According to Osho, Sartre’s response is ‘very much Zen-like’ because he has earned an authentic no—the vital negation—yet he stops there; Zen demands moving from no to yes and then beyond both into a naked, seedless clarity without any stance. Thus Sartre stands on the threshold Buddha crossed: near transcendence, but fixed at the border of nihilistic negation.
He’s close to wisdom by saying “no,” but real Zen goes past both “no” and “yes” into a clear mind that clings to nothing.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, once you referred to sartre saying that when he was asked in an interview. "what is the most significant thing in your life?" sartre replied everything. To love to live, to smoke. And then you remarked that this reply is very zen-like. But does sartre have a zen-consciousness?
Have you watched sometimes the phenomenon of false pregnancy? A woman believes that she is pregnant, and just by the belief, just by the idea, she becomes autohypnotized that she is pregnant. She starts feeling her belly is growing -- and the belly really starts growing. Maybe there is nothing but air. And every month the belly goes on getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Just her mind helping the belly to accumulate air, just the very idea. And there is nothing -- no pregnancy, no child inside. This is false pregnancy; there is not going to be any birth. When somebody says no without earning it, without having lived for it.... For example, now in Russia no has become the official philosophy. Everybody is a communist and everybody is an atheist. Now the no is bogus -- as bogus as the yes of Indians. It is a false pregnancy…
The moon reflected in the stream, the wind blowing through the pines in the cool of the evening, in the deep midnight, -- what is it for? When we attain reality, it is seen to be neither personal nor impersonal. There is no sin, no paradise, no loss or gain; about this transcendentality, no questions! Who is thoughtless? Who is birthless?
For example, you go to the garden and you see a rose flower, and you ask what is the meaning of it. By asking you destroy the whole beauty of it. Now you cannot watch the grace of the flower, now you cannot look into the beauty of it; you cannot see the joy of the flower, you cannot see its dance in the sun, in the rains. You cannot see what is confronting you -- a tremendously significant blooming of existence. Now, you are searching for meaning, you ask 'What is the meaning of this rose flower? Naturally, there is no meaning; you cannot reduce the flower to a meaning. And when you cannot reduce the flower to a meaning, great despair arises. 'There is no meaning in the flower? Life is all meaningless, futile. Man is a useless passion.' You have fallen into a dark night. One step…
All the religions are based on god. Their morality, their commandments, their prayers, their saintliness -- everything points towards god, and you say that god is dead. Then what will happen to all these great things that are dependent on the concept of god?
So Ma Tzu was a very strange man, perhaps there has never been another man so strange. A unique master in himself, he walked on all fours and always looked like a tiger. Whenever he looked at somebody, people started a deep trembling; he was a dangerous man. He was very healthy; he was bound to be, he was almost like a bull. Just the horns were missing, otherwise.... Between Ma Tzu on one side, Rinzai Zen, and Sekito on the other side, Soto Zen, Zen took flight; both were very powerful people, great masters. <q>AS A YOUNG BOY, SEKITO TOOK A STAND AGAINST AN OLD CUSTOM OF SACRIFICING A BULL AS A MEANS TO PLACATE EVIL SPIRITS; HE MADE A HABIT OF DESTROYING THE SHRINES DEVOTED TO SUCH SPIRITS, AND WOULD RELEASE BULLS FROM THEIR ENCLOSURES SO THEY COULD ESCAPE. AT THE AGE OF TWELVE, SEKITO MET MASTER ENO.…
Osho, all my life I have said yes and now that I am here with you and the yes seems really right, there comes only no. What is this no?
And the Master said, 'That's all that I can say or that I am allowed to say. You ask about the goal, I talk about the way, because the goal is so incomprehensible, so mysterious, that nothing can be said about it. I can simply sit in silence. If you have eyes to see, see! If you have ears to hear, hear! Hear my silence, and the song that my silence is, and the music that arises in it. If you cannot hear it, that simply shows you need meditation. So meditate.' The man said, 'Just this much -- one word, "meditation"? Won't you elaborate on it a little?' He wrote again in bigger letters: MEDITATION. That was his elaboration . The man was puzzled and he said, 'But you are simply repeating. Just writing it in bigger letters won't help.' So he wrote again in even bigger letters: MEDITATION.…
Once you can remain in your body, but unconnected with it, meditation has happened. This is the first satori. Many hours may pass but you will not feel the passage of time. But this happens only when fear has disappeared and your mind has become acclimatised to the new experience and it is not too terrified by it but becomes curious. Your mind will become so interested that it wants to know more about it and the fear will become transformed into a witnessing of what has happened. Go into it more and more, little by little, and if you start feeling that you will go mad, absorb that madness also by and by. Many people have gone mad. If they are working without a master and not knowing what to do, they land themselves in something which they cannot manage, and they can go mad.