Zen master Hogen used to tell his disciples that meditation is like a man hanging by his teeth from a tree growing at the edge of a high cliff. His hands clutch no branch, his feet find no support. And just then, another man standing by the cliff asks, “Why did Bodhidharma come from India to China?”
If he does not answer, he will be lost; if he answers, he will die. What is he to do?
And is meditation truly such an impossible discipline that the Upanishads call it walking on a razor’s edge?
The discipline of meditation is difficult, but not impossible; yet the expression of meditation is impossible. Doing meditation is easy. Saying what meditation is—that is extremely difficult, almost impossible. Because meditation is such an inner experience that words cannot reveal it. Whoever tries to reveal it in words immediately discovers: what I wanted to say has not been said; what should not have been said is what the words carry. The essential remains inside, and only empty, hollow words go out—lifeless!
To do meditation is not so hard, but to communicate what is known in meditation to one who has never meditated—this is nearly impossible.
This story is not about the difficulty of meditation; it is about the difficulty of telling meditation.
It is a very delightful story. A man hangs from a tree by gripping a leaf with his teeth. His mouth is his only support; by it he hangs from the tree. Below is a terrifying abyss. One slip—and he is gone! And there, someone asks him, “Why did Bodhidharma come from India to China?”
First, understand the question: in the Zen tradition this is a technical question, a koan. Some fourteen hundred years ago a most extraordinary man went from India to China. His name was Bodhidharma. Of all who have gone out of India, no one more unique has ever left its shores.
Why did Bodhidharma go to China? Zen masters keep asking this. It is a riddle. Bodhidharma had deep reasons. He had a treasure he wanted to give; but he found no one ready to receive it. Compelled, he went to China to search, in the hope that perhaps someone there would be found.
A treasure cannot be given to all. Diamonds can be given only to connoisseurs; otherwise they’ll be thrown away and lost. To those who don’t know, a diamond is only a stone—something to play with, and soon to be lost.
The treasure of meditation is invisible; it is very hard to find a connoisseur for it. And to those not ready to receive, there is no way to give. Only those whose heart-doors are utterly open can preserve such a treasure.
So Bodhidharma knocked on many doors, and discovered how hard it was to find a man. And you may wonder: in a country like India, where the tradition of meditation is so ancient that nowhere in the world is there a longer one—could Bodhidharma not find a single person to whom he could pass the treasure of meditation? Hence the question: why did Bodhidharma go to China?
There were reasons. Precisely because India had a very ancient spiritual treasure, India had lost it. Some treasures are such that unless you renew them daily, you lose them. Some treasures rot when they get old. Some treasures vanish the moment you become assured you have them.
India’s tradition of meditation is exceedingly ancient. It goes beyond history—prehistoric. In Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, ruins that scientists say are about seven thousand years old, statues have been found in meditative postures. Seven thousand years ago, someone in Harappa and Khajuraho was meditating.
Then why could Bodhidharma not find a single buyer in India? Because the tradition had grown so old, the words so well-rehearsed, the scriptures so memorized, that people came to know about meditation—and forgot meditation itself. Knowing about is one thing; knowing is another.
Knowing about love is one thing; knowing love is entirely different. You can be a scholar, read every scripture on love, do research on it, even receive a D.Litt. from a university—and yet loving is another matter, because in loving one has to dissolve. Love is a dangerous journey. There the ego ends; the drop is lost in the ocean.
Love appears almost impossible in this world because there you become less important and the other more important. Your very soul seems to merge into the other; their life becomes your life, their death your death. This is an impossible event. The other is not used as a means but revered as an end—impossible! So love is very difficult; but knowing about love is easy. You can buy scriptures, memorize theories.
India learned so much about meditation that people thought there was no longer any need to meditate; everything was already known. And when everything is known, what remains to seek? Buddha and Mahavira were lost; only their words remained in people’s hands.
Bodhidharma wandered. He met scholars, very learned people. Scriptures were on their tongues. They were favored sons of Saraswati; in logic no one could match them. Argue with them and you could only lose. But he did not meet eyes that were meditative. He did not find a heart filled with meditation. He did not find a being abiding in samadhi—someone into whose hands he could place the treasure. Scholars were many, teachers many, knowers-about many—no experiencer.
The Zen monk asks: why did Bodhidharma go to China? Was there no meditator in India, that he had to go to China?
This is a very significant question. With Bodhidharma’s departure, India’s spirituality receded. His going was a sign that the chapter had ended. Now only dry people remained; their greenery was gone. Now corpses stood; the living temple was hard to find among them. Bodhidharma’s leaving India in search of a meditative soul—it was as if India’s glory set with the sun, as if the sun departed from India!
But why China? The world is vast; he could have gone anywhere. Why choose China? Hence the importance of the question.
Why did he leave India? Because he found no meditator to whom he could give the treasure.
Why did he go to China? There was a little hope. For if Buddha was born in India, Lao Tzu was born in China. They were almost contemporaries. When Buddha was in India, Lao Tzu was in China. And Buddha still used words a little; Lao Tzu used none. India had become stuffed with scholarship; but Lao Tzu’s current was still flowing, not yet clogged by punditry. Lao Tzu’s whole emphasis was anti-scholarship, against information—no essence in mere data.
Lao Tzu’s Buddhahood is even more wordless than Buddha’s.
So where Lao Tzu’s breeze still blew, Bodhidharma thought, perhaps someone alive could be found. And if Buddha and Lao Tzu could somehow meet, the current that would be born would flow for centuries. It was a deep experiment in “cross-breeding.” We import a bull from the West; the Indian cow and the Western bull—the calves born are strong, capable, give more milk.
What we do with bulls, Bodhidharma did with meditation. Here there was the stream of Buddha and Mahavira and the Upanishads—a profound revolutionary discovery—but no one big enough to hold it. The treasure was so vast that a heart of equal vastness could not be found. Perhaps in Lao Tzu’s stream someone was still alive. And if the two currents could meet, a new experiment in life might arise and endure. Bodhidharma was proved right.
Zen is the tradition born from the meeting of Buddha and Lao Tzu. Zen is neither Buddhist nor Taoist; it is their union. Hence the sweetness in Zen that is not present in Buddha’s stream alone nor in Lao Tzu’s alone. Whenever two different streams meet, the child that is born is unique. The farther apart the streams, the more unique the progeny.
This is why we forbid brother and sister to marry—being so close, the child cannot be good. There will be no creative tension, and without tension life wanes. If siblings marry, the child’s life will be short; the child will lack genius. Genius needs the meeting of distant currents; then something new is born. Brother and sister are so alike that the child will be merely similar, not incomparable. Hence all societies forbid marriages among close kin—the farther the better.
If we take this logic seriously—and biologists agree—the implication is this: not only should we avoid closeness of caste or clan, but blood, color, and language should be as distant as possible; the more international the marriage, the more vital the child. When distant currents meet, such children are born...!
It has happened before too. From the meeting of Buddha and Lao Tzu, Zen was born. From the meeting of Islam and Hindu thought, Sufism emerged. From the meeting of Christianity and Judaism, the Hasidim arose. These three currents are the most vibrant alive on earth today—as they should be. A father like Buddha and a mother like Lao Tzu—or a father like Lao Tzu and a mother like Buddha—if such a union happens, the offspring will be incomparable.
Why did Bodhidharma go from India to China?
