No Water No Moon: Talks on Zen Stories

Email

Whatsapp

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Copy link

Osho uses these Zen stories to illustrate that holding onto the unessential is the barrier to our inner nature; losing needless attachments is a way to realization.

In the title story, the nun Chiyono is carrying a pail of water and gazing at the reflection of the moon in the water. The pail starts to fall apart. She tries desperately to hold it together but fails. The water pours out, and the reflection of the moon disappears. As the bucket falls apart, so do her mental constructs, and she realizes her inner self.

These Zen stories on the surface seem absurd, but the meaning of Zen cannot be stated in words; it can only be implied by parable. Osho employs these parables to elucidate the foibles of common thinking and to suggest ways to become aware of who we really are.

Life is not a riddle to be solved it is a mystery to be lived. Osho offers a revolutionary approach to the eternal quest that mankind carries within. As he says: Life has intrinsic value there is no goal outside it. Hence my whole effort is to change everything in to playfulness. To me that is real spirituality.

Osho defies categorization, reflecting everything from the individual quest for meaning to the most urgent social and political issues facing society today, His books are not written but are transcribed from recordings of extemporaneous talks given over a period 0f thirty-five years. Osho has been described by The Sunday Times in London as one of the “boo Makers of the 20th Century” and by Sunday Mid-Day in India as one of the ten people — along with Gandhi, Nehru and Buddha who have changed the destiny Of India.

Osho has a stated aim of helping to create the conditions for the birth of a new kind of human being, characterized as “Zorba the Buddha” — one whose feet are firmly on the ground, yet whose hands can touch the stars. Running like a thread through all aspects of Osho is a vision that encompasses both the timeless wisdom of the East and the highest potential of Western science and technology.

He is synonymous with a revolutionary contribution to the science of inner transformation and an approach to meditation which specifically addresses the accelerated pace of contemporary life, The unique OSHO” Active Meditationstm are designed to allow the release of accumulated stress in the body and mind so that it is easier to he still and experience the thought-free state of meditation.

The Western intelligentsia have become acquainted with Zen, have also fallen in love with Zen, but they are still trying to approach Zen from the mind. They have not yet come to the understanding that Zen has nothing to do with mind.

Its tremendous job is to get you out of the prison of mind. It is not an intellectual philosophy; it is not a philosophy at all. Nor is it a religion, because it has no fictions and no lies, no consolations. It is a lion’s roar And the greatest thing that Zen has brought into the world is freedom from oneself.

All the religions have been talking about dropping your ego — but it is a very weird phenomenon: they want you to drop your ego, and the ego is just a shadow of God. God is the ego of the universe, and the ego is your personality. Just as God is the very center of existence according to religions, your ego is the center of your mind, of your personality. They have all been talking about dropping the ego, hut it cannot he dropped unless God is dropped. You cannot drop a shadow or a reflection unless the source of its manifestation is destroyed.

So, religions have been saying continuously, for centuries, that you should get rid of the ego — but for wrong reasons. They have been asking you to drop your ego so you can surrender to God, so you can surrender to the priests, so you can surrender to any kind of nonsense, any kind of theology, superstition, belief system.

But you cannot drop the ego if it is a reflection of God. God is a lie, out there in the universe, and ego is a lie within your mind. Your mind is simply reflecting a bigger lie according to its size.