Story:Will I get Mukti?

Emperor Wu asked, “What is the source of this creation?”
Bodhi Dharma looked at him, laughed, and said, “What kind of foolish question is that? Ask something else.”

Emperor Wu was extremely offended. He had a whole list of questions to ask Bodhi Dharma, questions that he thought were deep and profound. He had held many debates and discussions about this particular question, and now this fool of a boy who came from nowhere just dismissed it as a foolish question. He was offended and angry but he contained himself and said, “Okay, I will ask you a second question. What is the source of my existence?”

Now Bodhi Dharma laughed even louder and said, “This is an utterly stupid question. Ask something else.” If the emperor had asked about the weather in India or about Bodhi Dharma’s health, Bodhi Dharma would have answered. But this man was asking, “What is the source of creation? What is the source of who I am?” He brushed this off.

It was Bodhi Dharma who brought Zen to China.
Now Emperor Wu became really angry but he contained himself and asked the third question. He made a list of all the good things that he had done in his life – how many people he had fed, how many things he had done, all the charity that he had given and finally he said, “To spread the dharma, to spread Buddha’s message, I have built so many meditation halls, hundreds of gardens, and trained thousands of translators. I have made all these arrangements. Will I get mukti?”

Now Bodhi Dharma became serious. He stood up and glared down at the emperor with his huge big eyes and said, “What? You! Mukti? You will burn in the seventh hell.”

What he meant was, according to the Buddhist way of life, there are seven layers of the mind. Instead of just doing what is needed, if a man does something and then keeps accounts of it, “How much I have done for somebody,” he is in the lowest level of the mind and he will inevitably suffer because he is expecting people to be nice to him in return for his deeds. If they are not nice to him, he will be mentally tortured and it will be a seventh hell.

http://blog.ishafoundation.org/yoga-meditation/history-of-yoga/bodhidharma/

Neither he nor anybody else dies!

HOW CAN ONE COME TO KNOW THAT NEITHER HE NOR ANYBODY ELSE DIES?

OSHO : There is no other way except to die.

This moment life is there – live it. That is the training for death. Otherwise when you are dead you will ask What is life? When you are asking 'what is death?' and whether the same continues to be after death or not, know that you are alive missing the possibility, the opportunity, to know what life is.

I will tell you one secret don't tell it to anybody, and if you do tell, please tell them not to tell anybody else. People who are alive, they come to me and they ask, What is death? And ghosts also come to me and they ask, What is life?

Please, while you are alive live it well so that when you become a ghost you need not go to a Master and ask: What is life? And if you can know life you will be able to know death, because knowing is the thing. If you have the capacity to know life you will have the capacity to know death.

Knowing should be developed, that's what Lao Tzu goes on saying – not knowledge but knowing. And remember, if you ask me, and if I say Yes, you will survive death, that will be knowledge for you, not knowing.

And I am not here to help you become more knowledgeable. That would be a sin and I would suffer for it. I am here to make you more knowing; not to give you information but just to give you a situation in which you grow and your being flowers.

Don't bother about death. Right now you are alive, so alive. Live life, so that you can know it. If you can know life you have already known death because death is the innermost core of life.

A child is born. You think he will die after seventy years? Then you are wrong. A child is born, he brings his death within him at the innermost core of his being. It takes seventy years for him to discover that core. It takes seventy years for that core to spread all over him, then one day suddenly he disappears.

Death is nothingness within you, nothing else, just nothingness within you. A beautiful phenomenon! Life is beautiful, but it is nothing compared to death. Death is tremendously beautiful. Thousands and thousands of lives are nothing before death because death is the very crescendo. It is nothingness.

In deep meditation you will realize what nothingness is. You will come across death, and that is the only way to know it – come across it.

So if when meditating deeply one day suddenly you feel that you are going to die – don't get scared. Die! Let go. Let it happen. And death would have happened, and you would have remained a witness. Death will be all around and you will be hovering over it, and knowing it. But let it be a knowing not a knowledge.

http://www.baytallaah.com/osholibrary/reader.php?endpos=66028&page=31&book=Tao%20-%20The%20Three%20Treasures,%20Vol%203

Is there any proof for GOD ?

OSHO : I AM. You are. Everybody is. God is nothing but the totality. The trees are, the rivers are, the mountains are. These are the proofs. The sun rises in the morning and the moon is in the night, and the stars. These are the proofs. The flowers and the butterflies and the grass, these are the proofs.

God is not a syllogism. God is not a conclusion. God is an experience of beauty, of truth, of good, of consciousness. Where are you looking for the proofs? Your very being is the only proof. The seeker is the sought. God resides in you as you. God is a tree in a tree and a dog in a dog and a man in a man. God is all these things. God is this whole.

