Buddhism

Osho, is everything in life a river-boat happenstance? The Buddha too? Buddhahood too?

No—except for Buddhahood, everything is a river-boat happenstance. Because Buddhahood is your nature, not a happenstance. It is not that you have to become a Buddha. You are a Buddha. All that is needed is to recognize it. It is not that you have to acquire Buddhahood. You never lost it. It is re-cognition, a remembering. You simply have to wake up and see what is already there. Buddhahood is not a happenstance. Buddhahood does not depend on any circumstances. Nor does it depend on your spiritual practices—remember that. Don’t think that by doing a lot of meditation you will become a Buddha. By much meditation and austerity it may become easier for you to awaken to Buddhahood, but not to be a Buddha—you were that already. Even when you were in deep stupor, snoring away, you were still a Buddha. Wandering through wombs—countless wombs—living like insects and worms, lost…

Osho, why do all the buddhas say the same thing?

TRUTH IS ONE. Even if it is said differently, it is the same truth. Languages may differ, metaphors may differ parables may differ, but if you really look a little deep, then al parables, all languages, all metaphors, culminate in one truth. TRUTH is one -- what can Buddhas do? Although each Buddha speaks in his own way, and his expression has HIS signature on it. His expression is just his and nobody else's. But still those who can see will always find that it is the same diamond -- maybe we have been shown only one aspect of it by Krishna, another aspect by Christ, still another by Mohammed, but those are aspects of the same diamond. The diamond is one, this universe is one -- and all the Buddhas have been saying the same thing, in different languages, in different ways. Those differences come from their individualities, not…

Osho, when Lord Buddha visited the house of the Panchagra-dayaka Brahmin, was it a river-boat meeting or a river-ocean meeting? But is it not true that the river goes to the ocean, and the ocean does not come to the river?

First thing: meeting a true master is not a river-boat encounter; it is a river-ocean union. A river-boat encounter lasts only a moment: husband-wife, brother-brother, friend-friend. All the relationships of this world are river-boat encounters; they arise and they dissolve. Whatever is formed and then dissolves is a worldly relationship. Whatever, once formed, does not dissolve, transcends the world. That is why there has always been a yearning in the human heart for a love that never ends. If such a love happens, one that never dies, it becomes the path to the Divine. The loves that form and fade, form and fade, are river-boat encounters. There is no inevitability there; the river can part from the boat, the boat from the river. You can drag the boat up onto the shore. There is no compulsion. But once the Ganga has fallen into the ocean, you cannot pull the Ganga…

Osho, what is the essence of buddha dharma -- the religion of the buddha?

Mouna, <q>YOKA SAYS IF YOU REACH THE ZEN OF BUDDHA, AT THAT VERY MOMENT YOU ACCOMPLISH EVERYTHING.</q> <q>IN YOUR DREAM THERE ARE MANY PATHWAYS, BUT WHEN YOU WAKE UP, THEY ARE REDUCED TO NOTHING. NEITHER ERROR, NOR HAPPINESS, NOR LOSS, NOR GAIN. DO NOT TRY TO FIND ANYTHING IN THE ESSENCE OF YOUR BEING. IT IS A LONG TIME SINCE YOU WIPED THE DUST FROM YOUR MIRROR, NOW IT IS TIME FOR YOU TO SEE ITS BRILLIANCY PERFECTLY.</q> <q>WHO CAN NOT-THINK, ALL IS HIS. IF YOU PRACTICE CHARITY IN ORDER TO BECOME BUDDHA WHEN WILL YOU SUCCEED? NEVER -- A THOUSAND TIMES NEVER. DRINK AND EAT ACCORDING TO YOUR TRUE NATURE. ALL THINGS IN THE UNIVERSE ARE IMPERMANENT, AND THEREFORE ALL EXISTENCE IS VOID. THAT IS THE WHOLE UNDERSTANDING OF BUDDHA.</q> This is the essence of Buddha Dharma, the religion of the Buddha. First: it is not a philosophy that…