According to Osho, the quip “Give him a paper with ‘PTO’ on both sides” is a Zen-like joke: it reveals how mind and culture trap us in endless, pointless loops of busyness. Humor exposes our automaticity. See the loop, stop turning, and return to awareness; laughter loosens ego, dissolves stereotypes, and restores simple presence.
It’s a playful way of saying we often stay busy doing nothing—notice the loop, stop, and be aware.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
In the tang dynasty there was a stout fellow who was called the happy chinaman, or the laughing buddha.
THIS HOTEI HAD NO DESIRE TO CALL HIMSELF A ZEN MASTER, OR TO GATHER DISCIPLES AROUND HIM. INSTEAD HE WALKED THE STREETS WITH A SACK ON HIS BACK FULL OF CANDY, FRUIT AND DOUGHNUTS -- WHICH HE GAVE OUT TO THE CHILDREN WHO GATHERED AND PLAYED AROUND HIM. WHENEVER HE MET A ZEN DEVOTEE HE WOULD EXTEND HIS HAND AND SAY: "GIVE ME ONE PENNY." AND IF ANYONE ASKED HIM TO RETURN TO THE TEMPLE TO TEACH OTHERS, AGAIN HE WOULD REPLY: "GIVE ME ONE PENNY." ONCE WHEN HE WAS AT HIS PLAY-WORK ANOTHER ZEN MASTER HAPPENED TO ALONG AND INQUIRED: "WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF ZEN?" HOTEI IMMEDIATELY PLOPPED HIS SACK DOWN ON THE GROUND IN SILENT ANSWER. "THEN," ASKED THE OTHER, "WHAT IS THE ACTUALIZATION OF ZEN?" AT ONCE THE HAPPY CHINAMAN SWUNG THE SACK OVER HIS SHOULDER AND CONTINUED ON HIS WAY. You have turned life into…
Osho, why are you not getting bored while you are telling the same stories and the same jokes?
THE FIRST thing to be understood is that Divakar Bharti is an Indian, and Indians are absolutely unable to understand jokes! They don't have any jokes in India. I have not come across a single Indian joke. Indians are serious people -- spiritual people, religious people! They talk only of great things: God, heaven, hell, the theory of karma and rebirth. When you tell a joke to an Indian he feels offended... you see? He feels offended, insulted! You look at his face -- he feels embarrassed. Talk about something esoteric -- bullshit him! -- and then he is perfectly happy. He never laughs, he cannot; laughter is beyond him. He has forgotten laughter. That's why, Divakar, the question has arisen in you. Otherwise each joke, in a different context, is different. The joke in itself may be an old one -- and in fact, there are no new jokes…
When I laugh at your jokes in the lecture I feel it is just a reflex, that my laughter is happening on the surface and not penetrating into my being. I am laughing less and less. Now even your towel madness does not move me. Is this a question?
And all the monks look alike: shaved. Have you noticed it? If you shave your hair, moustache, beard, you become almost a non-entity. Your face loses individuality. The monks look all alike, you cannot make out any difference. You see the shaven heads and you are bored. Hair gives a little style, a little difference -- all heads shaven look alike; with hair you can have a style. Somebody has a long hair-style, somebody a short hair-style; somebody is a square and somebody is a hippie. And there are a thousand ways to do something with hair. What can you do with the head? It is just the same -- the dress is the same, the head is the same, the food is the same, the rock garden is the same, and the meditation is the same. Year in, year out, for twenty years. The work is to bring boredom…
Question: BELOVED OSHO, I FEEL TOO LAZY TO THINK OF A QUESTION. WHAT TO DO? But if you don't want to be a philosopher, if you are not interested in wiping off all the problems, all the questions, then you can be a Polack. That is the same in a more gross way. The philosopher is subtle, the Polack is gross, but they belong to the same ladder. The Polack may be the lowest rung and the philosopher the highest rung, but the ladder is the same. Frankowski showed up at the practice field to try out for the high school football team. "What position do you want to play?" asked the coach. "Quarterback!" answered Frankowski. The coach handed him a football and said, "Do you think you can pass this ball?" "Hell," said the Polack, "if I can swallow it, I can pass it too!
The man laughed, he said "I have a strategy: on whatsoever comes to me, on whatsoever files come to me I simply write 'Refer to Mr John.'" He said "My god! -- I am John! Why do you write 'Refer to Mr John'?" He said "I think that in this big office there is bound to be somebody of the name of John, so I simply write 'refer'; then the file moves; then I don't know where it goes and what happens to it." In the offices people are just reading newspapers, smoking, and then there are so many coffee breaks and tea breaks. In fact there is no work break at all. Amidst all other breaks the whole day is broken. And a dream for the coming day of... And on that day you will see how crazy they go.