Bodhidharma was like Buddha. Had Buddha met him, he would have recognized his own reflection in a mirror. Bodhidharma went in search of Lao Tzu, and in China he found a man into whose heart he could pour his own heart.
He carried a great responsibility. What Buddha had given to Mahakashyapa, and what then passed from master to master in succession, that was with Bodhidharma.
Now, a man is hanging by his teeth over a chasm, and someone asks him, “Why did Bodhidharma come from India to China?”
The story says: if he speaks, he dies. Because the moment a word leaves his mouth, his grip on the branch will be lost—he will fall into the abyss. He may not even complete the answer. If he does not speak, he goes astray. Why astray? Because whoever carries the treasure of meditation—if he refuses to give, the treasure is lost. Understand this a little.
There are two kinds of treasures in this world. One kind is lost by giving. You have money: if you give, you lose it; if you want to save it, don’t give your own—snatch from others. Such treasures, which diminish by giving and increase by stealing, we call sin. The other treasure is virtue; it follows the opposite law. If you hold it back, it dies; if you give it, it is saved. The more you share, the more it grows; the more you hoard, the more it rots. Outer wealth requires taking and exploitation; inner wealth requires donation. The laws of the inner and the outer are altogether different.
This story says that if the man does not speak, he is lost—because someone is asking, “What is meditation?” “Why did Bodhidharma come from India to China?” He is really asking, “What is meditation? What is the meeting of Buddha and Lao Tzu? What was born of that meeting? What is the secret?” The man knows the secret. If he speaks, he falls and is lost; if he does not, he goes astray. What should he do?
This is a Zen koan. It is given to the seeker: contemplate it, and bring back the answer—what should the man do?
You will be in difficulty, because no solution appears on either side. If he speaks, he will die—perhaps before he can even complete a sentence. If he does not speak, he goes astray. The intellect sees only two options. It cannot imagine anything else.
So the Zen master tells his disciples: sit, meditate on this—what should the man do? Imagine you are the one hanging—what will you do? Forget the story; you are in this situation. What is your reply? Will you speak or remain silent?
Here is the fun—with the intellect there are only two choices, never a third. The intellect is dualistic—yes and no are the only answers; both are dead ends. Choose one and you are lost; choose the other and you are still lost. The third is not in the intellect. But if you keep contemplating, a moment comes when a third answer is born. It does not arise from the intellect, because the intellect has no third; it always has two opposites. The third is qualitatively different.
It happened that Bokuju gave this story to a disciple and told him to meditate on it. The disciple tried many tricks, because the two obvious options wouldn’t do. He said, “He could make a hand gesture.” The intellect tries to find loopholes. Bokuju said, “What cannot be said in words—can it be said with a gesture? Show me with your hand why Bodhidharma came to China.”
This is not like indicating “I’m thirsty.” Bodily needs can be signaled because the other has similar experiences. If you bring your hands to your mouth, the other knows thirst; if you mime chewing, the other knows hunger. Gestures work when the other shares the experience.
But if the other already knew why Bodhidharma came to China, why would he ask you?
Regarding meditation, nothing can be communicated because the other has no experience; hence language fails. If I say “love,” you can understand a little. If I say “tree,” you understand a little. If I say “prayer,” you understand almost nothing. If I say “God,” the word rings and disappears; no shape forms within, no meaning congeals, no fragrance spreads, no witnessing of truth happens. The word “God” stirs the branches like the wind; a rustle, a few dry leaves fall, the wind is gone, and the trees stand silent again. Just so, “God” resounds and is lost; within, no meaning is formed.
Meaning is formed only when you too have passed through the experience. That is the difficulty. If you have, then even a gesture is unnecessary. If you have not, no gesture will help. And if words—more subtle, fine, delicate—are powerless, how will a gross hand signal work?
Bokuju said, “Get out! And don’t bring me such answers again.” The disciple kept bringing answers. Once he suggested the eyes, once a sound in the mouth without opening it. He tried many ways, none acceptable. Meditation cannot be conveyed by a sign. And if the man is established in meditation, his eyes would already be saying what meditation is—what more is possible? If someone standing at the door could understand the language of eyes, he would not be asking at all.
What happened then? A year passed. The disciple brought many answers; all were rejected. His intellect went round and round—until it was exhausted. He gave up the search. It became utterly clear to him: there is no answer. This situation is insoluble by mind.
When he did not come for many days, Bokuju went looking. He used to return every few days with a new answer. Bokuju found him sitting silent under a tree. The master shook him; the disciple opened his eyes—empty eyes: no thought within. No cloud in the inner sky; no bird flying there. He just sat, as if nothing had happened; as if even the master’s arrival had not occurred. Not a flicker in his eyes. The master was standing there; he did not even bow. No trace of embarrassment, no urge to ask, “What happened to that man hanging from the tree? What did he answer?” No question arose, no answer either, and the master’s presence made no difference.
Bokuju bowed and touched the disciple’s feet.
That matter was never raised again. That question was never asked again. As if it had ended. The answer had arrived.
As long as the intellect answers, the answer never comes. When the intellect falls silent, the answer is there. The answer is hidden within you; it is not in the alternatives of the intellect, not in its dualities, but in your non-duality. And you are non-dual only when the intellect is quiet. When you do not think, you gather together; when you think, you fragment. The more thoughts, the more pieces you break into. The less thinking, the more whole you become. Where you are whole—there is the answer. This question was not meant for finding an answer; it was meant to tire out the intellect.
The meditation experiments I give you are to tire your body and your mind. I tell you to whirl like the dervishes—revolve and revolve, spin and spin. In a while, mind is tired, body is tired. If you collapse before you are utterly tired, you miss. If you are totally exhausted, with not even enough energy left to produce a thought—suddenly you become a zero.
In that zero is the answer to why Bodhidharma came to China.
In that zero is the answer to what meditation is.
Meditation itself is the answer to meditation! There is no other way.
What should the hanging man do? He should do nothing; he should simply remain in meditation. No need to speak—if he speaks, he falls. No need to not-speak—if he does not speak, he misses.
This is a little subtle, because we assume there are only two states: speak or don’t speak. There is another state, called silence, which is different from not-speaking. Not-speaking is the opposite of speaking. If I ask your name and you speak, you make an effort. If you do not speak, you still make an effort to restrain yourself, because you know your name. To speak requires effort; to refrain requires effort. Silence is a third state—there is no effort there, neither to speak nor to not-speak.
Let the man remain hanging; let him neither speak, nor not-speak. For both are trouble. If he speaks he will fall; if he does not speak he will go astray. Let him not enter the trouble of speaking or the trouble of not-speaking. Let there be no choice. Speaking and not-speaking are opposites.
Not-speaking is not silence. In not-speaking, the inner fire still burns. In not-speaking, you keep speaking within. In not-speaking, you want to speak and you suppress it. Not-speaking is negative speaking; it is still speaking. If you hurl an insult, that is speaking. If you prevent the insult, it still echoes within.
There is a third state: the wave of insult does not even arise. You neither speak nor not-speak; no ripple comes. This third state is meditation.
The man hanging from the tree should simply hang and be—a tremorless stillness within. When this other man asks, “Why did Bodhidharma go to China?” no answer at all should rise within. He should not even search for one. Then he will neither speak nor not-speak. He will go beyond duality. He will remain as if no one had asked anything, as if there were no one to answer. He will be meditative. And the answer to meditation is only meditation. The question is so deep and words so shallow that they cannot carry any news of that depth. You must stand in that depth. If the other cannot understand your depth, how will he understand your words?
