According to Osho, don’t choose—let outer sounds and the inner discourse coexist in a relaxed, open awareness. This is meditation, not concentration: include the cuckoo, the train, and the words together, without resisting anything. Disturbance arises from forcing focus; openness turns noise into background music. What matters is presence, the wordless communion; embrace everything as divine.
Keep your mind soft and open so birds and the talk can be heard together—don’t block anything, just let it all be.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, the cuckoo’s cooing and your discourse go on together. Which should I attend to? Please tell me!
Shanti Swarup, why choose at all? Let both go together. The cuckoo’s cooing is not a disturbance to my discourse; it is the background. The cuckoo’s cooing supports exactly what I am saying; it is a base for the very ecstasy I am teaching. But ordinarily we have been taught one thing—concentration. And we fail to distinguish between concentration and meditation. The books say: meditation means concentration. Nothing could be more wrong. Meditation and concentration are entirely different. Concentration means: pull your attention back from everywhere and fix it in one place. It means: narrow the mind. Meditation means: make the mind vast. It means: open all the doors and windows. The cuckoo has sung—let that in; the sound of the train—include that too; and what I am saying—let that be there as well. There is no need to oppose any of it. Absorb everything together. And you will be…
Osho, to abide in oneself beyond the knower, knowledge, and the known—can one live in that state for an entire lifetime? Just as a lake is sometimes calm, sometimes playful, and sometimes stormy, does the self-realized one remain unaffected by worldly circumstances in the same way? Osho, dispel my ignorance!
Spring means harmony between season and mood. Meditation means harmony between you and the whole. You become harmonious. Whatever is, is perfectly okay—accepted. Nowhere any refusal, nowhere any opposition. Whatever is happening is auspicious. That is trust; that is meditation. Such meditation naturally takes you into an altogether new experience. Storms will rise; they will not stop because you meditate. Diseases will not stop coming to the body because you meditate. They will come. A thorn will sometimes pierce the foot. Raman had cancer; so did Ramakrishna—great storms came! Ramakrishna got cancer of the throat; he could neither eat nor drink. Vivekananda said to him, “What is not in your power! Why don’t you pray to the Lord at least to allow food and water to pass? We suffer watching you writhe.” Ramakrishna said, “Ah, it never even occurred to me to pray. How could it occur—to one whose prayer…
'Neither distraction nor concentration.' A unique utterance! Ordinarily you think meditation means concentration. Meditation is not concentration. Because if you concentrate, there will be distraction; obstacle will come. You sit focusing on the image of Rama and a dog barks—mess. The dog’s bark will be heard, for as long as it is heard your focus on Rama is gone. For a moment you forgot. Your beads are rolling and the phone rings. For a second the mind went to the phone; the beads slipped. The hand may go on, but within, you missed. You become unhappy: obstacle. Meditation is not concentration; meditation is awareness. You sit—the dog barks—it is heard. The phone rings—it is heard. When the dog barks, there is no inner thought that 'the dog should not bark'. Who are you to stop the dog? The dog is not stopping you from meditating!
Some friends come to me and say, Osho, we keep hearing all sorts of sounds. When will this stop?
It is never going to stop. You are not to become unconscious so that you don’t hear sounds. No—meditation will not come by the stopping of sounds. Sounds are there, and within you no reaction, no response arises—meditation is concerned only with this much. A man is shouting next door; nothing happens to you: you hear, and nothing happens. A sister came to me today and said that in the last fifteen minutes of the afternoon silence her heartbeat increased a lot. So many sounds became audible that she got frightened; she felt like getting up and running away. Not hearing sounds would be a swoon. Hearing sounds and reacting by running away—that is the ordinary state. Hearing sounds and simply listening, remaining only the witness, the watcher—that is meditation. You are not to become stupefied. Whatever is happening, you will know it all—but it will become dreamlike. As long…
One winter day, a masterless samurai came to eisai's temple and made an appeal: 'I'm poor and sick,' he said, 'and my family is dying of hunger. Please help us, master.'
DEPENDENT AS HE WAS ON WIDOWS' MITES, EISAI'S LIFE WAS VERY AUSTERE, AND HE HAD NOTHING TO GIVE. HE WAS ABOUT TO SEND THE SAMURAI OFF WHEN HE REMEMBERED THE IMAGE OF YAKUSHI-BUDDHA IN THE HALL. GOING UP TO IT HE TORE OFF ITS HALO AND GAVE IT TO THE SAMURAI. 'SELL THIS,' SAID EISAI, 'IT SHOULD TIDE YOU OVER.' THE BEWILDERED BUT DESPERATE SAMURAI TOOK THE HALO AND LEFT. 'MASTER!' CRIED ONE OF EISAI'S DISCIPLES, 'THAT'S SACRILEGE! HOW COULD YOU DO SUCH A THING?' 'SACRILEGE? BAH! I HAVE MERELY PUT THE BUDDHA'S MIND, WHICH IS FULL OF LOVE AND MERCY, TO USE, SO TO SPEAK. INDEED, IF HE HIMSELF HAD HEARD THAT POOR SAMURAI HE'D HAVE CUT OFF A LIMB FOR HIM.' Even if you feel, or you think you feel, or you pretend that you feel, compassion, just go deep and analyze it and you will always find…