Quote for the Day

"There are only two types of people: one, who escape from their loneliness the majority, the ninety-nine point nine percent, who escape from themselves; and the remaining point one percent is the meditator, who says, 'If loneliness is a truth, then it is a truth; then there is no point in running away from it'.  It is better to go into it, encounter it, see it face to face, what it is." -- Osho

Transcending The Extra Sensory Perception

Zen-Haven: It’s easy for society to manipulate the five senses. Behavioral psychology has taught us that. Nasty experiments in Russia have proven that a child can be easily inducted with the belief that the feeling of cold can be altered into the feeling of warmth. The taste of sour can be reversed so the child thinks the taste is sweet. It’s all mind games and tricks. What we pick up on the five senses is conditioned by society’s need of a common conception of what is good and bad, pleasant or unpleasant, based on the deciphering of the sensory systems as for the troubles in Morph City. In other words: They would need us to sense the same so: Nothing stands out. We wont´t see the tricks.The Cosmic senses (ESP) cannot be manipulated that way, which could be a reason for the worship and fear of them. The reason they cannot be manipulated that way is because they are vertical. They go up into the celestial or cosmos or whatever we want to call it...read more>>>...

Celtic Pathways - Inspiration For The Day

Quote: Osho Zen

Celtic Pathways - Inspiration for the Day

Quote: Osho

Celtic Pathways - Inspiration For The Day

Quote: Osho

Inspiration for the Day

"Each moment brings new surprises to the one who has no expectations, who comes with an absolutely open mind. Then incredible things start happening. Even if you had wanted them you could not have expected them; you could not have found yourself worthy enough to expect them." - OSHO

Inspiration for the Day

Whenever you touch a height, enjoy the height; whenever you touch the bottom, enjoy the bottom. One thing should remain continuously flowing in you — the enjoyment. Giggle within yourself when you are beyond yourself, and giggle within yourself when you are within yourself — but giggling should continue. Make life a laughter when great things are happening, and when nothing is happening, laughter should continue. Laughter should be the running thread of the garland of flowers of all your ecstasies and experiences of the beyond. They will change, but one thread of laughter can continue within you. Laughter is almost the shrine of the witness. Within the laughter, you will always find the watcher. And to become a watcher without discontinuity, without gaps, is all that is meant by enlightenment.- Osho

Osho Insights – Man Ordinarily Exists In A State Of Sleep

Man ordinarily exists in a state of sleep. He is not alert, he is not aware of what he is doing; he is not even aware of who he is. He is not conscious of from where he has come and to where he is going. He is an utterly deep, deep slumber.

Meditation is just the opposite of this somnambulistic state. It is bringing in consciousness. It is becoming alert of three things: first, the body and its activities — because that is the grossest thing and it is easier to become aware of it — second, the mind — the thoughts, the desires, the memories — and third, feelings — the sentiments, the emotions… which are the subtlest.

If one becomes aware of these three layers then suddenly the fourth happens of its own accord. You do these three and the fourth simply happens; you have earned it, you deserve the fourth. The fourth means awareness of awareness, it means awareness of your being. And that is the greatest experience in life.

And this is the gracious gift of god — the fourth state of awareness. George Gurdjieff used to call his way the fourth way. His disciple, P.D. Ouspensky, has written a beautiful treatise; he gave it the name THE FOURTH WAY. But it has been a known secret for thousands of years in the East. We call the ultimate state of meditation, turiya. Turiya means the fourth, simply the fourth. We don’t give it a name but a number.

Begin with the body, go to the mind, then to the heart and suddenly you have come to your centre, to your very being. And in coming to your very being you transcend all misery, all darkness, all death. You transcend both time and space. This is the experience of god. The fourth is nothing but pure godliness.

Source – Osho Book “Just the Tip” ... read more>>>...

Osho Quote for the Day

The faraway has a tremendous magnetic force, particularly for the ego, because it gives you the promise of great achievement. The psychology of the ego is contained in the word achievement: achieve something. The truth is already there, within you; you cannot achieve it, you cannot lose it, because it is your very being. That’s why millions of people never become interested in it — what is the point? You can neither lose it nor can you attain it — it is already there --- Osho

Osho Quote for the Day

Another significant point to remember: if you witness anything — fear, anger, hate — they will disappear, leaving a tremendous amount of energy in you which you can use for creativity. You will have to use it, the leaking holes have disappeared; you will be overflowing with energy. But if you witness your love, compassion, kindness, humbleness, they will not disappear. They also have tremendous energy, but the more you witness them, the more they will become strong in you; they will overpower you, overwhelm you....read more quotes here ...

