eBook ISBN: 978-0-88050-090-6

      Preface

      Zen is not a philosophical approach toward life. It is an existential approach, and it has helped tremendously; it has brought many people to awakening. Zen does not believe in analyzing a problem because it does not believe that any problem can be solved at its own level. No problem can be solved unless your consciousness is raised a little higher than the problem. This has to be understood; this is something very fundamental.

      You ask me a question. I can answer it, but you remain on the same level of consciousness. My answer cannot raise your consciousness. You ask, “Does God exist?” I can say yes or no – but you remain the same! Whether I say yes or no, it will not help you in any way to become more conscious. It will not give you more being; it will only give you more knowledge this way or that.

      If you are an atheist and you ask, “Is there a God?” and I say no, you will feel very happy. You will say, “So I was right.” Or if I say yes, you will say, “This man is wrong. He does not know anything. He is just a blind person. I have argued, I have looked into the matter deeply, and I can’t find any proof for God.”

      Whether I say yes or no, whether you are a theist or an atheist, either you will accumulate the knowledge, receive it if it fits with you, or if it doesn’t fit with you, you will reject it. That’s what you are doing continuously in your mind. But your consciousness is not raised, and unless your consciousness is raised, no problem can be solved. In the first place the problem is created because of your consciousness, and it cannot be solved by any answer; it can only be solved by helping your consciousness to rise a little higher.

      That’s the work of Zen. It is not a transfer of knowledge; it is a transfer of consciousness, being.

      Osho, Take It Easy

      Chapter: 1

       The Great Miracle of Zen

      Ascending to the high seat, Dogen Zenji said: “Zen master Hogen studied with Keishin Zenji. Once Keishin Zenji asked him, ‘Joza, where do you go?’

       Hogen said. ‘I am making pilgrimage aimlessly.’

       Keishin said, ‘What is the matter of your pilgrimage?’

       Hogen said, ‘I don’t know.’

       Keishin said, ‘Not knowing is the most intimate.’

       Hogen suddenly attained great enlightenment.”

      Zen is just Zen. There is nothing comparable to it. It is unique. Unique in the sense that it is the most ordinary and yet the most extraordinary phenomenon that has happened to human consciousness. It is the most ordinary because it does not believe in knowledge, it does not believe in mind. It is not a philosophy, not a religion either. It is the acceptance of ordinary existence with a total heart, with one’s total being; not desiring some other world, supra-mundane, supra-mental. It has no interest in any esoteric nonsense, no interest in metaphysics at all. It does not hanker for the other shore; this shore is more than enough. Zen’s acceptance of this shore is so tremendous, that through that very acceptance it transforms this shore – and this very shore becomes the other shore.

      This very body the buddha, this very earth the lotus paradise.

      Hence Zen is ordinary. It does not want you to create a certain kind of spirituality, a certain kind of holiness. All that it asks is to live your life with immediacy, spontaneity. Then the mundane becomes the sacred.

      The great miracle of Zen is in the transformation of the mundane into the sacred. It is tremendously extraordinary because in this way life has never been approached before, in this way life has never been respected before.

      Zen goes beyond Buddha and beyond Lao Tzu. It is a culmination, a transcendence of both the Indian genius and the Chinese genius. The Indian genius reached its highest peak in Gautama the Buddha and the Chinese genius reached its highest peak in Lao Tzu. The meeting of the essence of Buddha’s teaching and the essence of Lao Tzu’s teaching merged into one stream, so deeply that no separation is possible now. Even to make a distinction between what belongs to Buddha and what to Lao Tzu is impossible. The merger is so total. It is not only a synthesis, it is an integration. Out of this meeting Zen was born. Zen is neither Buddhist nor Taoist and yet both.

      To call Zen “Zen Buddhism” is not right, it is far more. Buddha is not as earthly as Zen. Lao Tzu is tremendously earthly, but Zen is not only earthly. Its vision transforms the earth into heaven. Lao Tzu is earthly, Buddha is unearthly: Zen is both – and in being both it becomes the most extraordinary phenomenon.

      The future of humanity will come closer and closer to the approach of Zen. This is because the meeting of East and West is possible only through something like Zen, which is earthly and yet unearthly. The West is very earthly, the East is very unearthly. Who will become the bridge? Buddha cannot be the bridge. He is so essentially Eastern, the very flavor of the East, the very fragrance of the East, uncompromising. Lao Tzu cannot be the bridge. He is too earthly. China has always been very earthly: more part of the Western psyche than of the Eastern psyche.

      It is not by accident that China is the first country in the East to turn communist, to become materialist; to believe in a godless philosophy, to believe that man is only matter and nothing else. This is not just accidental. China has been earthly for almost five thousand years; it is very Western. Hence Lao Tzu cannot become the bridge: he is more like Zorba the Greek. And Buddha is so unearthly you cannot even catch hold of him. How can he become the bridge?

      When I look all around, Zen seems to be the only possibility, because in Zen, Buddha and Lao Tzu have become one. The meeting has already happened. The seed is there, the seed of that great bridge which can make East and West one. Zen will be the meeting-point. It has a great future, a great past and a great future.

      The miracle is that