Someone asked Nan-in, “Say the essential in one word. I have neither time nor convenience—tell me the essence in a single word.” Nan-in remained silent. The man said, “If you want to tell the essence, don’t insist even on one word. If you want the inessential, I can talk as much as you like. But if you want the essential, don’t insist even on a single word.”
The man said, “That would be too much. Be brief—but not that brief. If you remain silent, I won’t understand. Give me just one word, as a hint.”
Nan-in said, “Meditation.”
The man said, “That isn’t enough. A little explanation...”
Nan-in said, “Meditation—and meditation.”
The man said, “That’s mere repetition. It doesn’t expand anything. A little more grace!”
Nan-in said, “Meditation, and meditation, and meditation...”
The man stood up. “This is madness. You keep repeating the same thing.”
Nan-in said, “The moment you insisted on a word, everything was already lost. Somehow I uttered one; even in that little, something remained. If I explain, even that will be lost.
“The answer to meditation—if anything is asked about meditation—is only meditation.”
If someone asks you, “What is love?” your being loving is the only possible answer; nothing else will do. Whatever you say will be too small, too petty. That is why all sages have suffered—that they cannot say what they long to say.
Rabindranath wrote in his final days—he, the great poet. He wrote some six thousand songs. Shelley is called a great poet in the West; he wrote two thousand songs. Not all of Shelley’s songs can be set to music; all of Rabindranath’s are musical. What more can there be? A supreme poet on this earth!
A friend asked him on his deathbed, “Are you fulfilled? Satisfied? You have received all there is—fame, honor. You have been revered like a prophet, not merely as a poet. And you have written so many songs; perhaps no one ever will again. Each is unique, heartfelt, not mere rhyming.”
Rabindranath said, “Stop all this, because I am dying in great pain. What I wanted to sing, I have not yet sung. If you ask me, in these dying moments I’m praying to the Divine, ‘What a joke! I barely managed to tune my instrument, and just as the time to sing was drawing near, the curtain begins to fall. I was only hammering and tuning my veena, preparing to sing; I did not yet sing. What people took as music was only tuning. Now that the tuning is settling, the accompaniment ready, the notes steady, confidence growing, the heart brimming—that I might flow, that I might sing—comes the time to go! What jest is this?’”
Whoever knows, this jest will occur to him. Because just when he becomes capable of saying, speech begins to slip away. When he could speak, it is time to leave. When he ought to be welcomed with celebration, comes the moment of farewell. When he is about to be born anew, death happens.
And it will always be so. No god is playing a joke; it is the nature of life that the deeper you know, the harder it becomes to tell. Had Rabindranath been given a hundred more years, he would still have said the same—and perhaps with even more pain, because in a hundred years he would have gone even deeper; and the deeper one goes in, the harder it is to bring news out.
Truth cannot be said. Meditation and love cannot be told; they can be lived—living is the only way to tell.
So the hanging man need neither speak nor not-speak. He should remain hanging, a flower of meditation.
And why did the Zen masters choose such a story? Because nobody literally hangs by a leaf held in the teeth from a tree. But I tell you, this is exactly the case. Everyone is hanging, because death can happen any moment. Our support is as slender as a branch held in the teeth; a mere thread. It can snap at any moment—finer than a spider’s web. A small jolt—and it breaks.
That is the meaning of the tale. Every man hangs thus. The abyss is below; death can happen at any moment.
There is a sweet incident in the Mahabharata. A beggar asks for alms at Yudhishthira’s door. The five Pandava brothers are in exile, hiding. The beggar does not know he stands before a hidden emperor. Yudhishthira says, “Come tomorrow.” Bhima bursts into laughter. Yudhishthira says, “Have you gone mad? Why are you laughing?” Bhima says, “I will go to the village and announce with drumbeats that my elder brother has conquered time. He promised a beggar, ‘Come tomorrow.’” Yudhishthira ran, brought the beggar back, and said, “Bhima is right. He may be slow of wit, but sometimes he gets a glimpse.”
Sometimes the simple do get glimpses, and the very clever miss. The clever often become scholars. Yudhishthira was Dharmaraj, knower of righteousness; but scriptural knowledge can blind—scripture sticks to the eyes, and reality is no longer seen. What is, is missed, buried under layers of scripture. What Yudhishthira did not see, Bhima did. Bhima is straightforward, guileless. He can fight, get angry, love—but he is no pundit. He can live, but he doesn’t own words. He saw the simple truth: what a joke! There is no trust in tomorrow, and you tell a beggar to come tomorrow? Will you be here tomorrow? Are you certain the beggar will live? Yudhishthira ran, gave alms, “Take it quickly—lest it be too late.”
We all are hanging. Any moment the branch can break. Any moment the mouth can open.
Why this detail about the mouth? Because when a man dies, the mouth often opens. So the Zen masters say we are clinging with the mouth. When death comes, the mouth opens, the grip loosens. Hands and such cannot hold; we cling with the mouth.
Deeper still it is true: the thread of breath by which we are bound enters through the mouth, not through the hands. Cut the breath and we are cut off. If life is a tree, then by the thread of breath, through the mouth, we are fastened to it. Breath holds us. If breath goes, the hands cannot hold it. So when the masters say something, there is meaning. We are hanging by the mouth.
Death is moment to moment. Life is in danger at every instant. One who knows will not speak—for with speaking, all goes wrong. Truth cannot be spoken. With speaking, everything goes wrong because truth cannot be spoken.
Then why do Buddhas speak? Why does Krishna speak? They keep talking and talking. If truth cannot be spoken, why not keep silent?
Because what Buddhas speak is not truth. Truth cannot be spoken.
They speak something else. It is like distributing sweets to children so they will sit still—something else is being arranged meanwhile. Without sweets, the children run away. That is why we distribute prasad in temples, blessed sweets. Buddha hands out sweets—prasad—because some children understand only sweets and nothing else.
What I am saying to you is not truth. It cannot be. The moment you speak, truth is lost; from that unbroken cliff the man falls. From there, nothing can be said. Utter a single word—and you are gone. So I speak to hand out sweets. By the pretext of speaking, you sit here. If I were silent, you would leave. You cannot sit in my silence. So, under the pretext of words, perhaps while you sit here you may catch a note of peace; perhaps a glimpse of the zero may come. Words are only the excuse.
Buddhas speak as a device. They want to give you that which cannot be given in words. But you understand only words, so words are used. They are for you, not for truth. Whatever is said becomes untrue in the saying. All speech is story, parable.
That is why I use so many stories: because all speaking is story; all speaking is mythology. Truth can only be known.
And the journey of knowing is difficult, but not impossible. Yet both points must be understood. Entering meditation is difficult—not because meditation is difficult, but because you are complicated.
A man stands at the river; swimming is not difficult, but out of fear he does not put his feet into the water. Fear makes the difficulty; not swimming. Throw him in and he will swim—flail about. The difference between swimming and an ignorant man’s flailing is not much—only style, a little order. If someone pushes you in, you will swim, but your swimming has no harmony; you may even drown. The river doesn’t drown you—your haphazard struggle does. The day you learn to swim, what will you learn? The same flailing of limbs, but organized; you gain confidence; fear recedes. A swimming teacher does not teach swimming, he teaches confidence. The swimming you already know.
