What is the significance of laughter in Zen meditation?

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…

Buddha was to give a special talk one day,and thousands of followers had come from miles around. When buddha appeared he was holding a flower. Time passed, but buddha said nothing. He just looked at the flower. The crowd grew restless, but mahakashyap, who could restrain himself no longer, laughed. Buddha beckoned him over, handed him the flower, and said to the crowd, "I have the eye of the true teaching. All that can be given with words I have given to you; but with this flower, I give to mahakashyap the key to this teaching."

One man, a scientist, was working on plants -- how they feel, whether they feel anything or not, whether they have emotions or not. He was sitting with a plant with electrodes fixed to it to detect any movement in its inner being, any sensation, any emotions. He thought, "If I cut this plant, if I tear down a branch or cut it from the earth, what will happen?" Suddenly, the needle making the graph jumped. He had not done anything, he had just had a thought: "If I cut this plant...." The plant became afraid of death and the needle jumped, recording that the plant was trembling. Even the scientist became scared because he had not done anything -- just a thought and the plant received it. Plants are telepathic. Then he worked much -- he worked on long distances. The plant was removed one thousand miles. His plant,…

Beloved Osho, is there a sense of humor beyond the mind? To me meditation has a sense of seriousness in it, and in my experience a sense of humor arises from misunderstandings -- real or imagined -- which have their root in the mind. Is it possible for laughter to arise with no-mind?

I have heard about an American seeker. He was a super-rich man, and having everything, he got fed up. The more you have, the more you become aware that it is not going to satisfy you. The poor man is in a better mental condition, because he can hope that tomorrow he will have a better house, a better job, more salary, a better car. There are millions of hopes around him which will never be fulfilled, and it is good that they will not be fulfilled. The super-rich finds himself in a very strange position: all hopes are fulfilled and his hands are empty, his being is empty; nothing has been found. Life has befooled him. Those hopes have proved to be all mirages. So the man started looking for some wise man who can show him the path to find the real, the ultimate, the absolute truth. And…

Beloved Osho, when I heard you say laughter is a small release from our misery, my mind would not compute. It felt as though hysteria was filling the room as we all laughed, and I am still asking myself, "what happened?"

You can see what happened! It can look like hysteria. For example, when you understand something and laughter happens as a relief from misery, a great energy is released. Every understanding releases accumulated energies in you. For example, you are not laughing the whole day -- only once in a while. You are not being loving the whole day -- only once in a while. What happens to the energy in the big gaps? It accumulates, and if you come to an understanding of a certain phenomenon there is a great release, and the release is so strong that it will feel hysterical. But it is not hysterical; it is really getting relief from energy which could have become hysterical any moment. You can find people in madhouses laughing for hours, laughing so much that tears come to their eyes. They are mad because they could not manage to release…

In regard to the zen monks who laugh as a meditation every morning -- don't you think they are taking their laughter a little too seriously?

No, because they laugh again -- a second laugh -- for the first, that "How foolish we are! Why are we laughing?" If you laugh only once, it can be serious. So always re. member to laugh twice. First just laugh, and then laugh at the laughter. Then you will not get serious. And Zen people are in a way not what you mean by religious people. They are not. Zen is not a religion; it is a vision. It has no scripture. It has nothing to abide with. It has nowhere to go, it has no goal. Zen is not a means or a method towards some goal and some end. It is the end. It is very difficult to understand Zen because if you want to understand it, you will have to drop all that you have carried up to now -- being a Christian, a Hindu, a…