But you want an intellectual conclusion; you will go on missing God. There is no proof – in that sense there is no proof. There has never been a proof in that sense. And the people who have been supplying proofs for God simply don't know what they are doing. The people who have tried to argue for God are the people who don't know God. Otherwise they wouldn't argue. It is better to sing if you know God, it is better to dance if you know God, it is better to laugh if you know God. It is better to weep, cry, if you know God, rather than to argue.

Philosophers have been arguing about God, for and against, both. And philosophers are the farthest from God. Because the more you become entangled inwards, the more you become obsessed with theories, systems of thought, the farther away you are from life itself. And God is life.

OSHO

http://www.osho.com/online-library-sense-question-proofs-3a96e578-bbd.aspx

Innocence is Divine

Osho : Zen has no value system. Zen only brings one thing into the world: understanding, awareness. Through awareness comes innocence. And innocence is innocent of good and bad, both. Innocence is simply innocence – it knows no distinction.

The last story. It is about Ryokan – the same master I was talking about a few days before, who burned the roof to save the bamboo shoot. Ryokan was a great lover of children. As might be expected of such a character as he was, he himself was a child. He was the child Jesus speaks about. He was so innocent that it was almost unbelievable that a man can be so innocent. He had no cunning, no cleverness. He was so innocent that people used to think that he was a little mad.

He liked to play with children. He played hide-and-seek, he played tamari, hand-ball, too. One evening it was his turn to hide, and he hid himself well under a straw stack in the field. It was growing darker and the children, not being able to locate him, left the field. Early in the following morning, a farmer came and had to remove the straw stack to begin his work. Finding Ryokan there, he exclaimed, ’Oh Ryokan-sama! What are you doing here?’

The master answered, ’Hush! Don’t talk so loud, the children will find me.’

The whole night under that straw he is waiting for the children! Such innocence is Zen. And such innocence is divine. Such innocence knows no distinctions between good and bad, knows no distinctions between this world and that, knows no distinction between this and that. Such innocence is what suchness is. And this suchness is the innermost core of religion.

http://www.osho.com/library/online-library-innocent-ryokan-children-d524df86-020.aspx

Moon Viewing

A haiku by Sodo:

AFTER THE MOON-VIEWING,

MY SHADOW WALKING HOME

ALONG WITH ME.

AFTER THE MOON-VIEWING ... A full moon -- that has become traditional in Zen. On the full-moon night the Zen seekers don't sleep, they walk into the mountains where the moon has made waterfalls look as if silver is falling, where the moon has made the whole surroundings a dream.

Sodo says, AFTER THE MOON-VIEWING... This is called moon-viewing; it is a tremendously aesthetic experience.

MY SHADOW WALKING HOME

ALONG WITH ME.

Such silence. Nobody is with me, just my shadow walking along with me. After seeing this whole beautiful world, when you enter into your home nobody will be with you, not even your shadow. Your aloneness will be total.

Every meditation is a preparation for enjoying the aloneness which is our nature.
OSHO

http://www.messagefrommasters.com/Beloved_Osho_Books/Zen/The_Language_of_Existence.pdf

Lotus Paradise

A fictitious story is connected with the China Wall. There is a place in the China Wall where it is said that if you stand there and look at the other side, you simply give a good laughter and jump, you never return. Many people tried but they simply laughed and jumped. And it is one hundred feet high, a mountainous terrain.

The fiction became so much of a reality that the government had to put soldiers there to prevent people from looking from that place. Nobody could explain it. What happens? Why do they simply laugh? What do they see? And then without saying anything to anybody, they simply jump.

I don't think it is a historical fact but I understand it as mythological, and a very beautiful phenomenon. When you look in, you are looking into a tremendous nothingness. And all that the mystics have done is, they have given a laugh and jumped. They have simply said goodbye and jumped.

It is so enchanting, so magnetically pulling; the gravitation is so much that once you look in, you cannot resist taking the jump. It is risky, it is dangerous, you may be lost. But on the contrary, you find yourself for the first time. You were lost before; hence the laughter. And now you have come home, which was just looking inwards, and everything that you ever wanted is fulfilled. You have entered the lotus paradise.

Look within and take a jump!

Then go forward.
OSHO

http://www.osho.com/library/online-library-tamerlane-daio-china-5fedd269-7e5.aspx

Story:Bodhidharma

The Chinese emperor Wu came to receive Bodhidharma; his fame had reached before him. But the emperor could not understand the ways of Zen.

The emperor Wu had come from far away, from his capital to the border of China, to receive Bodhidharma. He was shocked at what he saw, because Bodhidharma was carrying one shoe on his head and one shoe was on his foot.

