which has to be sought, it is you who have to be brought home.

-Osho

Excerpt from Hsin Hsin Ming: The Book of Nothing, Chapter Three  

Copyright© OSHO International Foundation

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July 11, 2012 · 3:28 pm

Krishnamurti to Himself in Ojai

Ojai, California, Wednesday, 20th April, 1983

At the end of every leaf, the large leaves and the tiny leaves, there was a drop of water sparkling in the sun like an extraordinary jewel. And there was a slight breeze but that breeze didn’t in any way disturb or destroy that drop on those leaves that were washed clean by the late rain. It was a very quiet morning, full of delight, peaceful, and with a sense of benediction in the air. And as we watched the sparkling light on every clean leaf, the earth became extraordinarily beautiful, in spite of all the telegraph wires and their ugly posts. In spite of all the noise of the world, the earth was rich, abiding, enduring. And though there were earthquakes here and there, most destructive, the earth was still beautiful. One never appreciates the earth unless one really lives with it, works with it, puts one’s hands in the dust, lifting big rocks and stones – one never knows the extraordinary sense of being with the earth, the flowers, the gigantic trees and the strong grass and the hedges along the road.

Everything was alive that morning. As we watched, there was a sense of great joy and the heavens were blue, the sun was slowly coming out of the hills and there was light. As we watched the mocking bird on the wire, it was doing its antics, jumping high, doing a somersault, then coming down on the same spot on the wire. As we watched the bird enjoying itself, jumping in the air and then coming down circling, with its shrill cries, its enjoyment of life, only that bird existed, the watcher didn’t exist. The watcher was no longer there, only the bird, grey and white, with a longish tail. That watching was without any movement of thought, watching the flurry of the bird that was enjoying itself.

We never watch for long. When we watch with great patience, watch without any sense of the watcher, watch those birds, those droplets on the quivering leaves, the bees and the flowers and the long trail of ants, then time ceases, time has a stop. One doesn’t take time to watch or have the patience to watch. One learns a great deal through watching – watching people, the way they walk, their talk, their gestures. You can see through their vanity or their negligence of their own bodies. They are indifferent, they are callous.

There was an eagle flying high in the air, circling without the beat of the wings, carried away by the air current beyond the hills and was lost. Watching, learning: learning is time but watching has no time. Or when you listen, listen without any interpretation, without any reaction, listen without any bias. Listen to that thunder in the skies, the thunder rolling among the hills. One never listens completely, there is always interruption. Watching and listening are a great art – watching and listening without any reaction, without any sense of the listener or the see-er. By watching and listening we learn infinitely more than from any book. Books are necessary, but watching and listening sharpen your senses. For, after all, the brain is the centre of all the reactions, thoughts and remembrances. But if your senses are not highly awakened you cannot really watch and listen and learn, not only how to act but about learning, which is the very soil in which the seed of goodness can grow.

When there is this simple, clear watching and listening, then there is an awareness – awareness of the colour of those flowers, red, yellow, white, of the spring leaves, the stems, so tender, so delicate, awareness of the heavens, the earth and those people who are passing by. They have been chattering along that long road, never looking at the trees, at the flowers, at the skies and the marvellous hills. They are not even aware of what is going on around them. They talk a great deal about the environment, how we must protect nature and so on, but it seems they are not aware of the beauty and the silence of the hills and the dignity of a marvellous old tree. They are not even aware of their own thoughts, their own reactions, nor are they aware of the way they walk, of their clothes. It does not mean that they are to be self-centred in their watching, in their awareness, but just be aware.

When you are aware there is a choice of what to do, what not to do, like and dislike, your biases, your fears, your anxieties, the joys which you have remembered, the pleasures that you have pursued; in all this there is choice, and we think that choice gives us freedom. We like that freedom to choose; we think freedom is necessary to choose – or, rather, that choice gives us a sense of freedom – but there is no choice when you see things very, very clearly.

And that leads us to an awareness without choice – to be aware without any like or dislike. When there is this really simple, honest, choiceless awareness it leads to another factor, which is attention. The word itself means to stretch out, to grasp, to hold on, but that is still the activity of the brain, it is in the brain. Watching, awareness, attention, are within the area of the brain, and the brain is limited – conditioned by all the ways of past generations, the impressions, the traditions and all the folly and the goodness of man. So all action from this attention is still limited, and that which is limited must inevitably bring disorder. When one is thinking about oneself from morning until night – one’s own worries, one’s own desires, demands and fulfilments – this self-centredness, being very, very limited, must cause friction in its relationship with another, who is also limited; there must be friction, there must be strain and disturbances of many kinds, the perpetual violence of human beings.