Osho Quote for the Day

A really spiritual person will live life as an art, will create a deep harmony between the body and the consciousness. And this is the greatest art there is. His life will be a joy to see. And he will be fragrant, for the sheer reason that there is no split in his being. The very unity makes him organic; the wound of division is healed.

More Inspiration

When a man of enlightenment looks at a roseflower there is no division between the knower and the known; he becomes the very heart of the roseflower. When he looks at the sunrise he becomes the sunrise, when he looks at a white cloud, he becomes the white cloud. It is not by any effort. He has just become a mirror, so clean that everything that comes before it is reflected in it. He becomes it.

Osho Quotes for the Day

Enlightenment is the understanding that this is all, that this is perfect, that this is it. Enlightenment is not an achievement, it is an understanding that there is nothing to achieve, nowhere to go.

This is the Zen approach: nothing is there to be done. There is nothing to do. One has just to be. Have a rest and be ordinary and be natural.

The Beauty of Imperfection

The mossy, knotted roots of an old tree. A winding road only partially paved. The deeply lined face of an elder. Much of the beauty around us is neither symmetrical nor intricate. It is naturally radiant and uniquely striking. According to Japanese aesthetic tradition, the appreciation of beauty that is impermanent, imperfect and incomplete is called Wabi Sabi. Wabi is the kind of perfect beauty that is paradoxically caused by just the right kind of imperfection. Sabi is the kind of attractiveness that can come only with age. Blending harmoniously, these two concepts provide a path to a definition of beauty that values humanity over flawlessness. Learning to appreciate the Wabi Sabi in your surroundings, you will open your eyes to beauty in all its diversity. The concepts of Wabi-Sabi correlate with the principles of Zen Buddhism, as the first Japanese involved with its practice were tea masters, priests, and monks who also practiced Zen. Upon noticing the unique beauty of a roof tile, a mid sixteenth century Master of the Tea Ceremony, Sen no Rikyu, asked the tile maker to produce some pieces for the tea ceremony using the same materials and firing technique. The result was pottery with bold colors, great freedom of form and a simplicity that seemed to embody the essence of Zen. Today, many painters, potters and writers continue to create art in this tradition. Their Wabi Sabi art, which reflects humble soulfulness instead of machine-like precision, challenges the eye, asking us to transcend our usual ways of evaluating life. You can begin to perceive beauty in this way by simply looking around. Surrounding you at all times is nature's earthy, unpretentious magnificence. Nature's imperfect loveliness will remind you to love your authentic self. Wabi Sabi teaches us that it is our flaws that make us beautiful. So embrace your uniqueness and learn to see beauty in all its forms.

Zen Insight ...

With realization, things make one family;
Without realization, things are separated in a thousand ways.
Without realization, things make one family;
With realization, things are separated in a thousand ways.

Making Contact with Truth

With your eyes shining bright, you penetrate through obscurities and recognize what is happening on the other side of the mountain. You swallow your sound and eliminate your traces, without leaving behind anything whatsoever. Yet you can set in motion waves that go against the current and employ the ability that cuts off the flow. You are swift as a falcon that gets mistaken for a shadow as it soars into the air with its back to the deep blue sky. In the blink of an eye, it’s gone. Point to it, and it comes. Press it, and it goes. It is unstoppably lofty and pure.

This is the way this true source is put into circulation, to serve as a model and standard for later generations. All those who would communicate the message of the source must be able to see through a person’s false personality without blinking an eye; only then can they enter into it actively.

People with the will to reach the Truth must be fully developed and thoroughly polished to be able to go beyond conventions and transcend sects. They can only be seedlings of transcendence when at the subtle level they can see through every drop, and at the expansive level the thousand sages cannot find them.