In the same way, no one learns meditation from a master; one learns assurance. Entering meditation is a jump; you need trust. Someone must say, “Jump; don’t be afraid—I’m here, I’ll take care.” Those who teach swimming only give you confidence: “I’m standing here.” You know this man can swim; you’ve seen him cross the river. Your fear must be reduced. The master cuts your fear.
A master cannot give you God; he can cut your fear. Once fear is cut, you are God. Your courage rises, you leap—and swimming was always in you. That is why once you learn to swim, you never forget. Funny, everything else is forgotten—why not swimming? Don’t swim for thirty years and you still will not forget. Try not using a language for thirty years—you’ll forget it. Not see your mother for thirty years—her face blurs. But not swimming for thirty years—you still know. Why? Because swimming is not in memory; you never “learned” it. If you had, you could forget. It was discovered. It was there; you merely recognized it.
And the day you really recognize, even swimming is not needed. A skilled swimmer lies on the river; doesn’t even move hands and feet. The river holds him. Not even that is needed, because his fear is gone. Fear drowns; the river does not. That is why it is hard to drown a corpse—because you cannot frighten a corpse. Let a corpse loose in the river—it floats. However deep, the river cannot drown a corpse. It drowns the living—because the living are afraid.
So consider: does the river drown you, or fear? Is the difficulty in swimming, or in your fearful, tangled mind? All the complication is in your fear.
Meditation is simple; you are complicated. As your complication is cut away, meditation grows simple. The day there is no complication within, you will find meditation as simple as breathing. Nothing has to be done.
In one sense nothing is simpler than meditation, because it is your nature. In another sense nothing is harder, because you have become very complex.
All of sadhana is the cutting away of your complexity. But it is not impossible—because you became complex knowingly, through practice. Walk the reverse road and the knots will open. Your condition is like a man who practices walking with a bent back. With practice for a year or two, it becomes easy. Then standing straight becomes hard. For lifetimes you have walked with thought; it has bent your spine. There have been some benefits—hence the habit.
I have heard of a man in a village. Wars were frequent; young, healthy men were seized for soldiers. He began to walk bent over. Slowly his back became permanently crooked. The recruiters took the straight-backed; they never took him. He thought, “There’s no harm—when needed I can stand straight.” But after a while he found it impossible.
Whenever you invest in something wrong, be mindful. It may bring short-term gains but prove costly in the long run. Thought has some benefits. Worry has benefits. Tension has benefits; that is why you are tense and worried and full of thoughts. Some things in this world are not obtained without worry.
The carefree cannot get certain things here. The carefree cannot easily accumulate wealth. The carefree cannot reach Delhi; high offices are hard. The carefree cannot ride on other people’s chests. To ride others breeds worry—because you invite them to try riding on yours, or at least to push you off. When you seek position, worry is natural.
A chief minister used to come to me. He would always say, “Somehow free me from anxiety.” I told him, “Be clear: if you want to remain chief minister, become skillful in anxiety—don’t try to be free of it, because the chief ministership won’t remain. If you want freedom from worry, be prepared to let the office go.” He said, “No, with your grace, both should be possible.” With no one’s grace are both possible.
“Then your blessing is needed.”
I cannot bless such a thing. It is not going to happen. No anxiety and the chief ministership—how? You want to be Rockefeller, and sleep like a beggar—both cannot be. Leave something for the beggar! At least he has sleep. A beggar can sleep peacefully because he has nothing to lose—so what would cause unrest or worry? The more you have to lose, the greater your unrest and worry.
Yet man tries this stupidity—wanting wealth and position and prestige and fulfilled ambition, and also no worry. You are asking for the impossible. See this clearly.
When worry goes, ambition goes; then meditation arises.
This is why many people are interested in meditation—but for the wrong reasons. And the business-minded gurus know why people are interested. So a Mahesh Yogi trumpets: you will gain in this world and in the next. Meditate—money and religion both.
In America, if you say only religion, people are not interested. Who wants religion? They want money. If peace comes along with money, they are ready. But this is foolish talk.
Worry has some payoff; otherwise why worry? Are people worried without reason? Without gain? You want to drop worry and keep the gain—that is your complexity. The day you see this clearly, you can lay worry aside—but the gains of worry go with it. Then great gains open—but you have no notion of them.
Meditation is simple. Your simplicity is needed.
Simplicity means: stop traveling in opposite directions, and you will be simple. If you go in opposite directions, you become complex.
A man has yoked oxen on both ends of his cart, and drives them both ways. The cart does not move. He is frustrated, shouting, “Show me a way!” I tell him, “Unyoke one side. Yoke both pairs in one direction. The cart will gallop.” But his goals are in opposite directions. On this side the shop, on that side the temple; here worry, there peace; here money, there meditation. He wants both. He says, “You are right, but give me a blessing so the cart reaches both destinations.”
In search of such a blessing, he looks for miracle-working gurus. A man like me cannot give that blessing. Whoever does either is a fool or a devil. Even the promise is disastrous, because the man’s life is being destroyed; his energy wasted. Opposite goals cannot be reached together. If this becomes clear, you become simple.
Simplicity means: the opposites drop, your life becomes a single flowing stream; you begin to move in one direction. Then there is no obstacle. Then your river will fall into the ocean of meditation of its own accord. You may not even need to “learn” meditation, because no one can teach it. In a simple person’s life, meditation flowers on its own.
So I say to you: become simple, become innocent. And remember, when I say innocent I do not mean: don’t smoke and you will be innocent; don’t drink and you will be innocent; don’t eat meat and you will be innocent—no. Though I know if you become innocent, you won’t be able to smoke or drink; meat-eating will be impossible. But if you abandon alcohol, meat, cigarettes in order to become innocent—I do not say that.
It is not that cheap. Many people don’t drink, don’t eat meat, don’t smoke—and are not innocent. In fact, such people are often more dangerous.
Hitler did not drink, did not eat meat, did not smoke—he was a strict vegetarian. Only a strict vegetarian can create such havoc as Hitler did. Mussolini was a strict vegetarian. These two vegetarians created more hell on earth than any meat-eater ever has. Ask the ascetics, they would recognize Hitler as an ascetic. He did not watch films, had no taste for music, did not go to dances. In one sense he was almost celibate—no interest in women. Up before dawn, living almost shut in his room. But he proved explosively destructive.
So I am not telling you that by dropping this or that you will become simple. If you drop them for the sake of simplicity, you have started with calculation—and that calculation is your complexity. Someone convinces you: leave cigarettes and you will attain liberation; you give them up. Have you thought how cheaply you want liberation? By dropping cigarettes? If liberation were gained by not smoking, it would not be worth having. If it came by giving up liquor—not worth it. What value would something have that is bought so cheaply?
What you do is not the point. Simplicity has to do with not flowing in opposite directions. Whatever you do, let it have an inner harmony, an inner music; no division, no conflict.
Simplicity means: you flow in one direction. This is intelligence—do not scatter yourself in many directions. Let your life-energy move like an arrow, and you will reach the target. The target is not far. As soon as you are simple, the mind has access to meditation.
In this story the difficulty of meditation is not being pointed out; the difficulty of talking about meditation is. One difficulty Buddha faced was the six years of meditation. That difficulty is not great. The other difficulty was the forty years of speaking about meditation. The second is greater. The first he crossed in six years. The second, in forty years he could not cross. The first, everyone can cross in a little time. The second—no one has ever crossed; no one ever will.
