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
Bodhidarma Frightens Emperor Wu
Find your ego, I will kill it
Bodhidharma was asked by Emperor Wu, “I am very much disturbed by my ego, by this self. And I have tried everything, but I cannot get rid of it. Help me!” Bodhidharma said, “Come early in the morning tomorrow, three o’clock in the morning. And come alone, and don’t forget to bring your self with you — and I will finish it forever.” The emperor was afraid. This man looked mad. “How can anybody finish the self? And what does he mean when he says, ‘Don’t forget to bring it’?”
The whole night he could not sleep, tossed and turned. Many times he decided not to go, and he had said, “Come alone” — and he was a very dangerous looking man. In China he was known as the Barbarian Buddha. He had very dangerous eyes. If he looked into your eyes, then for months you would not be able to sleep. And he looked murderous — and he WAS a murderer. He murdered many disciples. Many people became enlightened through him. And he was really a hard taskmaster.
Three o’clock, in the dark, alone, to be with this man… and one never knows — he was unpredictable. When he had entered China, he had come with one shoe on one foot, the other shoe on his head. The emperor was puzzled and he said, “What are you doing?”
He said, “I am trying to show you — this is the way I am. Just to give you a taste of what type of man I am, so you know from the very beginning with whom you are dealing.” Now, to go to this man in his mountain cave in the dark…. M any times he decided not to go, but the attraction was also great — because this man was no ordinary man. Yes, on the surface he looked very hard, but deep down there was the kindest heart possible. He was all compassion. Even if he was hard, it was because of his compassion.
Finally, he had to go. And the moment he reached in front of Bodhidharma… he was sitting there with his staff, and he said, “You have come?.Where is your ego? Where is your self? Have you brought it with you? I am going to finish it forever.”
The emperor said, “What are you talking about? Is the self a thing that I can bring with me?” Bodhidharma said, “Then what is it?” The emperor said, “Of course, it is something inside.” Bodhidharma said, “Okay, inside or outside, it makes no difference. My staff can reach anywhere! You just sit in front of me, close your eyes, and try to find it. And the moment you have found it, just tell me that ‘I have found,’ and I will kill it.”
Look inside and find it!
Shaking and trembling, the emperor sat before Bodhidharma. Hours passed. The sun started rising. He looked and looked… he had to look! because this man was sitting there with his staff. He could hit hard. And by the morning when the sun was rising, he was totally a different man. Bodhidharma said, “Now you can open your eyes. Where is it? For three hours you have been looking.”
The emperor touched Bodhidharma’s feet and said, “I cannot find it. I looked hard — I have never looked so hard. Your presence made me look hard. I searched with all my energy possible. I was not holding anything back, but I did not find it.” And Bodhidharma laughed and he said, “So you see? I have finished it forever.”
The ego is not
It is not! When you don’t look it is. When you look, it is not. Go in… and you will not find any ego, any self, anything. What you will find is eternal, infinite life, and then there is really respect for it. But it has nothing to do with you or me — it is reverence for life.
Osho, excerpts from The Perfect Master Vol. 2 #4
Osho book recommendations on masters of meditation
The Buddha Said…: Meeting the Challenge of Life’s Difficulties
Discover the Buddha: 53 Meditations to Meet the Buddha Within
When the Shoe Fits: Stories of the Taoist Mystic Chuang Tzu
No Water No Moon: Talks on Zen Stories
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
A Crooked Straight Way
December 27, 2008
In the end everything makes sense
Once you have arrived you will see the whole logicalness of each step that you had taken, but not before it. You will see why you had to jump, why you had to take a certain step. When you were taking that step, nothing was clear, nothing was absolutely certain or guaranteed. You were taking that step according to your feeling, not according to your thinking. But later on, recapitulating, looking back, thinking can be revived. Now you can search for the undercurrent of logic.
Those who have arrived are very logical. But those who are on the path, if they try to be logical, they will never survive. This is one of the paradoxes to be understood. Hence the statements of Buddha, Tilopa, Saraha and Atisha are really very logical, but only for those who have arrived. The logic can be felt only backwards. When you are progressing towards the goal, the ultimate, everything is vague, hidden behind a cloud. It is like the early morning mist. In the afternoon, in the full noontide, the mist will have disappeared. But that full noontide has yet to happen.
The individual vision is different to others’
So think, meditate, feel the instructions the masters give, but don’t take them in dead seriousness. There are bound to be a few differences. A few things are going to happen on your way which did not happen on Atisha’s way. A few things are going to happen on your way which have not happened on my way. There are as many ways in the world as there are people. Nobody can stand in your place; even those who are standing very close to you are not standing in exactly the same place. Your angle of vision is bound to be a little bit different from the angle of vision of somebody who is standing just by your side holding your hand. No two persons can see the world in exactly the same way, it is impossible. Everybody has to move from his own place, his own space.
Osho, excerpt from The Book of Wisdom #5
Osho book recommendations on zen
Osho on Zen: A Stream of Consciousness Reader (A stream of consciousness reader)
Meditations on Zen by Osho (Osho Meditations)
Walk Without Feet, Fly Without Wings and Think Without Mind
No Water No Moon: Talks on Zen Stories
Unidentified and Silent
December 20, 2008
About meditation the masters of meditation have said mainly one thing: whatever is said is not the truth. Some pointers to the moon…
What is meditation?
Meditation is not really mind-effort. Real meditation is not effort at all. Real meditation is just allowing the mind to have its own way, and not interfering in any way whatsoever — just remaining watchful, witnessing. It silences, by and by, it becomes still. One day it is gone. You are left alone
Leaving thoughts aside
Meditation is nothing but putting the mind aside, putting the mind out of the way, and bringing a witnessing which is always there but hidden underneath the mind. This witnessing will reach to your center, and once you have become enlightened, then there is no problem. Then bring the mind in tune with you.
No concentration, no contemplation, only watching
Meditation does not mean concentration, it does not mean contemplation: it means getting beyond the mind. Concentration, contemplation, are both of the mind. Meditation means getting unidentified with the mind, seeing the mind as separate, knowing the mind as separate, witnessing the mind but not getting identified with it. Slowly slowly as witnessing grows, the distance grows between you and the mind. Soon the mind is a faraway echo, and finally you cannot even hear the echo; then you are left utterly alone.
That needs courage, hence very few people have been able to know their own selves, and very few people have been able to become Buddhas. Before one can become a Buddha, one has to pass through a death — of the mind, of the ego, of all that we think we are. We have to lose all that we think we possess, then only can we possess the eternal.
Being in silence
Meditation is not contemplation either because it is not thinking at all — consistent, inconsistent, crazy, sane. It is not thinking at all; it is witnessing. It is just sitting silently deep within yourself, looking at whatsoever is happening inside and outside both. Outside there is traffic noise, inside there is also traffic noise — the traffic in the head. So many thoughts — trucks and buses of thoughts and trains and airplanes of thoughts, rushing in every direction. But you are simply sitting aloof, unconcerned, watching everything with no evaluation.
Osho, excerpts from different sources
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