Old Master Zufeng used to say, “Even Shakyamuni Buddha and Maitreya Buddha are servants of the Way. Ultimately, what is the Way?” How can this admit of arbitrary and confused probing? You will only get what you are aiming for if you realise the Way

In general, a good Zen teacher will energize the indomitable spirit of the great person inside a student and cause them to move ahead into the superior stream so that they cannot be trapped or called back. As a teacher helps people respond to their potential, the process should all be clear and freeing. If the supposed teacher uses contrived concepts of “mysteries” and “marvels” and “the essence of truth,” how can this produce any genuine expedient teachings? If they put a gleam in their eye and strut around uttering apt sayings of doctrines they claim to be absolute reality, this is just one blind man leading a crowd of blind people further into confusion.

When you make contact with Truth, then it covers heaven and earth. Always nurturing it and putting it into practice, you discover an extraordinary state. Only then do you share the understanding that comes from Spirit Peak and Few Houses Mountain.

Who says that no one perceives “the priceless pearl?” I say the black dragon’s pearl shines forth wherever it is.

Yuanwu (1063-1135)

— Excerpt from "Zen Letters - Teachings of Yuanwu"
Trans by J.C. Cleary and Thomas Cleary

Reawaken your curiosity

"What a distressing contrast there is between the radiant intelligence of the child and the feeble mentality of the average adult." -- Sigmund Freud

Why is this so?

Young children possess what Zen calls ‘beginner’s mind.’ They are awed and fascinated with the wonder of the world, open to discovering and experiencing new things. Anything is possible. Life is a great adventure.

For almost all of us, the systems that ‘educate’ us to be adults stifle our natural joy and curiosity. We lose touch with our innate appreciation of life. We forget how to dream.

The blessing is that with attention, patience and love, we can reawaken our sense of wonder. We can again dance with life.

"The mind WILL be free, or it will be dead."-- Grace Llewellyn

Real Truth, Real Nature

The natural, real Buddha nature is always inherently complete and luminous; it was thus before our parents gave birth to us, it is thus right now, and it will always be thus forever.

Originally there is not a single thing. Since there’s not a single thing, what is to be called original? If you can see into this, you will save the most mental energy. When divergent thoughts arise, adamantly cut them off yourself. This is expediently called concentration and insight, but it is not reality; this mind itself is inherently concentrated and at once insightful.

Huang-po said, “This mind is always intrinsically round and bright, illuminating everywhere. People of the world don’t know it, and just recognize perception and cognition as mind. Drop perception and cognition, and the road to mind comes to an end. If you want to know the mind, it is not apart from perception and cognition; and yet original mind is not limited to perception and cognition either.”

When you come to this, it is really essential for you to look into yourself; it is not a matter of verbal explanation. The more the talk, the further removed from the way. Those who are successful at introspection know for themselves when the time comes and do not need to ask anyone. All false imagination and emotional thoughts naturally disappear. This is the effect of learning the Way.

A thousand falsehoods do not compare to a single truth. If you are not thus, even if you consciously apply your mind, seeking effectiveness daily, it is all in the realm of impermanence, becoming and passing away.

Generally speaking, on this path it is important to work on real truth. When real truth stamps the mind, the path becomes self-evident. If the mind is not true, then even if you attend lectures everyday and discuss the path constantly, this just provides topics of conversation and is ultimately of no benefit on the path.

So what is the real truth? It is just a matter of looking back into the purity of your own mind in the course of daily activities, not being led astray by anything. That is because the mind is like a monkey, consciousness like a horse: without the tool of great awareness watching them, it will be truly hard to control them no matter how clever your devices.

But when the mind has been settled, so that it merges back into oneness, and all traces of birth and extinction disappear, then you naturally realize basic subtle illumination, thoroughly empty, yet uncannily penetrating and effective.

The spiritual light shines independently, transcendentally liberated from organs and objects of sense. This statement has said it all. If you can understand this, how could I presume to talk a lot?

If the light is not revealed, you need a method. The method is not asking someone to explain; it is not studying scriptures; it is not doing a lot of charitable acts; it is not closing the eyes and sitting as if dead. Just look intently into the question of what your original face is in the course of daily life. Don’t think about whether it is hard or easy, or remote or near; and don’t worry that your own faculties and potential are slow or dull, or that you are too heavily obstructed by past habits. Just go right ahead and do it; after a while, eventually you will bump into it all of a sudden.