To know truth is simple; to tell truth is difficult. To live truth is simple. Living it is the only way to tell it.
Osho's Commentary
If he does not answer, he will be lost; if he answers, he will die. What is he to do?
And is meditation truly such an impossible discipline that the Upanishads call it walking on a razor’s edge?
The discipline of meditation is difficult, but not impossible; yet the expression of meditation is impossible. Doing meditation is easy. Saying what meditation is—that is extremely difficult, almost impossible. Because meditation is such an inner experience that words cannot reveal it. Whoever tries to reveal it in words immediately discovers: what I wanted to say has not been said; what should not have been said is what the words carry. The essential remains inside, and only empty, hollow words go out—lifeless!
To do meditation is not so hard, but to communicate what is known in meditation to one who has never meditated—this is nearly impossible.
This story is not about the difficulty of meditation; it is about the difficulty of telling meditation.
It is a very delightful story. A man hangs from a tree by gripping a leaf with his teeth. His mouth is his only support; by it he hangs from the tree. Below is a terrifying abyss. One slip—and he is gone! And there, someone asks him, “Why did Bodhidharma come from India to China?”
First, understand the question: in the Zen tradition this is a technical question, a koan. Some fourteen hundred years ago a most extraordinary man went from India to China. His name was Bodhidharma. Of all who have gone out of India, no one more unique has ever left its shores.
Why did Bodhidharma go to China? Zen masters keep asking this. It is a riddle. Bodhidharma had deep reasons. He had a treasure he wanted to give; but he found no one ready to receive it. Compelled, he went to China to search, in the hope that perhaps someone there would be found.
A treasure cannot be given to all. Diamonds can be given only to connoisseurs; otherwise they’ll be thrown away and lost. To those who don’t know, a diamond is only a stone—something to play with, and soon to be lost.
The treasure of meditation is invisible; it is very hard to find a connoisseur for it. And to those not ready to receive, there is no way to give. Only those whose heart-doors are utterly open can preserve such a treasure.
So Bodhidharma knocked on many doors, and discovered how hard it was to find a man. And you may wonder: in a country like India, where the tradition of meditation is so ancient that nowhere in the world is there a longer one—could Bodhidharma not find a single person to whom he could pass the treasure of meditation? Hence the question: why did Bodhidharma go to China?
There were reasons. Precisely because India had a very ancient spiritual treasure, India had lost it. Some treasures are such that unless you renew them daily, you lose them. Some treasures rot when they get old. Some treasures vanish the moment you become assured you have them.
India’s tradition of meditation is exceedingly ancient. It goes beyond history—prehistoric. In Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, ruins that scientists say are about seven thousand years old, statues have been found in meditative postures. Seven thousand years ago, someone in Harappa and Khajuraho was meditating.
Then why could Bodhidharma not find a single buyer in India? Because the tradition had grown so old, the words so well-rehearsed, the scriptures so memorized, that people came to know about meditation—and forgot meditation itself. Knowing about is one thing; knowing is another.
Knowing about love is one thing; knowing love is entirely different. You can be a scholar, read every scripture on love, do research on it, even receive a D.Litt. from a university—and yet loving is another matter, because in loving one has to dissolve. Love is a dangerous journey. There the ego ends; the drop is lost in the ocean.
Love appears almost impossible in this world because there you become less important and the other more important. Your very soul seems to merge into the other; their life becomes your life, their death your death. This is an impossible event. The other is not used as a means but revered as an end—impossible! So love is very difficult; but knowing about love is easy. You can buy scriptures, memorize theories.
India learned so much about meditation that people thought there was no longer any need to meditate; everything was already known. And when everything is known, what remains to seek? Buddha and Mahavira were lost; only their words remained in people’s hands.
Bodhidharma wandered. He met scholars, very learned people. Scriptures were on their tongues. They were favored sons of Saraswati; in logic no one could match them. Argue with them and you could only lose. But he did not meet eyes that were meditative. He did not find a heart filled with meditation. He did not find a being abiding in samadhi—someone into whose hands he could place the treasure. Scholars were many, teachers many, knowers-about many—no experiencer.
The Zen monk asks: why did Bodhidharma go to China? Was there no meditator in India, that he had to go to China?
This is a very significant question. With Bodhidharma’s departure, India’s spirituality receded. His going was a sign that the chapter had ended. Now only dry people remained; their greenery was gone. Now corpses stood; the living temple was hard to find among them. Bodhidharma’s leaving India in search of a meditative soul—it was as if India’s glory set with the sun, as if the sun departed from India!
But why China? The world is vast; he could have gone anywhere. Why choose China? Hence the importance of the question.
Why did he leave India?
Because he found no meditator to whom he could give the treasure.
Why did he go to China?
There was a little hope. For if Buddha was born in India, Lao Tzu was born in China. They were almost contemporaries. When Buddha was in India, Lao Tzu was in China. And Buddha still used words a little; Lao Tzu used none. India had become stuffed with scholarship; but Lao Tzu’s current was still flowing, not yet clogged by punditry. Lao Tzu’s whole emphasis was anti-scholarship, against information—no essence in mere data.
Lao Tzu’s Buddhahood is even more wordless than Buddha’s.
So where Lao Tzu’s breeze still blew, Bodhidharma thought, perhaps someone alive could be found. And if Buddha and Lao Tzu could somehow meet, the current that would be born would flow for centuries. It was a deep experiment in “cross-breeding.” We import a bull from the West; the Indian cow and the Western bull—the calves born are strong, capable, give more milk.
What we do with bulls, Bodhidharma did with meditation. Here there was the stream of Buddha and Mahavira and the Upanishads—a profound revolutionary discovery—but no one big enough to hold it. The treasure was so vast that a heart of equal vastness could not be found. Perhaps in Lao Tzu’s stream someone was still alive. And if the two currents could meet, a new experiment in life might arise and endure. Bodhidharma was proved right.
Zen is the tradition born from the meeting of Buddha and Lao Tzu. Zen is neither Buddhist nor Taoist; it is their union. Hence the sweetness in Zen that is not present in Buddha’s stream alone nor in Lao Tzu’s alone. Whenever two different streams meet, the child that is born is unique. The farther apart the streams, the more unique the progeny.
This is why we forbid brother and sister to marry—being so close, the child cannot be good. There will be no creative tension, and without tension life wanes. If siblings marry, the child’s life will be short; the child will lack genius. Genius needs the meeting of distant currents; then something new is born. Brother and sister are so alike that the child will be merely similar, not incomparable. Hence all societies forbid marriages among close kin—the farther the better.
If we take this logic seriously—and biologists agree—the implication is this: not only should we avoid closeness of caste or clan, but blood, color, and language should be as distant as possible; the more international the marriage, the more vital the child. When distant currents meet, such children are born...!
It has happened before too. From the meeting of Buddha and Lao Tzu, Zen was born. From the meeting of Islam and Hindu thought, Sufism emerged. From the meeting of Christianity and Judaism, the Hasidim arose. These three currents are the most vibrant alive on earth today—as they should be. A father like Buddha and a mother like Lao Tzu—or a father like Lao Tzu and a mother like Buddha—if such a union happens, the offspring will be incomparable.
Why did Bodhidharma go from India to China?
Bodhidharma was like Buddha. Had Buddha met him, he would have recognized his own reflection in a mirror. Bodhidharma went in search of Lao Tzu, and in China he found a man into whose heart he could pour his own heart.