The emperor was a very sophisticated man; he had a great court of very cultured people. This kind of behaviour... but just because of his sophistication and culture he could not say anything about it. He was not yet even introduced. He avoided seeing the shoe sitting on Bodhidharma’s head.

The emperor asked – because he was the man who had made thousands of Buddha statues in China, had brought one thousand scholars from India to translate in combination with Chinese scholars all the Buddhist scriptures into Chinese. He had done much and converted the whole country into a land of Buddha. Obviously the monks used to say to him, ”You have accumulated too much virtue. All these virtuous acts... immense is going to be your reward in the other world.” So he asked Bodhidharma, ”I have done all these things; what is going to be my reward?”

Bodhidharma said, ”You idiot! You will fall directly into hell. You are asking for a reward? The very idea of reward is of greed. The very idea of achieving something is not a reflection of your wisdom.”

The emperor was shocked, his court was shocked – but how to get away now? This man is not the right man to bring into the country. Still he asked another question, did not take any note of the insulting language that Bodhidharma had used. He said, ”Your Holiness...” and he could not complete his sentence.

Bodhidharma said, ”There is nothing holy, nothing unholy. All is empty, just pure nothingness. These divisions of the mind, the sacred and the profane, the holy and the unholy, the saint and the sinner, do not exist as you enter into deeper meditations. All divisions disappear. So don’t call me ‘your holiness’; I have left behind that kind of childish language of being holy, of being unholy. Be straightforward.”

The king said, ”My mind continuously remains cluttered with thoughts. I have been reading the Buddhist scriptures, and they all say that unless you are thoughtless and yet perfectly aware you will not find the truth.”

Bodhidharma said unexpectedly – he was a very unexpected man, you could not have predicted his behavior – he said, ”If that is the problem, come early in the morning. I am not entering China, I am going to live outside in this small temple. You can come early in the morning, at three o’clock. But come alone – no courtiers, no guards, no arms. Just come alone, and I will put all your thoughts aside from your mind. I will bring silence to your mind.”

The emperor was very much afraid. This man seems to be almost insane. The whole night he could not sleep, was hanging between whether to go or not to go, alone and that man is so mad, keeping one shoe on his head, calling me ‘idiot,’ and he has a big staff and he has told me not to bring any arms. He can do anything: he may hit me, he may throw a rock” – he thought all kinds of things.

But by the time of going he felt a great pull: ”Whatever he said, however he behaved, he has a tremendous presence and a great magnetic pull. I will risk it.”

He went to the temple, and Bodhidharma was waiting for him. Bodhidharma said, ”It is a very simple matter. You just sit here and I am sitting in front of you. You see my staff – if I feel that some thought is stubborn and is not leaving you, I will hit your head. Your work is only to watch your thoughts without any judgment. Just be a witness.”

The emperor thought, ”Perhaps I have taken a wrong step. This man can hit any moment, because my mind is full of thoughts. But let us try, now that I have come. It will look very cowardly to go away.” So he sat before Bodhidharma, just watching his thoughts.

The watching of the thoughts implies no judgment, no appreciation, no identification. Just watch as you watch the crowd passing on the road, or you watch the clouds moving in the sky – with no judgment. Your mind is only a screen. A few clouds are moving; you simply watch. You are the watcher, and everything else in the world is the watched.

As the morning sun was rising the whole aura of the emperor changed. Just within two hours there was no thought left. Witnessing is such a fire, the only fire that can bring you to your truth, that can burn all your falsity, all your phoniness. Bodhidharma saw the changing face, a new grace arising. He shook the emperor and asked him, ”Is there any thought anymore?”

The emperor fell at his feet and told him, ”You certainly did it! I pray you, don’t leave China. All those scholars and monks and priests are simply parrots. They go on talking about witnessing and watching, but you have given me the experience. Without teaching me about witnessing you have simply made me a witness. I don’t need anything anymore.”

The moment you find your witness, you have found your ultimate eternal being. That is your purest consciousness. That makes you a buddha, and it is everybody’s potential.

- Osho

http://www.osho.com/library/online-library-bodhidharma-maulingaputta-years-6452f5c7-4b6.aspx

Religiousness

Whenever you are depressed, wait for the moment that the depression goes. Nothing lasts forever; the depression will go. And when it leaves you, wait — be aware and alert — because after the depression, after the night, there will be a dawn and the sun will rise. If you can be alert in that moment. you will he happy that you were depressed. You will be grateful that you are depressed because only through your depression was this mint of happiness possible.

