Do Taoists believe in sudden or gradual enlightenment?

Do taoists agree with the happening of sudden enlightenment or the gradual one?

THEY DON'T BOTHER. Lao Tzu does not bother, because he says: Just to be ordinary is to be enlightened. It is not something special that one has to achieve, it is not an achievement, it is not something that one has to reach. It is you -- in your absolute ordinariness it flowers. To be extraordinary is the disease of the ego. The ego always wants to be extraordinary, someone special, unique, incomparable -- that is the hankering desire of the ego. If you can become a Rockefeller, good; if you can become a Hitler, good; or if you cannot become a Rockefeller or a Hitler, then renounce the world and think of becoming a Buddha. But become someone, someone special, a historic phenomenon. Lao Tzu is not bothered about enlightenment and all that nonsense. He says: Just be ordinary. Eat when you feel hungry, drink when you feel thirsty…

Do they simply have to be endured? They do have to be endured. So his freedom is not license. There is a deep check upon it. He is free in that he can act contrary to nature. But whatever consequences arise from acting contrary—painful ones—he will have to endure them.

This kind of man is not what we ordinarily call a “seeker.” The seeker we speak of is usually a reaction to the householder. If the householder runs a shop, the seeker does not; if the householder earns wealth, the seeker renounces it; if the householder marries, the seeker does not. But his rules are derived from the householder—he is only a reaction. Lao Tzu says, “I am no one’s reaction. It does not matter what others do. I neither follow anyone to do as he does, nor go against anyone to do the opposite. I let happen what arises from within.” Allowing nature to happen means not imitating anyone, not copying anyone, not building one’s personality in opposition to anyone. Whatever can happen from within, whatever wants to happen—we allow it. No obstruction, no condemnation, no opposition, no struggle, no conflict. Let what happens, happen. This means dropping notions…

Osho, in Lao Tzu’s vision of life, what place is there for sadhana (spiritual practice)? And one who relies only on drifting, not on swimming—how can he reach his goal? Is effort not necessary to reach the goal? Lao Tzu’s “doing nothing,” being inactive, also seems like a kind of goal. To abandon oneself to unknowing, unknown currents—is that wisdom, a mark of the wise, or is it ignorance and the mark of the ignorant?

No: for those who do not understand and can only understand doing, something must be made for them to do. And they must be made to do so much that by doing and doing they become exhausted and drop it. But the event happens only when they drop. Remember this: the event will not happen before that point of letting go which Lao Tzu speaks of. They must be tired out by doing. They must be made to do so much that they come to such a pitch of tension that there remains no way to maintain it, and the tension falls away. Tension has its laws. Either you drop tension right now—through understanding. One way is to drop tension through understanding. My fist is clenched. One way is that you tell me: “Clenched is not the fist’s nature; therefore you will get tired. Clenched is not the fist’s nature;…

Osho, yoga is a method of upward ascent; it seeks to take energy, power, upward. And Lao Tzu’s method seems exactly the opposite—to bring energy downward, toward the navel. So a question naturally arises: between these two methods, which one is right?

A disciple of Lao Tzu, Lieh Tzu, was once asked: We have heard that the Buddha attained enlightenment sitting under a tree. And we have heard that some yogi, chanting a mantra, sitting under a tree, attained truth by his mantra. Lieh Tzu, what is your view? Lieh Tzu said: As we understand it, chanting mantras, doing practices, performing yogasanas—these are for those who cannot remain without doing. But the real point is not that Buddha arrived by practice; he arrived because he sat. The essential thing is: he sat, therefore he arrived. Some yogi kept reciting a mantra and arrived; the mantra is not the essential thing. He arrived because he sat. The mantra is a pretext—for he cannot sit empty, so he keeps reciting. Lieh Tzu is saying: whoever has arrived, has arrived because they sat and left everything. Some can sit having left everything; they will not…

Where does educating the subconsciousness conflict or harmonise with tao, as it implies discipline with self-effort from an external expression?

Once upon a time, the Duke of Lu went forward to meet a sea bird that had made its appearance in the confines of that country, and escorted it to his ancestral hall. This is a Taoist parable. There, an ox, a sheep and a pig were slaughtered, and a feast was spread before the sea bird, while the band was playing the celebrated music composed under the supervision of the Emperor Shuen. The bird, however, merely looked on, sad and doleful, refusing to relish a morsel of meat or drink a single cup. Thus it died of hunger after three days. The duke fed the bird as he would feed himself, and he failed to see that it should have been treated as a bird and not as a king. The music is meaningless to the bird, and the ox and the sheep and the pig are not his…