He carried a great responsibility. What Buddha had given to Mahakashyapa, and what then passed from master to master in succession, that was with Bodhidharma.
Now, a man is hanging by his teeth over a chasm, and someone asks him, “Why did Bodhidharma come from India to China?”
The story says: if he speaks, he dies. Because the moment a word leaves his mouth, his grip on the branch will be lost—he will fall into the abyss. He may not even complete the answer. If he does not speak, he goes astray. Why astray? Because whoever carries the treasure of meditation—if he refuses to give, the treasure is lost. Understand this a little.
There are two kinds of treasures in this world. One kind is lost by giving. You have money: if you give, you lose it; if you want to save it, don’t give your own—snatch from others. Such treasures, which diminish by giving and increase by stealing, we call sin. The other treasure is virtue; it follows the opposite law. If you hold it back, it dies; if you give it, it is saved. The more you share, the more it grows; the more you hoard, the more it rots. Outer wealth requires taking and exploitation; inner wealth requires donation. The laws of the inner and the outer are altogether different.
This story says that if the man does not speak, he is lost—because someone is asking, “What is meditation?” “Why did Bodhidharma come from India to China?” He is really asking, “What is meditation? What is the meeting of Buddha and Lao Tzu? What was born of that meeting? What is the secret?” The man knows the secret. If he speaks, he falls and is lost; if he does not, he goes astray. What should he do?
This is a Zen koan. It is given to the seeker: contemplate it, and bring back the answer—what should the man do?
You will be in difficulty, because no solution appears on either side. If he speaks, he will die—perhaps before he can even complete a sentence. If he does not speak, he goes astray. The intellect sees only two options. It cannot imagine anything else.
So the Zen master tells his disciples: sit, meditate on this—what should the man do? Imagine you are the one hanging—what will you do? Forget the story; you are in this situation. What is your reply? Will you speak or remain silent?
Here is the fun—with the intellect there are only two choices, never a third. The intellect is dualistic—yes and no are the only answers; both are dead ends. Choose one and you are lost; choose the other and you are still lost. The third is not in the intellect. But if you keep contemplating, a moment comes when a third answer is born. It does not arise from the intellect, because the intellect has no third; it always has two opposites. The third is qualitatively different.
It happened that Bokuju gave this story to a disciple and told him to meditate on it. The disciple tried many tricks, because the two obvious options wouldn’t do. He said, “He could make a hand gesture.” The intellect tries to find loopholes. Bokuju said, “What cannot be said in words—can it be said with a gesture? Show me with your hand why Bodhidharma came to China.”
This is not like indicating “I’m thirsty.” Bodily needs can be signaled because the other has similar experiences. If you bring your hands to your mouth, the other knows thirst; if you mime chewing, the other knows hunger. Gestures work when the other shares the experience.
But if the other already knew why Bodhidharma came to China, why would he ask you?
Regarding meditation, nothing can be communicated because the other has no experience; hence language fails. If I say “love,” you can understand a little. If I say “tree,” you understand a little. If I say “prayer,” you understand almost nothing. If I say “God,” the word rings and disappears; no shape forms within, no meaning congeals, no fragrance spreads, no witnessing of truth happens. The word “God” stirs the branches like the wind; a rustle, a few dry leaves fall, the wind is gone, and the trees stand silent again. Just so, “God” resounds and is lost; within, no meaning is formed.
Meaning is formed only when you too have passed through the experience. That is the difficulty. If you have, then even a gesture is unnecessary. If you have not, no gesture will help. And if words—more subtle, fine, delicate—are powerless, how will a gross hand signal work?
Bokuju said, “Get out! And don’t bring me such answers again.” The disciple kept bringing answers. Once he suggested the eyes, once a sound in the mouth without opening it. He tried many ways, none acceptable. Meditation cannot be conveyed by a sign. And if the man is established in meditation, his eyes would already be saying what meditation is—what more is possible? If someone standing at the door could understand the language of eyes, he would not be asking at all.
What happened then? A year passed. The disciple brought many answers; all were rejected. His intellect went round and round—until it was exhausted. He gave up the search. It became utterly clear to him: there is no answer. This situation is insoluble by mind.
When he did not come for many days, Bokuju went looking. He used to return every few days with a new answer. Bokuju found him sitting silent under a tree. The master shook him; the disciple opened his eyes—empty eyes: no thought within. No cloud in the inner sky; no bird flying there. He just sat, as if nothing had happened; as if even the master’s arrival had not occurred. Not a flicker in his eyes. The master was standing there; he did not even bow. No trace of embarrassment, no urge to ask, “What happened to that man hanging from the tree? What did he answer?” No question arose, no answer either, and the master’s presence made no difference.
Bokuju bowed and touched the disciple’s feet.
That matter was never raised again. That question was never asked again. As if it had ended. The answer had arrived.
As long as the intellect answers, the answer never comes. When the intellect falls silent, the answer is there. The answer is hidden within you; it is not in the alternatives of the intellect, not in its dualities, but in your non-duality. And you are non-dual only when the intellect is quiet. When you do not think, you gather together; when you think, you fragment. The more thoughts, the more pieces you break into. The less thinking, the more whole you become. Where you are whole—there is the answer. This question was not meant for finding an answer; it was meant to tire out the intellect.
The meditation experiments I give you are to tire your body and your mind. I tell you to whirl like the dervishes—revolve and revolve, spin and spin. In a while, mind is tired, body is tired. If you collapse before you are utterly tired, you miss. If you are totally exhausted, with not even enough energy left to produce a thought—suddenly you become a zero.
In that zero is the answer to why Bodhidharma came to China.
In that zero is the answer to what meditation is.
Meditation itself is the answer to meditation! There is no other way.
What should the hanging man do? He should do nothing; he should simply remain in meditation. No need to speak—if he speaks, he falls. No need to not-speak—if he does not speak, he misses.
This is a little subtle, because we assume there are only two states: speak or don’t speak. There is another state, called silence, which is different from not-speaking. Not-speaking is the opposite of speaking. If I ask your name and you speak, you make an effort. If you do not speak, you still make an effort to restrain yourself, because you know your name. To speak requires effort; to refrain requires effort. Silence is a third state—there is no effort there, neither to speak nor to not-speak.
Let the man remain hanging; let him neither speak, nor not-speak. For both are trouble. If he speaks he will fall; if he does not speak he will go astray. Let him not enter the trouble of speaking or the trouble of not-speaking. Let there be no choice. Speaking and not-speaking are opposites.
Not-speaking is not silence. In not-speaking, the inner fire still burns. In not-speaking, you keep speaking within. In not-speaking, you want to speak and you suppress it. Not-speaking is negative speaking; it is still speaking. If you hurl an insult, that is speaking. If you prevent the insult, it still echoes within.
There is a third state: the wave of insult does not even arise. You neither speak nor not-speak; no ripple comes. This third state is meditation.
The man hanging from the tree should simply hang and be—a tremorless stillness within. When this other man asks, “Why did Bodhidharma go to China?” no answer at all should rise within. He should not even search for one. Then he will neither speak nor not-speak. He will go beyond duality. He will remain as if no one had asked anything, as if there were no one to answer. He will be meditative. And the answer to meditation is only meditation. The question is so deep and words so shallow that they cannot carry any news of that depth. You must stand in that depth. If the other cannot understand your depth, how will he understand your words?
