Meditation is easy
January 29, 2009
Taking things lightly
Taking things easily
and without forcing
after some time
the rush of thought
outward and inward
subsides naturally
and the true face
shows itself
Bukko
To be a buddha is not a difficult job. It is not some achievement for which you need a Nobel Prize. It is the easiest thing in the world, because it has already happened without your knowing. The buddha is already breathing in you. Just a little recognition, just a little turning inwards… and that has not to be done forcibly. If you do it forcibly you will miss the point. It is very delicate. You have to look inward playfully, not seriously. That’s what he means by “taking things easily.” Don’t take anything seriously.
Existence is easy with you
Existence is very easy. You have got your life without any effort, you are living your life without any effort. You are breathing perfectly well without being reminded; your heartbeat continues even in your sleep — so easy is existence with you! But you are not so easy with existence. You are very close-fisted. You want everything to be turned into an achievement.
Enlightenment cannot be an achievement. That which you have already — how can it be an achievement? The authentic master simply takes away things which you don’t have and you believe you have, and he gives you that which you already have. You are having many things which you don’t have at all, you just believe that you have them. The master’s function is that of a surgeon, to cut all that is not you and leave behind just the essential core — the eternal being.
Life is a game
It is a very easy phenomenon; you can do it on your own. There are no problems and no risk in taking things easily, but people take things very tensely. They take things very seriously, and that spoils the whole game. And remember, life is a game. Once you understand it as a game, a deep playfulness arises on its own accord. The victory is not the point; the point is to play totally, joyously, dancingly.
Osho, excerpts from The Buddha: The Emptiness of the Heart #1
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Osho book recommendations on meditation
The Book of Secrets: Keys to Love and Meditation
Awareness: The Key to Living in Balance (Osho, Insights for a New Way of Living)
Meditation: The First and Last Freedom
Everyday Osho: 365 Daily Meditations for the Here and Now
Meditation For Busy People: Stress-Beating Strategies To Calm Your Life
Discover the Buddha: 53 Meditations to Meet the Buddha Within
Power Needs Meditation
January 6, 2009
Meditation directs power
Any kind of power is bound to become destructive if there is no meditation involved in it. Lord Acton’s famous statement is basically true, that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, because power means energy. What is one going to do with energy if one has not the understanding to use it rightly, if one has not the perspective to see clearly where to go, what to do, what not to do? Then power gives a certain intoxication.
The unconscious person becomes even more unconscious, the mad person becomes even more mad. Latest researchers into psychiatry have come to a very significant conclusion: that many people who are insane are really insane because they have so much power that it is beyond their control. They cannot cope with it. Basically they are not bad people, not evil, but their power is like a sword, a naked sword in the hands of a child. What is the child going to do with a sword? Either he will harm somebody or he will harm himself; hence power either becomes murderous or it becomes suicidal.
These are the only two possibilities without meditation. But
once meditation becomes the foundation, then power is creative, then
it brings great poetry and great music and great dance in your life.
And not only in just your life; it starts overflowing you, it starts
reaching others.
Osho, excerpts from The Old Pond – Plop!
Osho book recommendations on meditation
Awareness: The Key to Living in Balance (Osho, Insights for a New Way of Living)
Maturity: The Responsibility of Being Oneself (Osho, Insights for a New Way of Living.)
The Everyday Meditator: A Practical Guide
Meditations on Zen by Osho (Osho Meditations)
Buddha Discovery Deck: 53 Sutras and Meditation Cards to Create a Silent Space Within
From Boy to Man to Old Man to ?
December 21, 2008
Consciousness continues the journey
Death is impossible in the very nature of things — only life is. Yes, life goes on changing forms; one day you are this, another day you are something else. Where is the child you once were? Has the child died? Can you say that the child has died? The child has not died, but then where is the child? The form has changed. The child is still there in its essentiality, but now you have become a young man or a young woman. The child is there with all its beauty; it has been superimposed by new riches.
One day you will become old. Then where is your youth? Died? No, again something more has happened. Old age has brought its own crop, old age has brought its own wisdom, old age has brought its own beauties.
The child is innocent, that is his core. The youth is overflowing with energy, that is his core. And the old man has seen all, lived all, known all; wisdom has arisen, that is his core. But his wisdom contains something of his youth; it is also overflowing, it is radiant, it is vibrant, it is pulsating, it is alive. And it also has something of the child; it is innocent.
If the old man is not young also, then he has only aged, he is not old. He has grown in time, in age, but he is not grown-up. He has missed. If the old man is not innocent like the child, if his eyes don’t show that crystal clarity of innocence, then he has not yet lived.
If you live totally, cunningness and cleverness disappear, and trust arises. These are the criteria to know whether one has lived or not. The child never dies but only is metamorphosed. The youth never dies, there is only a new mutation again. And do you think the old man dies? Yes, the body disappears because it has served its purpose, but the consciousness continues the journey.
Osho, excerpt from The Book of Wisdom #14
Osho book recommendations
And Now, And Here: On Death, Dying and Past Lives
From Death to Deathlessness: Answers to the Seekers of the Path
