Meditation: A Quantum Leap
Osho on Meditation
BELOVED OSHO,
WHEN HYAKUJO WAS A YOUNG BOY, HIS MOTHER TOOK HIM TO A TEMPLE, AND ENTERING, SHE BOWED TO THE BUDDHIST STATUE.
POINTING TO THE STATUE, HYAKUJO ASKED HIS MOTHER, “WHAT’S THAT?”
“THAT’S A BUDDHA,” SHE REPLIED.
HYAKUJO SAID, “HE LOOKS LIKE A MAN. I WANT TO BECOME A BUDDHA AFTERWARDS.”
MANY YEARS LATER, HYAKUJO BECAME A MONK. ONE DAY, AS ATTENDANT TO BASO, HE WENT WANDERING IN THE MOUNTAINS. ON HIS RETURN HE SUDDENLY BEGAN TO WEEP.
ONE OF HIS FELLOW MONKS SAID, “ARE YOU THINKING OF YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER?”
“NO,” SAID HYAKUJO.
“DID SOMEBODY SLANDER YOU?” ASKED THE MONK.
“NO,” ANSWERED HYAKUJO..
“THEN WHAT ARE YOU WEEPING FOR?” PERSISTED THE MONK.
“GO AND ASK THE MASTER,” SAID HYAKUJO..
THE MONK WENT AND ASKED BASO, WHO SAID, “GO AND ASK HYAKUJO.”
THE MONK CAME BACK TO THE ROOM AND FOUND HYAKUJO LAUGHING.
“YOU WERE WEEPING A LITTLE WHILE AGO; WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING NOW?” HE ASKED.
HYAKUJO SAID, “I WAS WEEPING A LITTLE WHILE AGO, AND NOW I AM LAUGHING.”
Maneesha, a few moments ago there was no rain and now it is raining. Existence is irrational. You don’t ask the rains, “Why are you raining now when you were not raining a few minutes ago?” You don’t ask the bamboos, “Why are you dancing with the rain, when you were standing like absolutely British gentlemen?” Existence is irrational. The moment you ask why you have missed the point. This anecdote is great, great also in reference to your meditations.
WHEN HYAKUJO WAS A YOUNG BOY, HIS MOTHER TOOK HIM TO A TEMPLE, AND ENTERING, SHE BOWED TO THE BUDDHIST STATUE.
POINTING TO THE STATUE, HYAKUJO ASKED HIS MOTHER, “WHAT’S THAT?”
“THAT’S A BUDDHA,” SHE REPLIED.
HYAKUJO SAID, “HE LOOKS LIKE A MAN. I WANT TO BECOME A BUDDHA AFTERWARDS.”
From a young man of twenty years, this is a great indication of a great future ahead. The stone statue of buddha cannot deceive him. At the most, it looks like a man. It is not a man: it does not breathe, it does not weep, it does not laugh. It is carved out of a stone; it is simply dead and will never laugh or cry or feel. How can it?
Hyakujo said rightly, “This certainly looks like a man; but I will not call it a Buddha, because the very word `Buddha’ means awareness and this stone is not aware. I want to become a Buddha afterwards — not like a stone statue but a dancing, singing, laughing, alive Buddha.”
A Buddha that cannot dance is not much of a Buddha. A Buddha is essential silence and being. If you can be silent this evening, the opportunity is great. The whole sky is pouring around you with a single indication: “Wake up, you have been asleep too long.” In this silence that awakening is possible. In this silence the stone Buddha can start laughing, can start dancing, can start breathing. And remember, just as Hyakujo was not ready to worship a stone buddha, I am also against all worship. The worshipper is the worshipped. You don’t have to worship anyone else. Your innermost being is the highest and the most precious, the most existential and conscious point. There is nothing higher than it. You need not worship, you can only meditate.
Remember the difference between worship and meditation. The mother was saying, “Worship, pray!” and Hyakujo, a young man, was saying, “I want to be.” Prayer is always addressed to somebody else. Prayer is not religious. Worship is not religious. Being fully aware and silent is the only way of knowing the taste of religion. This is a good opportunity. The clouds come at the right time. Listen to the message of the rain. It simply is: just be like it. In a silent space, the dance of the rain, the whisper of the bamboos… and you have come home.
MANY YEARS LATER, HYAKUJO BECAME A MONK. ONE DAY, AS ATTENDANT TO BASO, — a great master, one of the greatest after Mahakashyapa — HE WENT WANDERING IN THE MOUNTAINS. ON HIS RETURN HE SUDDENLY BEGAN TO WEEP.
Note the point, that he suddenly began to weep. There was no reason at all.
ONE OF HIS FELLOW MONKS SAID, “ARE YOU THINKING OF YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER?”
“NO,” SAID HYAKUJO.
“DID SOMEBODY SLANDER YOU?” ASKED THE MONK.
“NO,” ANSWERED HYAKUJO.
“THEN WHAT ARE YOU WEEPING FOR?” PERSISTED THE MONK.
Why? That is the question mind goes on persisting in. For the mind, everything has to be based on a certain reason, a cause. Mind does not allow anything without reason, without causality. And because of this persistence, mind misses the most essential question of your own being: why you are. You can look here and there. Perhaps somebody will tell you why you are. But nobody in the whole history of consciousness has been able to say why he is. All that you can do is shrug your shoulders: I am, there is no question of why.