When one is attentive to all this, choicelessly aware, then out of that comes insight. Insight is not an act of remembrance, the continuation of memory. Insight is like a flash of light. You see with absolute clarity, all the complications, the consequences, the intricacies. Then this very insight is action, complete. In that there are no regrets, no looking back, no sense of being weighed down, no discrimination. This is pure, clear insight – perception without any shadow of doubt. Most of us begin with certainty and as we grow older the certainty changes to uncertainty and we die with uncertainty. But if one begins with uncertainty, doubting, questioning, asking demanding, with real doubt about man’s behaviour, about all the religious rituals and their images and their symbols, then out of that doubt comes the clarity of certainty.

When there is clear insight into violence, for instance, that very insight banishes all violence. That insight is outside the brain, if one can so put it. It is not of time. It is not of remembrance or of knowledge, and so that insight and its action changes the very brain cells. That insight is complete and from that completeness there can be logical, sane, rational, action.

This whole movement from watching, listening, to the thunder of insight, is one movement; it is not coming to it step by step. It is like a swift arrow. And that insight alone can uncondition the brain, not the effort of thought, which is determination, seeing the necessity for something; none of that will bring about total freedom from conditioning. All this is time and the ending of time. Man is time-bound and that bondage to time is the movement of thought. So where there is an ending to thought and to time there is total insight. Only then can there be the flowering of the brain. Only then can you have a complete relationship with the mind.

-J. Krishnamurti

From Krishnamurti to Himself

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November 13, 2011 · 11:43 am

He Understands Zen Intellectually – 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 decontract my muscles. I have need of a professor of philosophy, or of poetry in order to learn how to think in the truest or most beautiful way; I have no need of such a person if I wish to learn not to think.”

Would you please comment?

Maneesha, the content of Hubert Benoit’s statement is absolutely true, but in practice it does not happen so. It is true that if you want to learn philosophy you need a professor, but if you don’t want to learn you don’t need a professor. He has forgotten one thing, and that is: you have already learned a philosophy; now what to do with that philosophy? You will need a professor to help you to get rid of that philosophy. In practice, nobody is unconditioned, hence, somebody is needed to indicate that your mind is conditioned, and a conditioned mind cannot know the truth.

So in content, he is right, but in practice, he is just philosophizing. He understands Zen intellectually, and perhaps he has written the most complete treatise on Zen, but what he is writing, he himself has not practiced.

Practice is a totally different phenomenon from learning. You will have to be told how to relax, although you don’t need to be told. But if you don’t need – according to this man who has written extensively on Zen… If nobody needs to relax, if nobody needs to be told to relax, why are people tense? If nobody needs to be told to unlearn, then why are there not innocent people? In practice, things take a totally different standpoint.

I will agree with him philosophically, but I know practically – you have to be told how to relax. You have to be told how to unlearn. You need a master. In reality, there is no need, because you are the Buddha. But who is going to remind you? You have forgotten it for so long that you have become accustomed to the idea that you are not the Buddha.

Maneesha, even beautiful things can be said, but only with intellectual understanding. It is not Hubert Benoit’s experience. His intellectual grasp is clear, but his existential experience is missing.

-Osho

From The Zen Manifesto: Freedom From Oneself, Chapter Four 

Copyright© OSHO International Foundation

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November 8, 2011 · 1:39 pm

Gurdjieff’s Work is for a Particular Type – Osho

1 February 1976 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

[A visitor says that he was at John Bennett’s school in England, where they did Gurdjieffian exercises: Actually I left there quite confused – I suppose there’s no way out of that. I never had much ability to do any of the exercises or things like that.]

It may not have suited you because Gurdjieff’s work is for a particular type, the will type – people who can work hard and very persistently, almost madly… because the whole thing depends on a very deep crystallisation of the ego. Once the ego is crystallised then further steps can be taken. But the whole Gurdjieffian system depends on you having a centre, a self.

Ordinarily you don’t have a centre. In fact Gurdjieff says you don’t have a soul – that is only a possibility; you may die without attaining it. What he calls the soul is nothing but a crystallised self, and crystallised so much so that it takes the position of being sovereign, enthroned, in the crowd of your many selves.