Someone asked Nan-in, “Say the essential in one word. I have neither time nor convenience—tell me the essence in a single word.” Nan-in remained silent. The man said, “If you want to tell the essence, don’t insist even on one word. If you want the inessential, I can talk as much as you like. But if you want the essential, don’t insist even on a single word.”
The man said, “That would be too much. Be brief—but not that brief. If you remain silent, I won’t understand. Give me just one word, as a hint.”
Nan-in said, “Meditation.”
The man said, “That isn’t enough. A little explanation...”
Nan-in said, “Meditation—and meditation.”
The man said, “That’s mere repetition. It doesn’t expand anything. A little more grace!”
Nan-in said, “Meditation, and meditation, and meditation...”
The man stood up. “This is madness. You keep repeating the same thing.”
Nan-in said, “The moment you insisted on a word, everything was already lost. Somehow I uttered one; even in that little, something remained. If I explain, even that will be lost.
“The answer to meditation—if anything is asked about meditation—is only meditation.”
If someone asks you, “What is love?” your being loving is the only possible answer; nothing else will do. Whatever you say will be too small, too petty. That is why all sages have suffered—that they cannot say what they long to say.
Rabindranath wrote in his final days—he, the great poet. He wrote some six thousand songs. Shelley is called a great poet in the West; he wrote two thousand songs. Not all of Shelley’s songs can be set to music; all of Rabindranath’s are musical. What more can there be? A supreme poet on this earth!
A friend asked him on his deathbed, “Are you fulfilled? Satisfied? You have received all there is—fame, honor. You have been revered like a prophet, not merely as a poet. And you have written so many songs; perhaps no one ever will again. Each is unique, heartfelt, not mere rhyming.”
Rabindranath said, “Stop all this, because I am dying in great pain. What I wanted to sing, I have not yet sung. If you ask me, in these dying moments I’m praying to the Divine, ‘What a joke! I barely managed to tune my instrument, and just as the time to sing was drawing near, the curtain begins to fall. I was only hammering and tuning my veena, preparing to sing; I did not yet sing. What people took as music was only tuning. Now that the tuning is settling, the accompaniment ready, the notes steady, confidence growing, the heart brimming—that I might flow, that I might sing—comes the time to go! What jest is this?’”
Whoever knows, this jest will occur to him. Because just when he becomes capable of saying, speech begins to slip away. When he could speak, it is time to leave. When he ought to be welcomed with celebration, comes the moment of farewell. When he is about to be born anew, death happens.
And it will always be so. No god is playing a joke; it is the nature of life that the deeper you know, the harder it becomes to tell. Had Rabindranath been given a hundred more years, he would still have said the same—and perhaps with even more pain, because in a hundred years he would have gone even deeper; and the deeper one goes in, the harder it is to bring news out.
Truth cannot be said. Meditation and love cannot be told; they can be lived—living is the only way to tell.
So the hanging man need neither speak nor not-speak. He should remain hanging, a flower of meditation.
And why did the Zen masters choose such a story? Because nobody literally hangs by a leaf held in the teeth from a tree. But I tell you, this is exactly the case. Everyone is hanging, because death can happen any moment. Our support is as slender as a branch held in the teeth; a mere thread. It can snap at any moment—finer than a spider’s web. A small jolt—and it breaks.
That is the meaning of the tale. Every man hangs thus. The abyss is below; death can happen at any moment.
There is a sweet incident in the Mahabharata. A beggar asks for alms at Yudhishthira’s door. The five Pandava brothers are in exile, hiding. The beggar does not know he stands before a hidden emperor. Yudhishthira says, “Come tomorrow.” Bhima bursts into laughter. Yudhishthira says, “Have you gone mad? Why are you laughing?” Bhima says, “I will go to the village and announce with drumbeats that my elder brother has conquered time. He promised a beggar, ‘Come tomorrow.’” Yudhishthira ran, brought the beggar back, and said, “Bhima is right. He may be slow of wit, but sometimes he gets a glimpse.”
Sometimes the simple do get glimpses, and the very clever miss. The clever often become scholars. Yudhishthira was Dharmaraj, knower of righteousness; but scriptural knowledge can blind—scripture sticks to the eyes, and reality is no longer seen. What is, is missed, buried under layers of scripture. What Yudhishthira did not see, Bhima did. Bhima is straightforward, guileless. He can fight, get angry, love—but he is no pundit. He can live, but he doesn’t own words. He saw the simple truth: what a joke! There is no trust in tomorrow, and you tell a beggar to come tomorrow? Will you be here tomorrow? Are you certain the beggar will live? Yudhishthira ran, gave alms, “Take it quickly—lest it be too late.”
We all are hanging. Any moment the branch can break. Any moment the mouth can open.
Why this detail about the mouth? Because when a man dies, the mouth often opens. So the Zen masters say we are clinging with the mouth. When death comes, the mouth opens, the grip loosens. Hands and such cannot hold; we cling with the mouth.
Deeper still it is true: the thread of breath by which we are bound enters through the mouth, not through the hands. Cut the breath and we are cut off. If life is a tree, then by the thread of breath, through the mouth, we are fastened to it. Breath holds us. If breath goes, the hands cannot hold it. So when the masters say something, there is meaning. We are hanging by the mouth.
Death is moment to moment. Life is in danger at every instant. One who knows will not speak—for with speaking, all goes wrong. Truth cannot be spoken. With speaking, everything goes wrong because truth cannot be spoken.
Then why do Buddhas speak? Why does Krishna speak? They keep talking and talking. If truth cannot be spoken, why not keep silent?
Because what Buddhas speak is not truth. Truth cannot be spoken.
They speak something else. It is like distributing sweets to children so they will sit still—something else is being arranged meanwhile. Without sweets, the children run away. That is why we distribute prasad in temples, blessed sweets. Buddha hands out sweets—prasad—because some children understand only sweets and nothing else.
What I am saying to you is not truth. It cannot be. The moment you speak, truth is lost; from that unbroken cliff the man falls. From there, nothing can be said. Utter a single word—and you are gone. So I speak to hand out sweets. By the pretext of speaking, you sit here. If I were silent, you would leave. You cannot sit in my silence. So, under the pretext of words, perhaps while you sit here you may catch a note of peace; perhaps a glimpse of the zero may come. Words are only the excuse.
Buddhas speak as a device. They want to give you that which cannot be given in words. But you understand only words, so words are used. They are for you, not for truth. Whatever is said becomes untrue in the saying. All speech is story, parable.
That is why I use so many stories: because all speaking is story; all speaking is mythology. Truth can only be known.
And the journey of knowing is difficult, but not impossible. Yet both points must be understood. Entering meditation is difficult—not because meditation is difficult, but because you are complicated.
A man stands at the river; swimming is not difficult, but out of fear he does not put his feet into the water. Fear makes the difficulty; not swimming. Throw him in and he will swim—flail about. The difference between swimming and an ignorant man’s flailing is not much—only style, a little order. If someone pushes you in, you will swim, but your swimming has no harmony; you may even drown. The river doesn’t drown you—your haphazard struggle does. The day you learn to swim, what will you learn? The same flailing of limbs, but organized; you gain confidence; fear recedes. A swimming teacher does not teach swimming, he teaches confidence. The swimming you already know.