Hyakujo was right in telling the monk, “GO AND ASK THE MASTER.”
THE MONK WENT AND ASKED BASO.
BASO SAID, “GO BACK AND ASK HYAKUJO.”
THE MONK CAME BACK TO THE ROOM AND FOUND HYAKUJO LAUGHING.
Now this is too much for the reasonable mind, this is absurd… Now look, the rains are trying to stop. This is not right. Just before they were at their peak and now they are becoming silent to participate in your silence. But there is no why. You cannot ask the bamboos; you cannot ask the roses; you cannot ask any living being. Life simply is. Sometimes it weeps, sometimes it laughs, and when it weeps without any reason, weeping is a tremendous cleansing. And when it laughs without reason, the laughing reaches to a deeper point in your being. Like an arrow it hits to the very heart of you and your existence.
THE MONK WENT AND ASKED BASO, WHO SAID, “GO AND ASK HYAKUJO.”
THE MONK CAME BACK TO THE ROOM AND FOUND HYAKUJO LAUGHING.
“YOU WERE WEEPING A LITTLE WHILE AGO; WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING NOW?”
The monk must have been a man of intellectual merit, a professor.
HYAKUJO SAID, “I WAS WEEPING A LITTLE WHILE AGO AND NOW I AM LAUGHING.”
What is the problem? This is what Zen calls a quantum leap: from mind to no-mind; from reason to existence; from thinking to silence — a quantum leap. Mind cannot stop asking why. But your consciousness never asks why. The acceptance of consciousness and its trust in existence is absolute and uncategorical. Have you ever asked why you are? You can ask about things… why a bicycle is or a car is. They have some utility. But what utility have you? Yes, you can rent a bicycle but that is not much of a utility. Somebody else would have done it. You cannot find a reason, wherever you search and search. The answer will be simply, “I am here without any reason.” Why is irrelevant. This I am calling the quantum leap.
Meditation is nothing but a quantum leap from continuously asking questions into drowning yourself in a pure innocence where no question arises and no answer has to be given. This is moment to moment living. This is moment to moment loving. This is the dance of the moment. This small anecdote contains the very essence of Zen. If you can understand this small anecdote, you have understood all that is worth understanding. Just be: it is your birthright. There is no question of why.
You have been here all the time and you will be here all the time. It is a wrong conception when we say: Time passes by. The reality is that you, the witness, remain always the same, never old, never young, never child, never man, never woman — just a point of light which goes on from eternity to eternity. There is no reason to ask. And anyway, whom are you going to ask? Other than you who can answer why you are here? And you have not gone deep enough into yourself to find who you are. To ask the question, you have to find yourself first. Those who have gone within themselves to find who is in have not returned back, because the further in they went, the more the ice melted; and when they reached to the innermost, they themselves were not there, only a pure space. And this pure space is the only scripture Zen will accept as holy. It is not man-made. It is not born. It knows nothing of death. It simply goes on and on, flowering in many ways, forming many houses to live in, moving from house to house, from body to body, from one species into another species. But all this movement does not leave any trace of change in your authenticity.
Hyakujo was absolutely right when he said, “I was weeping a little while ago, you are right. And now I am laughing. And who knows what is going to happen after my laughter?”
It is the very essence of Zen when I say to you about our meditation: Don’t ask why we have to go into gibberish. You have to go into gibberish because you have to go out of it. Your minds are full of gibberish and nothing else. Say everything that you ever wanted to say and have not been able to say because of civilization, education, culture, society. Here, nobody is listening: everybody is engaged in his own business. Only a few idiots may be watching what is happening. Rather than participating they are observing a phenomenal thing. But they will not know the taste when — like after all this rain a coolness comes to you — after gibberish a silence penetrates your being. Gibberish is simply throwing away all garbage. It is difficult to do it anywhere else because you will wonder what people are going to think. This is the place where nobody is thinking about you. It is your business what you are saying, what you are doing, laughing or crying or speaking Chinese without knowing it… and making gestures. Nobody has time. It is so short that everybody has to do his thing first.
When you are in gibberish, you are alone; everybody is alone, minding his own business. You don’t interfere and ask anybody, “What are you doing? What are you saying? What language?” No language, no rationality… everybody is trying to throw out the craziness. Everybody is trying to get out of the mind, out of the why. And once you are out of the mind, you are in. To be in the mind is to be out of yourself. To be out of the mind is to be in your own being.
Source:
Listen to complete discourse at mentioned below link.
Discourse Series: Zen: The Quantum Leap From Mind to No-Mind Chapter #2
Chapter title: Listen to the message of the run
12 June 1988 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium
References:
Osho has spoken on ‘gibberish, silence, meditation, Buddha, Innocence’ in many of His discourses. More on the subject can be referred to in the following books/discourses:
- The Secret
- Zen: The Quantum Leap From Mind to No-Mind
- This, This, A Thousand Times This: The Very Essence of Zen
- The Zen Manifesto: Freedom From Oneself
- The Path of the Mystic
- The Hidden Splendor
- Sermons in Stones
- Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 1, 2
- I Say Unto You, Vol 2
- The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 11, 12
- From Bondage to Freedom
- Sat Chit Anand
- Zarathustra: The Laughing Prophet
