This meditation distills Osho’s teaching spirit through the Zen anecdotes of Master Lin Chi: begin with conscious effort, ripen into effortlessness, and let awareness flower in ordinary life. Lin Chi trained for years until his master asked him to drop everything—only to paint again later from a state beyond striving. In the same flavor, this practice starts by consciously laying down your burdens, then relaxes into simple listening and spacious witnessing, until doing becomes non-doing.
The last teaching of Lin Chi—“just listen”—arrives as two squirrels scurry across a roof. Nothing is trivial, nothing grand; everything is the living temple. This meditation invites you to start where you are, grow silence, serenity, and sensitivity, and then share whatever fragrance appears. It is playful and direct, honoring the Tantric insight that life is a joyful dance when we stop resisting it.
Phase Instructions
First Stage: Empty the Load (Begin from Innocence)
Find a quiet space where you can sit or stand with a relaxed, upright spine. Close the eyes softly. Take several slow, deep exhalations through the mouth, letting the shoulders drop with each out-breath. Bring to mind the “crap” you have been carrying: borrowed beliefs, rigid opinions, worries, and roles you strain to uphold. One by one, name them inwardly, and with each exhale, release them as if placing heavy parcels down beside you. If emotions surface, allow gentle sighs, yawns, or a soft shake of the body to let them move through. Keep breathing until you feel lighter, simple, unadorned—ready to meet this moment without masks.
Second Stage: Just Listen
Let the breath settle into its natural rhythm. Without searching for anything special, open the field of hearing. Receive every sound—near or far, loud or faint—without labeling it important or unimportant. If there is a hum, a birdcall, distant traffic, or even two “squirrels on the roof,” let each sound arrive, bloom, and disappear inside your awareness. Do not chase silence; let silence happen as the space in which all sounds play. If the mind comments, notice the comment as another subtle sound and return to naked listening. Ears open, heart soft, you are only a host for whatever comes and goes.
Third Stage: From Effort to Effortlessness
For a short while, make a gentle, conscious effort: keep the body still, the spine easy, and place a light attention on the breath at the nostrils. Feel the coolness on inhalation, the warmth on exhalation. After a few minutes, drop even this method. Stop doing. Let breathing breathe, sounds sound, thoughts think, sensations ripple—without your interference. Rest as simple presence, alert yet unforced. If effort returns, notice it kindly and let it melt. Abide as the sense of being that remains when striving subsides.
Fourth Stage: Nothing Small, Nothing Great
With eyes still closed, include everything equally in your awareness—body sensations, feelings, thoughts, sounds. Refuse the old habit of dividing life into sacred and mundane. The itch on your cheek, the ache in your back, the whisper of wind, the memory that floats by—let each be of the same worth. Sense how this non-preference relaxes the nervous system and widens the inner sky. Rest in this equal embrace where life is one movement, not a hierarchy of experiences.
Fifth Stage: Share the Fragrance
Gently open the eyes. Before moving, feel the residue of silence, serenity, and sensitivity. Stand up slowly. Carry this fragrance into small, immediate actions: speak a little more slowly, meet a gaze with warmth, place an object with care, step as if kissing the ground. Through the day, return to brief moments of listening—the doorway is always near. Whatever beauty arises from meditation, share it: a smile, a considerate gesture, a creative touch. Shared, it grows.
Core Benefits
- Cultivates conscious effort and effortlessness.
- Enhances awareness in ordinary life.
- Encourages relaxation into simple listening.
- Fosters spacious witnessing.
- Promotes a joyful, non-resistant approach to life.
What Osho Said About This Technique
Osho, what is the first experience of samadhi like?
You will know only when it happens. It cannot be said; at most a few hints can be given. It is as if, in the dark, a lamp is suddenly lit. Or as if a dying patient, right at the edge of death, suddenly finds a medicine that works; life’s wave, life’s thrill spreads again—so it is. As if a corpse becomes alive—such is the first experience of samadhi. It is the taste of nectar. The experience of the ultimate music. But it will be only when it happens; and only then will you understand. You will not understand by my saying it. It is as with love. How can anyone explain it? To someone who has never loved, never known love, no matter how many explanations you offer—he will hear it all and still ask, “I haven’t understood; please explain a little more.” It is like explaining light to…Read the full discourse →
When wolves were discovered in the village near master shoju's temple, shoju entered the graveyard nightly for one week and sat in zazen. This put a stop to the wolves' prowling.
