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Part X : 1987-1990 Poona-Two : Osho's Last
discourse
On 10 April 1989, Osho gives his last discourse. This is the
first talk of a pre-scheduled series entitled 'The Awakening of
the Buddha'. Later Osho requests that this talk be included in
the book The Zen Manifesto.
In answer to a question, Osho explains how his Zen differs from
the arduous practices in some contemporary Zen monasteries.
Gerta Ital was the first Western woman to enter a Zen monastery
in Japan and work with an enlightened master. She wrote two books
which give the impression of a hard and lonely path. Being with
You is much more joyful and playful.
The traditional Zen is hard. It takes twenty to thirty years
of constant meditation, withdrawing from everywhere all your energy
and devoting it only to meditation.
That tradition comes from Gautam Buddha himself. He had to find
his enlightenment after twelve years of hard work.
I am changing it completely from the traditional Zen, because
I don't see that the contemporary man can devote twenty or thirty
years to meditation only. If Zen remains that hard, it will disappear
from the world. It has already disappeared from China, it is disappearing
from Japan, and it disappeared from India long ago. It remained
in India for only five hundred years after Gautam Buddha. In the
sixth century it reached China, remained there for only a few
centuries, and moved to Japan. And now it is almost extinct from
both China and Japan.
You will be surprised to know that my books are being taught
in the Zen monasteries. Zen masters have written letters to me:
"Perhaps now Zen will exist in India, in its original place.
It is disappearing from Japan because people are more interested
in technology, in science."
That is the situation in India too. Very few people are interested
in the inner exploration. Here you can find a few people from
every country, but these are so few compared to the five billion
human beings on the earth. Ten thousand is not a great number.
Zen has to be transformed in a way that the contemporary man
can be interested in it. It has to be easy, relaxed, it has not
to be hard. That old traditional type is no longer possible, nor
is it needed. Once it has been explored, once a single man has
become enlightened, the path becomes easy. You don't have to discover
electricity again and again. Once discovered you start using it—you
don't have to be great scientists.
The man who discovered electricity worked on it for almost twenty
years. Three hundred disciples started with him and nobody remained
because it took so long; everybody became exhausted. But the original
scientist continued….
Now, you don't have to work for thirty years to know about electricity.
Nor do you have to work thirty years for the Zen experience.
The awakening of the buddha is a very easy and relaxed phenomenon.
Now that so many people have awakened, the path has become clear-cut;
it is no longer hard and arduous. You can playfully enter inside
and joyously experience the awakening of awareness. It is not
as far away as it was for Gautam Buddha.
For Gautam Buddha it was an absolute unknown. He was searching
for it like a blind man, knowing nothing about where he was going.
But he was a man of tremendous courage, who for twelve years went
on searching, exploring every method available in his time…all
the teachers who were talking about philosophy and yoga. He went
from one teacher to another, and every teacher finally said to
him, "I can tell you only this much. More than this I don't
know myself." Finally, he remained alone, and he dropped
all yoga disciplines….
But in that ordinariness, when he had dropped everything—just
being tired and exhausted—that fullmoon night when the five
disciples left him, he slept under the bodhi tree, completely
free from this world and completely free from the very search
for that world. For the first time he was utterly relaxed: no
desire to find anything, no desire to become anything. And in
that moment of non-desiring, he suddenly awakened and became a
buddha. Buddhahood came to him in a relaxed state.
You don't have to work for twelve years, you can just start from
the relaxed state. It was the last point in Gautam Buddha's journey.
It can be the first point in your journey….
Enlightenment is such a transformation that you are a totally
different person. The old person dies away, and a totally new
awareness, a fresh bliss, a flowering, a spring which has never
been there…
It took twelve years for Gautam Buddha. It need not take even
twelve minutes for you. It is simply an art, to relax into yourself.
In the traditional Zen they are still doing whatever Buddha did
in his ignorance, and finally they drop it.
I am telling you, why not drop it right now? You can relax this
very moment! And in that relaxation you will find the light, the
awareness, the awakening.
What has happened to Gerta Ital, is not necessarily an introduction
to Zen. She has been in the company of old and traditional Zen
masters. I understand Zen to be a very simple, innocent, joyful
method. There is nothing ascetic in it, nothing life-negative—no
need to renounce the world, no need to become a monk, no need
to enter a monastery. You have to enter into yourself. That can
be done anywhere.
We are doing it in the simplest way possible. And only if Zen
becomes as simple as I am trying to make it, can the contemporary
man be interested in it. Otherwise he has so much to do—so
many things to do, so many paths to explore, so many things to
distract him.
Zen has to become such a small playful thing, that while you are
going to sleep—just before that—within five minutes
you can enter into yourself, and you can remain at the very center
of your being the whole night. Your whole night can become a peaceful,
silent awareness. Sleep will be in the body, but underneath it
there will be a current of light from the evening till the morning.
And once you know that even in sleep a certain awareness can be
present inside you, then the whole day, doing all kinds of things,
you can remain alert, conscious. Buddhahood has to be a very normal,
ordinary, simple and human affair. zenman11
Zen masters know how to live and also know how to die. They take
neither life seriously nor death seriously. Seriousness is a sick
way of looking at existence. A man of perfection will love to
live, and will love to die. His life will be a dance, and his
death will be a song. There will be no distinction between life
and death. zenman11
Our search is for the immeasurable. The measurable can be left
to the scientists. The mystics are concerned with the immeasurable.
zenman11
It is time for Sardar Gurudayal Singh.
Put the lights on! I love to see my people laughing. I am absolutely
against seriousness, but unfortunately I have to discuss serious
things. But it is good to make you first serious, then laughter
comes more easily. Then it gives a great relaxation. zenman01
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