Ordinarily you have many egos, not one, and a conflict continuously going on. Sometimes one is in power, sometimes another is in power; a sort of democracy. A political head is not permanent; so much politics goes on within. So much politics and so much chaos goes on within that you never know where you are, who you are, what you are. Sometimes you have the feeling that you are this, but by the time you realise it that self is gone, is no more m power.

When you have a permanent self then Gurdjieff’s system really starts functioning. To attain that permanent self, one has to do tremendous work, in fact absurd work. Just out of too much work crystallisation happens; the work functions out of a chemical opportunity. For example in many sufi schools from where Gurdjieff got the point, you have to remain alert for the whole night – for months. The only process to be done is not to allow yourself to fall asleep; it is very difficult. After a few days it becomes almost impossible, but if you can go on and on and on suddenly you realise one day that you are tired no more, that you are no longer feeling sleepy. You are as fresh as if you have been sleeping all the time – a deeper layer of energy has been broken.

We have three layers of energy. One is day to day, routine; you need it for eating, digesting, working, moving. It is finished in twenty-four hours and the next day you create it again. And there is a second layer of energy which is deeper; it becomes available only in emergencies.

Suddenly the house is on fire. You were tired and were falling to sleep, but now you feel that much energy is available. You are running and doing things and for hours you are in hard work. Not for a single moment do you remember that you are tired or that you would like to fall asleep. This is an emergency level available only in dangerous times. Gurdjieff used to create many situations for this purpose – just to bring this emergency level into functioning.

And then there is a third layer that comes only when you are touching the point of death; not only emergency but a death situation. He himself did the last of his experiments, which was to go through a very dangerous car accident. It was managed, it was not an accident; he did it with everything planned. Even doctors could not believe how a man could survive after such a crash. It was impossible – but he survived. The whole body was broken, all the bones were broken, but he survived. The whole effort was to come to a point where death touches you; you were almost going to die – and then the third layer becomes available to you. If in that moment you can remain alert, then you have touched the very rock bottom of your being – call it God. So the first layer is only of the ego, the second layer is of the soul, and the third layer is that of God.

But the whole work of Gurdjieff is hard, work of the will, and I don’t see that you are the type. To you something more like Zen will be helpful. It moves from the very opposite pole: no effort, nothing to be done but relaxing and surrendering. It is not a question of work on your part. The only thing that you are expected to do is to accept non-doing and relax into it. That is totally different; not only different, but just the opposite polarity of the same thing.

And these are the two types – call them male and female, yin and yang, or whatsoever you like.

But you are the feminine type, and this is the problem and has to be understood: that all feminine types are attracted to a male type. So if you were attracted towards Bennet or Gurdjieff or that type of work, it’s natural. The male type is attracted to the feminine paths of surrender. That’s where confusion arises – the opposite is always attractive.

So try Zen – something in which you have just to sit, just to walk, just to be, as if nothing is to be done. Gurdjieff says you have not soul, it has to be created. Zen says you have everything – just relax and enjoy it; it is there.

Man is standing just in the middle of these two polarities. Move to any extreme and realisation is possible, because the jump is possible only from the extreme ends. You cannot jump from the middle of the road; you have to move to an extreme, and jump from there. So either move to the extreme of work, will – or move to the other extreme of surrender, no effort, passivity.

The whole of the East, particularly the Far East, has developed no-effort methods; and the Middle East, the Sufis particularly, have developed the path of will. So if you have been doing things just following the path of will, I will suggest to you that you move to the other extreme. Suddenly the key may fit….

Mm mm, we are doing here some Buddhist meditations – Vipassana. It will be very good if you can do one ten day course and see. It is just sitting….

Because if you can relax and be passive – and it will be very easy for you – all confusion will disappear. Confusion arises only when you are doing something which is not in tune with your type.

Once something is in tune with your type, all confusion disappears. Confusion is simply indicative, symptomatic, that you are doing something that doesn’t suit you. You may go on doing it and it does not suit you, you go on doing it and it does not suit you, and the mind will say that you are not doing hard enough and that is why there is confusion – and more and more confusion will come. Once something fits… it is just as when the shoe fits – suddenly you forget the shoe. Whenever a method fits, you simply forget about it and everything falls in line. Only the right key and the lock opens. Try to remember what I am saying. Your type is the feminine type. You are not an aggressive being; you are very non-violent. Not very out-going, not intrusive in any way; you would like to be within yourself. But this work, whatsoever you have been doing, can be helpful; at least it can show you that this is not your type.

You be here and try Vipassana.

-Osho

Taken from Above All Don’t Wobble, Chapter seventeen 

Copyright© OSHO International Foundation

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