When depressed, be depressed. Simply be depressed. Don’t get depressed about your depression. When depressed, simply be depressed. Don’t fight it, don’t create any diversion, don’t force it to go. Just allow it to happen; it will go by itself. Life is a flux; nothing remains the same. You are not needed; the river moves by itself, you don’t have to push it. If you are trying to push it, you are simply foolish. The river flows by itself. Allow it to flow.

When depression is there, allow it to be. Don’t get depressed about it. If you want to remove it sooner, you will get depressed. If you fight it, you will create a secondary depression that is dangerous. The first depression is beautiful, God-given. The second depression is your own. It is not God-given; it is mental. Then you will move in mental grooves. They are infinite.

If you get depressed, be happy that you are depressed and allow the depression to be. Then suddenly the depression will disappear and there will be a breakthrough. No clouds will be there and the sky will be clear. For a single moment, heaven opens for you. If you are not depressed about your depression you can contact, you can commune, you can enter this heavenly gate. And once you know it, you have learned one of the ultimate laws of life: that life uses the opposite as a teacher, as a back-ground.

Nothing is wrong; everything is for the good. This is what I call a religious attitude. You may not believe in God — that makes no difference. Buddha never believed in God. Mahavir never believed in God but they were religious. There is no need to believe in an afterlife no need. You can still be religious. There is no need even to believe in a soul. You can be religious without believing in it. Then what is religion? Religion means this trust: that everything is for the good. This trust that everything is for the good is a religious mind; this is religiousness.
-Osho

http://www.osho.com/library/online-library-ecstasy-mahavira-depression-9a67815e-908.aspx

Temporary Guests

Takuan wrote:

INVITED BY OUR PARENTS,

WE CAME HERE

AS TEMPORARY GUESTS,

AND WITHOUT REMAINING MIND,

WE GO BACK TO OUR NATIVE PLACE.

In a small haiku he is describing the whole of life. A child comes invited by the parents as a guest in the world, stays here some time, and again moves into the unknown universality, just as a wave arises and disappears in the ocean. This much is our so-called life.

If you understand it, you become humble, you become utterly peaceful. You know that you are just a guest here; there is no need to possess anything, there is no need to cling to anything. Everything will be left behind and you will be gone. The tidal wave of death will be coming and will clean the shore of all the signatures that you have been making.
OSHO

http://www.energyenhancement.org/zen/Zen-The-Language-of-Existence-Chapter-3-Seek-nothing-outside.html

Where can we find Happiness

WHERE CAN ONE ALWAYS FIND HAPPINESS?

OSHO : See the dictionary under the letter 'h' – only there will you find happiness always. In life things are very mixed up. Day and night are together, so are happiness and unhappiness. Life and death are together, so is everything. Life is rich because of polar opposites. The very idea that one would like to be happy forever is stupid. The very idea will create only unhappiness and nothing else. You will become more and more miserable because more and more you will be missing your so-called eternal happiness. Your greed is too much.

Then who is the happy person? The happy person is not one who is always happy. The happy person is one who is happy even when there is unhappiness. Try to understand it. The happy person is one who understands life and accepts its polarities. He knows success is possible only because failure is also possible. So when failure comes he accepts it.

Things are interdependent: failure/success, happiness/unhappiness, summer/winter, youth/old age, beauty/ugliness – all are interdependent, they exist together. And the man who starts seeking one pole against the other pole is getting into unnecessary trouble. It is not possible, he is desiring the impossible; and he will get very frustrated.

Then what should the attitude be? When happiness comes, enjoy happiness; when unhappiness comes, enjoy unhappiness. When there is happiness, dance with it; when there is unhappiness, cry with it. That's what I mean when I say 'Enjoy'. Unhappiness is a must. If you can accept unhappiness as smoothly as you welcome happiness, you will transcend both. In that very acceptance is transcendence. Then unhappiness and happiness will not make much difference to you, you will remain the same. When there is sadness you will have a taste of it; and when there is joy you will have a taste of it. And sometimes bitter things also taste beautiful.

And sadness has something of depth in it which no happiness can ever have. Happiness has something shallow. Laughter always looks shallow, tears always look deep. If you want to be happy always you will become a shallow person, a superficial person. Sometimes it is good to fall into the depths, dark depths, dismal depths of sadness. Both are good. And one should be total in both. Whatsoever happens, go totally into it. When crying, become the crying, and when dancing, become the dance. Then the ultimate happens to you. By and by you forget the distinction between what happiness is and what unhappiness is. You enjoy both! So by and by the distinction disappears. And when the distinction has disappeared, there arises something which is eternally there, which remains always there. That is witnessing, that is SAKSHIN. And Sufis say that if you can become a witness of all that happens to you, you have arrived home.
-Osho

http://oshotimes.blog.osho.com/2012/05/happiness-is-not-always/