...: FOR FORTY YEARS I HAVE BEEN SELLING WATER BY THE BANK OF A RIVER. HO, HO! MY LABOURS HAVE BEEN WHOLLY WITHOUT MERIT. That can be said only by a Zen master. First he says 'Selling water by the river' - where there is no need really. The river is flowing: you can simply jump into the river and drink your fill. But people are so foolish, they need somebody to sell water even by the river. Secondly he...

...Selling Water by the River...

... Osho Zen The Path of Paradox Vol 2: Selling Water by the River Main Books Headers Help Your browser does not support iframes. < Prev  Osho Zen The Path of Paradox Vol 2   Next > Selling Water by the River From: Osho Date: Fri, 22 June 1977 00:00:00 GMT Book Title: Zen: The Path of Paradox, Vol 2 Chapter #: 2 Location: am in Buddha Hall Archive Code: N.A. Short Title: N.A...

... greed the problem, Zen does not call aggression, violence, the problem. Zen calls the root problem desiring - and all other problems arise out of desiring. Cut the root, and the whole tree disappears. Question 6: OSHO, WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE EXACTLY? Selling water by the river. Master Sogaku Harada died at the age of ninety-one. At his funeral service hung a piece of calligraphy written by himself...

... selling water by the side of the river. Mm? If you are a little intelligent you can jump yourself. And finally we know all effort is meaningless, in vain. Because even if you become enlightened, nothing is gained. You were always enlightened. But this can be said only by a Zen master - the insight is so deep. Both things are profound. Nobody needs to be enlightened, because everybody is already...

... enlightened. It is such a ridiculous thing for people to keep trying to enlighten you. It is so ridiculous for me to go on enlightening you every day. And you are stubborn... and you will not become enlightened. And I go on selling the water by the river.... And you PAY for the water! And you won't look at the rivet, and the river is flowing by the side. It has always been there - before the thirst is...

... created, the river is there. Before the desire, the fulfillment. So you ask, WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE EXACTLY? Selling water by the river. Ho, ho! Generated by PreciseInfo ™ ...

... commitments. You renounce all possibilities to live, to relate, to love. They may not be fighting, but they are no more loving either. So withdrawal will bring a peace which is warless, loveless. But what is the point? You have thrown the baby with the bath-water. Love has to grow. The whole energy that goes into violence, fighting, struggle, war, has to be transformed into love. Peace in itself cannot be...

... thing to me as I have given to you."' So he went into the market and sold the seeds and kept the money. And he thought, 'When my father comes I will go to the market, purchase new seeds, and give him back better than the first.' But the third was the best. He went back into the garden and threw the seeds all over the place. After three years, when the father came back, the first son opened his...

... safe. Those seeds were all dead, stinking. And the father said, 'What! These are the seeds I have given to you? They had the possibility to bloom into flowers and give great perfume - and these seeds are stinking. These are not my seeds!' And the son said, 'Father, they are the same seeds.' The father said, 'You are a materialist.' He went to the second son. He rushed to the market, purchased seeds...

..., as far as the world of utility is concerned. You go to the market to purchase something, language is needed - it makes things easier. Language is a lubricant, it helps communication - but only in the utilitarian world. The moment you start moving towards existence... Existence has no utility, it is not something that you can buy or sell. Existence is non-utilitarian, existence is purposeless...

... so big, and language is so small. And then - it will look very paradoxical - truth is so subtle, and language is so gross. From both sides, language misses it. On one side, truth is so big and language is so small. On another plane, from another side, truth is so subtle and language is so gross. It is as if you throw a net in the river to catch fish. The fish is caught, but the water is not caught...

.... When you withdraw the net you may get a few fish, but you don't get water - water escapes. Water is more subtle. Your net cannot catch water, it catches fish; the bigger the better - smaller fish will escape out of it. And water is very very liquid and elusive - it escapes. So, paradoxically, truth is infinite on one hand. On another hand, truth is subtlest, the smallest - the indivisible, the atomic...

.... That's what we are doing, scratching the shoe. Something else is itching. We have to go direct to reality. Even this small layer of the shoe is enough to prevent you. And language is a BIG layer. EVERY NIGHT THE MOON'S REFLECTION IS IN THE STREAM BUT IF YOU TRY TO FIND THE SPOT WHERE IT TOUCHES THE WATER YOU CANNOT FIND EVEN A SHADOW. These words are from a Zen master, Takuan. He says so it is with...

... being, a deadness. Dust will settle in you. You will be like dormant water - stagnant, not moving; you will not be fresh like a river. Even if you are silent, even if you are peaceful, you will be dead. Yes, stars will be reflected in you, but you will not be going to the ocean. The river is more alive. But I am not saying that people who are in the marketplace are going to know God just by being in...