In the same way, no one learns meditation from a master; one learns assurance. Entering meditation is a jump; you need trust. Someone must say, “Jump; don’t be afraid—I’m here, I’ll take care.” Those who teach swimming only give you confidence: “I’m standing here.” You know this man can swim; you’ve seen him cross the river. Your fear must be reduced. The master cuts your fear.
A master cannot give you God; he can cut your fear. Once fear is cut, you are God. Your courage rises, you leap—and swimming was always in you. That is why once you learn to swim, you never forget. Funny, everything else is forgotten—why not swimming? Don’t swim for thirty years and you still will not forget. Try not using a language for thirty years—you’ll forget it. Not see your mother for thirty years—her face blurs. But not swimming for thirty years—you still know. Why? Because swimming is not in memory; you never “learned” it. If you had, you could forget. It was discovered. It was there; you merely recognized it.
And the day you really recognize, even swimming is not needed. A skilled swimmer lies on the river; doesn’t even move hands and feet. The river holds him. Not even that is needed, because his fear is gone. Fear drowns; the river does not. That is why it is hard to drown a corpse—because you cannot frighten a corpse. Let a corpse loose in the river—it floats. However deep, the river cannot drown a corpse. It drowns the living—because the living are afraid.
So consider: does the river drown you, or fear? Is the difficulty in swimming, or in your fearful, tangled mind? All the complication is in your fear.
Meditation is simple; you are complicated. As your complication is cut away, meditation grows simple. The day there is no complication within, you will find meditation as simple as breathing. Nothing has to be done.
In one sense nothing is simpler than meditation, because it is your nature. In another sense nothing is harder, because you have become very complex.
All of sadhana is the cutting away of your complexity. But it is not impossible—because you became complex knowingly, through practice. Walk the reverse road and the knots will open. Your condition is like a man who practices walking with a bent back. With practice for a year or two, it becomes easy. Then standing straight becomes hard. For lifetimes you have walked with thought; it has bent your spine. There have been some benefits—hence the habit.
I have heard of a man in a village. Wars were frequent; young, healthy men were seized for soldiers. He began to walk bent over. Slowly his back became permanently crooked. The recruiters took the straight-backed; they never took him. He thought, “There’s no harm—when needed I can stand straight.” But after a while he found it impossible.
Whenever you invest in something wrong, be mindful. It may bring short-term gains but prove costly in the long run. Thought has some benefits. Worry has benefits. Tension has benefits; that is why you are tense and worried and full of thoughts. Some things in this world are not obtained without worry.
The carefree cannot get certain things here. The carefree cannot easily accumulate wealth. The carefree cannot reach Delhi; high offices are hard. The carefree cannot ride on other people’s chests. To ride others breeds worry—because you invite them to try riding on yours, or at least to push you off. When you seek position, worry is natural.
A chief minister used to come to me. He would always say, “Somehow free me from anxiety.” I told him, “Be clear: if you want to remain chief minister, become skillful in anxiety—don’t try to be free of it, because the chief ministership won’t remain. If you want freedom from worry, be prepared to let the office go.” He said, “No, with your grace, both should be possible.” With no one’s grace are both possible.
“Then your blessing is needed.”
I cannot bless such a thing. It is not going to happen. No anxiety and the chief ministership—how? You want to be Rockefeller, and sleep like a beggar—both cannot be. Leave something for the beggar! At least he has sleep. A beggar can sleep peacefully because he has nothing to lose—so what would cause unrest or worry? The more you have to lose, the greater your unrest and worry.
Yet man tries this stupidity—wanting wealth and position and prestige and fulfilled ambition, and also no worry. You are asking for the impossible. See this clearly.
When worry goes, ambition goes; then meditation arises.
This is why many people are interested in meditation—but for the wrong reasons. And the business-minded gurus know why people are interested. So a Mahesh Yogi trumpets: you will gain in this world and in the next. Meditate—money and religion both.
In America, if you say only religion, people are not interested. Who wants religion? They want money. If peace comes along with money, they are ready. But this is foolish talk.
Worry has some payoff; otherwise why worry? Are people worried without reason? Without gain? You want to drop worry and keep the gain—that is your complexity. The day you see this clearly, you can lay worry aside—but the gains of worry go with it. Then great gains open—but you have no notion of them.
Meditation is simple. Your simplicity is needed.
Simplicity means: stop traveling in opposite directions, and you will be simple. If you go in opposite directions, you become complex.
A man has yoked oxen on both ends of his cart, and drives them both ways. The cart does not move. He is frustrated, shouting, “Show me a way!” I tell him, “Unyoke one side. Yoke both pairs in one direction. The cart will gallop.” But his goals are in opposite directions. On this side the shop, on that side the temple; here worry, there peace; here money, there meditation. He wants both. He says, “You are right, but give me a blessing so the cart reaches both destinations.”
In search of such a blessing, he looks for miracle-working gurus. A man like me cannot give that blessing. Whoever does either is a fool or a devil. Even the promise is disastrous, because the man’s life is being destroyed; his energy wasted. Opposite goals cannot be reached together. If this becomes clear, you become simple.
Simplicity means: the opposites drop, your life becomes a single flowing stream; you begin to move in one direction. Then there is no obstacle. Then your river will fall into the ocean of meditation of its own accord. You may not even need to “learn” meditation, because no one can teach it. In a simple person’s life, meditation flowers on its own.
So I say to you: become simple, become innocent. And remember, when I say innocent I do not mean: don’t smoke and you will be innocent; don’t drink and you will be innocent; don’t eat meat and you will be innocent—no. Though I know if you become innocent, you won’t be able to smoke or drink; meat-eating will be impossible. But if you abandon alcohol, meat, cigarettes in order to become innocent—I do not say that.
It is not that cheap. Many people don’t drink, don’t eat meat, don’t smoke—and are not innocent. In fact, such people are often more dangerous.
Hitler did not drink, did not eat meat, did not smoke—he was a strict vegetarian. Only a strict vegetarian can create such havoc as Hitler did. Mussolini was a strict vegetarian. These two vegetarians created more hell on earth than any meat-eater ever has. Ask the ascetics, they would recognize Hitler as an ascetic. He did not watch films, had no taste for music, did not go to dances. In one sense he was almost celibate—no interest in women. Up before dawn, living almost shut in his room. But he proved explosively destructive.
So I am not telling you that by dropping this or that you will become simple. If you drop them for the sake of simplicity, you have started with calculation—and that calculation is your complexity. Someone convinces you: leave cigarettes and you will attain liberation; you give them up. Have you thought how cheaply you want liberation? By dropping cigarettes? If liberation were gained by not smoking, it would not be worth having. If it came by giving up liquor—not worth it. What value would something have that is bought so cheaply?
What you do is not the point. Simplicity has to do with not flowing in opposite directions. Whatever you do, let it have an inner harmony, an inner music; no division, no conflict.
Simplicity means: you flow in one direction. This is intelligence—do not scatter yourself in many directions. Let your life-energy move like an arrow, and you will reach the target. The target is not far. As soon as you are simple, the mind has access to meditation.
In this story the difficulty of meditation is not being pointed out; the difficulty of talking about meditation is. One difficulty Buddha faced was the six years of meditation. That difficulty is not great. The other difficulty was the forty years of speaking about meditation. The second is greater. The first he crossed in six years. The second, in forty years he could not cross. The first, everyone can cross in a little time. The second—no one has ever crossed; no one ever will.
To know truth is simple; to tell truth is difficult. To live truth is simple. Living it is the only way to tell it.
Enough for today.