OVERJOYED, THE VILLAGERS ASKED HIM TO DESCRIBE THE SECRET RITES HE HAD PERFORMED. 'I DIDN'T HAVE TO RESORT TO SUCH THINGS,' HE SAID, 'NOR COULD I HAVE DONE SO. WHILE I WAS IN ZAZEN A NUMBER OF WOLVES GATHERED ROUND ME, LICKING THE TIP OF MY NOSE, AND SNIFFING MY WINDPIPE, BUT BECAUSE I REMAINED IN THE RIGHT STATE OF MIND, I WASN'T BITTEN. AS I KEEP PREACHING TO YOU, THE PROPER STATE OF MIND WILL MAKE IT POSSIBLE FOR YOU TO BE FREE IN LIFE AND DEATH, INVULNERABLE TO FIRE AND WATER. EVEN WOLVES ARE POWERLESS AGAINST IT. I SIMPLY PRACTICE WHAT I PREACH.' You cannot see both together. They are contradictory. They cannot be seen together. When you see the figure, the background disappears; when you see the background, the figure disappears. Mind has a limited capacity to know -- it cannot know the contradictory. That s why…Read the full discourse →
In 1969 followers of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi invited Osho to talk to them. This was the first occasion on which Osho addressed a western audience, and the first time he talked publicly at length in English. The discourse has been published in OTI January 1 & 16, 1991; and February 1, 1991. Osho: Really, there can be no method as far as meditation is concerned. Meditation is not a method. Through technique, through method, you cannot go beyond mind. When you leave all methods, all techniques, you transcend mind. So meditation itself is not a method. Truth cannot be achieved through method. Method is our own invention. We, who are ignorant, have achieved knowledge through methods constructed, created, projected, in our ignorance. Through method you can achieve a sort of self-hypnosis, a sort of auto-hypnosis. Any method, whatsoever it's name, can only give you an illusory kind of peace.Read the full discourse →
(As Susana sits in front of Osho listening to the explanation of her new name, Anand Archano, her eyes close and her head slowly falls back. Moments later a tear plops off her cheek onto her lap.) I know only one prayer and that is being blissful. Nothing has to be said to god, one has simply to be blissful and all is said through one's bliss. People can pray but if they are sad, miserable, their prayer is only words, empty words with no content. If one is blissful then words are not needed at all; one can simply dance and sing or just sit silently, joyously -- and that's enough. That gratitude reaches to the ultimate source of light. So that is going to be your prayers no words but a silent joy pervading your whole being. -- How long will you be here? -- Forever.Read the full discourse →
When bankei held his seclusion-weeks of meditation, pupils from many parts of japan came to attend. During one of these gatherings a pupil was caught stealing. The matter was reported to bankei with the request that the culprit be expelled. Bankei ignored the case.
LATER THE PUPIL WAS CAUGHT IN A SIMILAR ACT, AND AGAIN BANKEI DISREGARDED THE MATTER. THIS ANGERED THE OTHER PUPILS, WHO DREW UP A PETITION ASKING FOR THE DISMISSAL OF THE THIEF, STATING THAT OTHERWISE THEY WOULD LEAVE IN A BODY. WHEN BANKEI HAD READ THE PETITION HE CALLED EVERYONE BEFORE HIM. 'YOU ARE WISE BROTHERS,' HE TOLD THEM. 'YOU KNOW WHAT IS RIGHT AND WHAT IS NOT RIGHT. YOU MAY GO SOMEWHERE ELSE TO STUDY IF YOU WISH, BUT THIS POOR BROTHER DOES NOT EVEN KNOW RIGHT FROM WRONG. WHO WILL TEACH HIM IF I DO NOT? I AM GOING TO KEEP HIM HERE EVEN IF ALL THE REST OF YOU LEAVE.' A TORRENT OF TEARS CLEANSED THE FACE OF THE BROTHER WHO HAD STOLEN. ALL DESIRE TO STEAL HAD VANISHED. I was reading in some history book that twenty persons were expelled from England; they were sea robbers.…Read the full discourse →
Common Questions
Begin by consciously laying down your burdens and relax into simple listening.
The meditation focuses on beginning with effort, evolving into effortlessness, and cultivating awareness.
Embrace silence, serenity, and sensitivity, allowing awareness to blossom in everyday life.
It invites you to witness life as a joyful dance by ceasing resistance and observing the present moment.
Yes, the realization that nothing is trivial or grand; all is part of the living temple.