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Part X : 1987-1990 Poona-Two : Osho emphasizes
Zen and meditation
I heard You say that our energy is based in the `hara', and that
it is expressed through the different chakras in the body.
Traditional Zen seems to emphasize Zazen as the way to come in
touch with that energy, whereas You have allowed, even encouraged,
Your disciples to have more freedom to explore the various avenues
of expression.
I am not a traditional man at all. I am untraditional in every
possible way. I am not confined to any technique.
Zen is confined, in a way, to Zazen. Zazen means just sitting
and doing nothing. It is perfectly right, but my experience of
the modern man is that the most difficult thing for him is just
sitting and doing nothing. If you ask him to go to the moon, he
can go. If you ask him to go to Everest, he can go. But just sitting?
That is the most difficult thing. Finally, you will have to come
to the point.
I have nothing to do with tradition. My Zen is absolutely untraditional.
First, I make you jump and shout and scream, and do all kinds
of gibberish. Then finally, tired, you can sit for a few moments….
I am dealing with the contemporary man, who is the most restless
being that has ever evolved on the earth. But people do become
silent; you just have to allow them to throw out their madness,
insanity, then they themselves become silent. They start waiting
for the moment when I will say, "Be silent." They become
tired of their gibberish. They also become aware that this gibberish
is there….
You have to be total, otherwise things remain inside you. You
have to empty your continuous gibberish that goes on inside, "Yakkety-yak,
yakkety-yak…" Don't do it partially. Don't be bothered
about being seen, because nobody is looking at you; everybody
is in his own insanity. This is a good time for you to say and
do anything which ordinarily you will not say….
The contemporary man is the most restless man. And I am dealing
with the contemporary man, not the dead of the past. I have to
devise ways and methods so that you can become silent. Finally,
that is the goal—Zazen. But before that you have to throw
out many things. Perhaps in the past when man was much more natural,
unrepressed…
If it is possible for a single man, it is possible for the whole
of humanity. We have just to throw out all the garbage that comes
up in our minds, in our dreams. And it affects our actions, our
attitudes, our miseries, our angers, our despair. It is better
to throw it before it affects your actions.
And that is the whole psychology behind meditation: emptying you,
creating a nothingness in you. Out of that nothingness blossoms
the ultimate joy, the ultimate bliss. zenman08
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 the whole. Is this Zazen?
Exactly. When the energy is just there—not going anywhere,
just pulsating at the original source, just radiating its light
there, blossoming like a lotus, neither going out nor going in—it
is simply here and now.
When I say go inward, I am simply saying don't go on moving in
the head.
The whole society forces your energy to move in the head. All
education consists of the basic technique of how to pulsate the
energy only in the head—how to make you a great mathematician,
how to make you a great physician. All the education in the world
consists of taking the energy into the head.
Zen asks you to come out of the head and go to the basic source—from
where the educational system around the world has been taking
the energy, putting it into the head, and turning it into thoughts,
images, and creating thinking. It has its uses. It is not that
Zen is not aware of the uses of energy in the head, but if all
the energy is used in the head, you will never become aware of
your eternity. You may become a very great thinker and philosopher,
but you will never know, as an experience, what life is. You will
never know as an experience, what it is to be one with the whole.
When the energy is just at the center, pulsating… When
it is not moving anywhere, neither in the head nor in the heart,
but it is at the very source from where the heart takes it, the
head takes it…pulsating at the very source—that is
the very meaning of Zazen.
Zazen means just sitting at the very source, not moving anywhere.
A tremendous force arises, a transformation of energy into light
and love, into greater life, into compassion, into creativity.
It can take many forms, but first you have to learn how to be
at the source. Then the source will decide where your potential
is. You can relax at the source, and it will take you to your
very potential. It does not mean that you have to stop thinking
forever, it simply means you should be aware and alert and capable
of moving into the source. When you need the head you can move
the energy into the head, and when you need to love, you can move
the energy into the heart.
But you need not think twenty-four hours. When you are not thinking
you have to relax back into your center—that keeps the Zen
man constantly content, alert, joyful. A blissfulness surrounds
him; it is not an act, it is simply radiation.
Zazen is the strategy of Zen. Literally it means just sitting.
Sitting where? Sitting at the very source. And once in a while,
if you go on sitting in the source, you can manage all mental
activities without any disturbance, you can manage all heart activities
without any difficulty. And still, whenever you have time, you
need not unnecessarily think, you need not unnecessarily feel,
you can just be.
Just being is Zazen.
And if you can just be—only for a few minutes in twenty-four
hours—that is enough to keep you alert of your buddhahood.
zenman11
Zen is your very nature; there is no way of throwing it away.
All that you can do with Zen is two things: you can remember,
or you can forget. This is the only possibility. If you forget
your nature, your buddhahood…this is the only sin in the
world of Zen: forgetfulness.
Gautam Buddha's last words on the earth have to be remembered:
sammasati. Sammasati means right remembrance. His whole life is
condensed into a single word, remembrance, as if on dying, he
is condensing all his teachings, all his scriptures into a single
word. Nobody has uttered a more significant word when dying. His
last message, his whole message: sammasati, remember. And when
you remember, there is no way to throw your consciousness away.
Zen is not a meditation. Zen is exactly sammasati—remembrance
of your ultimateness, remembrance of your immortality, remembrance
of your divineness, of your sacredness. Remembering it, and rejoicing
it, and dancing out of joy that you are rooted, so deeply rooted
in existence that there is no way for you to be worried, to be
concerned.
Existence is within you and without you—it is one whole.
zenman04
Zen has taken a few steps, but hesitantly. I tell you, whether
you want it or not, you are a buddha, you are not going to become
a buddha. It is your very essentiality. And once this is recognized,
the whole life becomes sacred, nothing is denied. This is the
new man I want to introduce into the world—the new buddha.
This manifesto is for the new buddhas. zenman04
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