Excerpt from Teachings of Zen Translated by Thomas Cleary

Treatise on Sitting Meditation

Sitting meditation is the method of great liberation; all the teachings flow forth from this, myriad practices are mastered this way. All the buddhas and bodhisattvas have entered and left by this door.

"What does it mean that sitting meditation is the root source of all the teachings?"

Meditation is the inner mind of the enlightened ones, discipline is their outer character, doctrine is their speech, Buddha remembrance is the invocation of Buddha's name; all come from the enlightened mind of the buddhas. Therefore it is considered fundamental.

"The method of meditation is formless and thoughtless; spiritual qualities are not obvious, and there is no proof of seeing reality, so how can we believe this?"

Your own mind and the enlightened mind are one. If you do not know your own mind, on whom can you call for witness and proof? Other than seek the identity of mind and Buddha, what proof do you seek?

"How should we practice this method? Even if we practice we are not sure of attaining enlightenment and fulfilling buddhahood; and if it is uncertain, even if we do practice, what is the benefit?"

The enlightened mind itself basically has no delusion or enlightenment. This is actually the subtle art of those who realize thusness; even if you don't become enlightened, when you sit once in meditation you are a Buddha for that sitting; when you sit for a day in meditation, you are a Buddha for a day; when you sit in meditation for all your life, you are a Buddha all your life.

"How should I rest my mind, how should I use my mind?"

The enlightened mind has no attachment to appearances; detachment from appearances is the character of reality. Among the four modes of conduct, walking, standing, sitting and lying, sitting is considered to be stable and tranquil. This means sitting straight and contemplating the characteristics of reality.

"Please explain in detail the meaning of sitting straight and contemplating reality."

Sitting straight means sitting cross legged as the Buddhas do; contemplating reality means sitting meditation, forming the symbol of absorption in the cosmos (left palm up, left hand on right palm, thumb tips joined to form a circle, symbol of the body of reality with no lack or excess, beginningless and endless, perfect and complete as a sphere), body and mind unmoving.Eyes half open, watching over the tip of the nose, you should see all compounded things as like dreams, illusions, bubbles, shadows; don't get hung up in thought about them.

"Why keep the eyes half open, watching over the tip of the nose?"

When the eyes are open and you can see for a distance, your mind can be distracted by the profusion of objects; yet if you close your eyes, you fall into a state of darkness and oblivion, and your mind is not clear. When your eyes are half-open, your thoughts don't race; mind and body are one thusness. This is called fulfilling buddhahood right where you are, the meaning of great capacity and great function.

"Though I hear what you say, it's still hard to really believe. I have heard that to attain wisdom, I need to accumulate virtue through reading and reciting the scriptures, fasting, discipline and recitation of Buddha names. How can there be anything special about peaceful meditation without doing the other practices?"

Practicing without any sense of attainment is called the exceedingly profound transcendent wisdom; this wisdom can cut off the source of birth and death like a sharp sword. To practice virtue in hopes of reward is the illusion of ordinary people. If you practice the way of unity of cause and effect, you realize buddhahood in one lifetime.

Daikaku (1213-1279)

— Excerpt from "Original Face: An Anthology of Rinzai Zen"
Translated by Thomas Cleary

“Do not grasp another’s bow”

“Do not grasp another’s bow; do not ride another’s horse; do not meddle in another’s affairs.” Though this is a commonplace saying, it can also be sustenance for entering the Path. Just examine yourself constantly: from morning to night, what do you do to help others and help yourself? If you notice even the slightest partiality or insensitivity, you must admonish yourself. Don’t be careless about this!

In the old days Ch’an Master Tao Lin lived up in a tall pine tree on Ch’in Wang Mountain; people of the time called him the ‘Bird’s Nest Monk.’ When Minister Po Chu-yi was commander of Ch’ien T’ang, he made a special trip to the mountain to visit him. Po said, “It’s very dangerous where you’re sitting, Ch’an Master.” The Master said, “My danger may be very great, Minister, but yours is even greater.” Po said, “I am the commander of Ch’ien T’ang: what danger is there?” The Master said, “Fuel and fire are joined, consciousness and identity do not stay: how can you not be in danger?”

Po also asked, “What is the overall meaning of the Buddhist teaching?” The Master said, “Don’t commit any evils; practice the many virtues.” Po said, “Even a three year old child could say this.” The Master said, “Though a three year old child can say it, an eighty year old man cannot carry it out.” Po then bowed and departed.