... be not of it. Be a lotus flower - remain in the water but don't be touched by it. Then there is beauty and there is grace, and life enriches you. Because life is nothing but God, manifest in many many ways. Then life is no more taken as a distraction, but as an opportunity to grow, as a challenge. Don't think of life as a distraction, but as a challenge. When somebody insults you, you can think he...

...... you are asking the wrong question to the wrong man. Yes, somebody has passed. I have heard somebody's footsteps, I have seen somebody passing. But to say whether she was a man or a woman is difficult, because I was not looking for a man or a woman.' Unless you look for, how can you see? Have you not watched it happening to you some time? One day you are in the market, and somebody comes and says...

... and blue feathers immediately caught her attention as the pick of the bunch. Curiously enough, the shopkeeper seemed reluctant to sell it. 'I don't think he's really Madam's sort of parrot,' he explained evasively. 'Why on earth not?' 'He doesn't come from a very nice home. Now, if Madam would care to step this way, I think I have just the bird....' 'But I don't like any of those, I want this one...

... himself. Gurdjieff believed in that very much. And there is every possibility that Judas was simply following orders from Jesus - to betray him, to go and sell him to the enemies. And that looks more logical. Because howsoever bad the man Judas may have been, just to sell Jesus for thirty rupees?... seems too much. And Judas had been with Jesus long, and he was the most intelligent disciple of all. He...

... was the only educated one, he was the only one who can be called an intellectual. In fact he was more knowledgeable than Jesus himself. He was the pundit around Jesus. It seems too much, just for thirty silver coins selling Jesus. No. And do you know what happened? When Jesus was crucified, Judas committed suicide - the next day. Christians don't talk about that much, but it has to be talked about...

.... Why did he commit suicide? Finished is his work - he should go with the master. A man who can sell his master for thirty rupees, can you think of him feeling so guilty that he should commit suicide? Impossible. Why should he bother? No, he had simply followed an order from the master. He could not say no - that was part of surrender. He had to say yes. If some day I tell you, 'Kill me,' you have to...

... stay. Try. That's what people try sometimes - they try to keep one word in the mind. For example, they want to keep one sound AUM in the mind. For a few seconds they remember, and then it is gone, slipped. Again they are thinking of their market, of their wife, of their children.... Suddenly they become aware - where is that AUM? It has slipped . Guests are guests - they have not come to stay there...

... same place.' When you are speaking, there is also something silent in you. When you are lusting, there is something beyond lust. When you are desiring, there is somebody who is not desiring at all. Watch it, and you will find it. Yes, you are very close, and yet you are very different. You meet, and yet you don't meet. You meet like water and oil; the separation remains. The host comes very close to...

... all. Then you ARE in yourself. Then for the first time the host is alone and there is no guest. It is very good sometimes to be alone without any guest, because then you can see into your hostness more closely, more carefully. The guests create turmoil, the guests create noise, and they come and demand your attention. And they say, 'Do this, and hot water is needed, and where is the breakfast? and...

..., divided - it will be more schizophrenic, it will be more split. When you are total - so total that the action is all, and there is no actor behind it - then grace, then a new beauty, a new benediction, enters into your life. You go on living the same way - that's what Zen goes on emphasizing. You still carry water from the well, you still chop wood, you still cook food - but with what serenity, with...

... may be called love, your play may be called politics, your play may be called money. You may be playing in the market, or in New Delhi or in Washington - but if you are still playing then you are childish. If you are still involved in games and taking games very seriously - taking games so seriously that you are ready to fight, kill or be killed - then you are very childish, you are not a grown-up...

..., you still chop wood, you still carry water - but with great serenity. You still laugh, you still love - but with a totally different quality. Now nothing matters. If the woman leaves you, you say good-bye with great gratitude. If your money is stolen, you say, 'Okay, somebody must have needed it.' You are not serious any more, that's all. That seriousness has disappeared. You still continue to play...

...The Bridge but not the Water Flows...

... Osho Zen The Path of Paradox Vol 2: The Bridge but not the Water Flows Main Books Headers Help Your browser does not support iframes. < Prev  Osho Zen The Path of Paradox Vol 2   Next > The Bridge but not the Water Flows From: Osho Date: Fri, 30 June 1977 00:00:00 GMT Book Title: Zen: The Path of Paradox, Vol 2 Chapter #: 10 Location: am in Buddha Hall Archive Code: N.A...

... HANDLESS HOLD THE HOE. A PEDESTRIAN WALKS, RIDING ON A WATER BUFFALO. A MAN PASSES OVER THE BRIDGE; THE BRIDGE BUT NOT THE WATER FLOWS. And he went out of the palace and never came again. This is absurd, what he says - THE HANDLESS HOLD THE HOE. How can the handless hold anything? But that is how it is happening. That which abides in you is handless, and is holding all kinds of things. God is handless...

