Yes, when you see for the first time, a great laughter arises in you – the laughter about the whole ridiculousness of your misery, the laughter about the whole foolishness of your problems, the laughter about the whole absurdity of your suffering.
The disciple is not hankering for knowledge; he wants to see, not to know. He wants to be. He is no longer interested in having more knowledge; he wants to have more being.
Zen is not morality, it is aesthetics. It does not impose a code of morality. it does not give you any commandments: do this, don’t do that.
A Zen master used to say, It is clear and so it is hard to see. A dunce once searched for a fire with a lighted lantern. Had he known what fire was, he could have cooked his rice much sooner.
Zen says: be empty. Look without any idea. Look into the nature of things but with no idea, with no prejudice, with no presupposition.
The modern mind has lost all capacity to wonder. It has lost all capacity to look into the mysterious, into the miraculous – because of knowledge, because it thinks it knows.
You and your brain are two things. The brain is your machinery just like everything else is your machinery. This hand is my mechanism; I use it. My brain is my mechanism; I use it.
Zen people love Buddha so tremendously that they can even play jokes upon him. It is out of great love; they are not afraid.
The moment you enter into the world of words you start falling away from that which is. The more you enter into language, the farther you are away from existence.
Zen is non-serious. Zen has a tremendous sense of humor. No other religion has evolved so much that it can have that sense of humor.
The future of humanity will move closer and closer toward the approach of Zen, because the meeting of the East and West is possible only through something like Zen, which is earthly and yet unearthly.
Anxiety comes into existence only when we become identified with small things. And they all pass.
Once you start dropping thoughts, the dust that you have collected in the past, the flame arises – clean, clear, alive, young. Your whole life becomes a flame, and a flame without any smoke. That is what awareness is.
Whatsoever you are doing, be absorbed in it so utterly that the mind thinks nothing, is just there, is just a presence. And more and more totality will be coming.
Those who remain content easily remain small: small are their joys, small are their ecstasies, small are their silences, small is their being. But there is no need! This smallness is your own imposition upon your freedom, upon your unlimited possibilities, upon your unlimited potential.
Ego cannot bring anything extraordinary into the world; the extraordinary comes only through egolessness. And so is the case with the musician and the poet and the dancer. So is the case with everybody.
Without zest, what is life? Just waiting for death? It can’t be anything else. Only with zest do you live; otherwise you vegetate.
Listening means forgetting yourself completely – only then can you listen.
Become aware of your aloneness – which is a reality. And it is so beautiful to experience it, to feel it, because it is your freedom from the crowd, from the other. It is your freedom from the fear of being lonely.
If you can become a mirror you have become a meditator. Meditation is nothing but skill in mirroring. And now, no word moves inside you so there is no distraction.