Now if you want to save mental power, do not be concerned with whether a three year old child can say it, or whether or not an eighty year old man can carry it out. Just don’t do any evil, and you have mastered these words. They apply whether you believe or not, so please think it over.

If, with a straightforward mind and straightforward conduct, you are able to seize supreme enlightenment directly, this can be called the acts of a real person of power. The concerns that have come down from numberless ages are only in the present: if you can understand them right now, then the concerns of numberless ages will instantly disperse, like tiles being scattered or ice melting. If you don’t understand them right now, you’ll pass through countless eons more, and it’ll still be just as it is. The truth that is as it is has been continuous since antiquity without ever having varied so much as a hairsbreadth.

Matters of worldly anxieties are like the links of a chain, joining together continuously without a break. If you can do away with them, do away with them immediately! Because you have become habituated to them since beginningless time, to the point where they have become totally familiar, if you don’t exert yourself to go beyond them, then as time goes on and on, with you unknowing and unawares, they will have entered deeply into you. Finally, on the last day of your life, you won’t be able to do anything about it. If you want to be able to avoid going wrong when you face the end of your life, then from now on whenever you do anything, don’t let yourself slip. If you go wrong in your present doings, it will be impossible not to go wrong when you’re facing death.

There’s a sort of person who reads scriptures, recites the Buddha-name, and repents in the morning, but then in the evening runs off at the mouth, slandering and vilifying other people. The next day he does homage to the Buddha and repents as before. All through the years till the end of his life he take this as daily ritual-this is extreme folly. Such people are far from realizing that the Sanskrit word kshama means to repent faults. This is called “cutting off the continuing mind.” Once you have cut if off, do not commit wrongdoings again.

The mind, discriminating intellect, and consciousness of students of the Path should be quiet and still twenty four hours a day. When you have nothing to do, you should sit quietly and kept the mind from slackening and the body from wavering. If you practice to perfection over a long, long time, naturally body and mind will come to rest at ease, and you will have some direction in the Path. The perfection of quiescence and stillness indeed settles the scattered and confused false consciousness of sentient beings, but if you cling to quiescent stillness and consider it the ultimate, then you’re in the grip of perverted “silent illumination” Ch’an.

By keeping mindful of the matter of birth and death, your mental technique is already correct. Once the mental technique is correct, then you won’t need to use effort to clear your mind as you respond to circumstances in your daily activities. When you actively try to clear your mind, then you won’t go wrong; since you don’t go wrong, correct mindfulness stands out alone. When correct mindfulness stands out alone, inner truth adapts to phenomena; when inner truth adapts to things and events, events and things come to fuse in inner truth. When phenomena fuse with their inner truth, you save power; when you feel the saving, this is the empowerment of studying the Path. In gaining power you save unlimited power; in saving power you gain unlimited power.

This matter will be taken up by brilliant quick-minded folks, but if you depend on your brilliance and quick wits, you won’t be able to bear up. It is easy for keen and bright people to enter, but hard for them to preserve it. That’s because generally their entry is not very deep and the power is meager. With the intelligent and quick-witted, as soon as they hear a spiritual friend mention this matter, their eyes stir immediately and they are already trying to gain understanding through their mind’s discriminating intellect. People like this are creating their own hindrances, and will never have a moment of awakening.

This is what Yung Chia meant when he said, “The loss of wealth of the Dharma and the demise of virtue all stem from mind’s discriminating intellect.”

The obstruction of the Path by the mind and its conceptual discrimination is worse than poisonous snakes or fierce tigers. Why? Because poisonous snakes and fierce tigers can still be avoided, whereas intelligent people make the mind’s conceptual discrimination their home, so that there’s never a single instant, whether they’re walking, standing, sitting or lying down, that they’re not having dealings with it. As time goes on, unknowing and unawares, they become one piece with it; not because they want to, either, but because since beginningless time they have followed this one little road until it’s become set and familiar. Though they may see through it for a moment and wish to detach from it, they still can’t. Thus it is said that poisonous snakes and fierce tigers can still be avoided, but the mind’s conceptual discrimination truly has no place for you to escape.

Taken from the Chinese text Chih Yueh Lu – Records of Pointing at the Moon
Zen Master Ta Hui (1088-1163)