..., and is supporting the whole world. And you are handless in your innermost being - you don't have hands or legs or a head, you are formless. But you are holding a thousand and one things. A PEDESTRIAN WALKS, RIDING ON A WATER BUFFALO. He says: A man is sitting on the water buffalo and still walking. He is saying: God is taking you, you are riding on him - and still you think you have the...

... will carry my bag on my head.' Zen says the doer, the only doer, is God - or TATHATA, or Tao. You unnecessarily have become doers. Riding on a water buffalo, and you are walking - unnecessarily walking, and the water buffalo is carrying you. The rivet is taking you, and unnecessarily you are swimming. Relax! A MAN PASSES OVER THE BRIDGE; THE BRIDGE BUT NOT THE WATER FLOWS. This is tremendously...

... beautiful. Very paradoxical - THE BRIDGE BUT NOT THE WATER FLOWS. Zen people say the body is a bridge; you pass through the body. You are like water - liquid, ungraspable, formless. You pass through the body; you don't change. The water flows not, your water of life flows not. And the bridge goes on flowing - your body goes on changing every day. One day it was a child, another day it became young, then...

..., and goes on getting the new from food, from water, from air - goes on replacing. The body is a river-like flow. But the body is the bridge; you are the passer. You don't flow, the body flows - the bridge flows, the water does not flow. These paradoxical statements are of tremendous value - you can find them in all the world mystics: in Eckhart, in Kabir, in Dadu, in Boehme, and more so in the Zen...

... gardener pays attention. If the gardener pays special attention to one tree, other trees will not grow as fast as that one tree will grow. You can experiment yourself - it is not a big problem, you need not have a big lab for it. You just choose ten plants of the same size and pay attention to one. Give water to everybody, give manure to everybody - but pay attention to one. Sometimes caress that plant...

... just by keeping your eyes open and sitting silently and never taking a risk, you are not going to go anywhere. You will simply die there. You are not living, you are vegetating. Move! Life is movement, life is a river. If the river hesitates it will become a pond. And a pond is a dead thing, and a pond naturally becomes dirty. And sooner or later the pond will become dry, the water will evaporate...

... movement, every touch, was painful, but he told them not to worry about that. He was suffering from cancer - he had a throat cancer, very painful. Even to drink water was impossible, to eat anything was impossible, to move his head was impossible. Even to say a few words was very difficult. He sat with one of the attendants supporting his head. A doctor began to give him oxygen, but with a wave of his...

... consciousness, go into it. The Abbot, under the impact of these words, abruptly entered a state of silent identification. He then did obeisance and said: 'It is like a man who drinks water. He knows in himself whether it is cold or warm.' Now he cannot answer; he himself cannot answer. He has tasted, he has known who he was, and who he is, and who he will be - but now he cannot say anything about it. It is...

... unutterable, it is ineffable. He says only one thing: 'Sir, it is like a man who drinks water. He knows in himself whether it is cold or warm. Now I know, but I cannot tell you.' So knows Hui-neng, but he cannot tell. So knows Buddha, but he cannot tell. So know I - but I cannot tell what exactly it is. One thing I can say, but that will be always negative: It is neither life nor death. It is neither time...

... nor space. It is neither body nor mind. It is neither the visible nor the invisible. It is neither good nor bad. It is neither God nor Devil. I can only negate, I can only say that which it is not. But what it is, you will have to drink. Only when a man drinks water, he knows... whether it is cold or warm. Question 5: OSHO, WOULD YOU NOT LIKE TO SAY SOMETHING TO ME? The question is from Anand Fareed...

... the brain-fluid was just pure ice-water - he drank it. And it was so - when he thought it was pure ice-water, it was pure ice-water; and when he thought it was a silver bowl, it was a silver bowl. You live in your projections. Happy, he thanked Buddha and fell asleep. In the morning when the sun was rising, he opened his eyes. He wanted to see the silver bowl that had saved his life... and it was a...

... human skull. BITS OF FLESH FRINGING THE BARE BONE STILL, SHOWED THAT THE SKULL MUST HAVE BEEN FULL OF LIFE UNTIL QUITE RECENTLY. Disgusting. BESIDES, THE HOLLOW OF IT HELD WHAT SEEMED TO BE BRAIN-FLUID... nauseating... SWIMMING THICK WITH MAGGOTS LIKE DIRTY GREY THOUGHTS. You can think of that man, that poor man. He vomited. Now it was no more a silver bowl, and it was no more pure ice-water. He...