Meditation 101

Google the word meditation and you get two hundred and twenty-four million hits. As the world about us seems to go more bananas every day, so the subject of how to make it OK to still be here grows more popular, and meditation, or the idea of it, is gaining in popularity. Reams have been written about how to do it, and the benefits it will bring, but what, really, is it?

“Then what is meditation? Meditation is just being delighted in your own presence; meditation is a delight in your own being. It is very simple – a totally relaxed state of consciousness where you are not doing anything. The moment doing enters, you become tense; anxiety enters immediately. How to do? What to do? How to succeed? How not to fail? You have already moved into the future.”

Osho, Dang Dang Doko Dang, Talk #5

I would love to just be delighted in my own presence, but how? How to meditate?

“My approach is neither Eastern nor Western, my approach is neither male nor female, my approach is neither of action nor inaction. My approach is that of utter balance, symmetry in you. Hence I say to my sannyasins: Don't leave the world; be in the world and yet be not of it. This is what Taoists call wei wu wei, action through inaction. The meeting of yin and yang, anima and animus – it brings enlightenment. Imbalance is neurosis, balance is enlightenment.”

Osho, The Secret of Secrets, Talk #12

"When people come to me and they ask, 'How to meditate?' I tell them, 'There is no need to ask how to meditate, just ask how to remain unoccupied. Meditation happens spontaneously. Just ask how to remain unoccupied, that's all. That's the whole trick of meditation – how to remain unoccupied. Then you cannot do anything. The meditation will flower.'”

Osho, Just Like That, Talk #6

It’s hard to remain unoccupied. I have a job to go to, and people who depend on me, and when I do get a moment to myself, thoughts keep rushing through my head.

"Man is ignorant and blind, and he wants to remain ignorant and blind, because to come inwards looks like entering a chaos. And it is so; inside you have created a chaos. You have to encounter it and go through it. Courage is needed – courage to be oneself, and courage to move inwards. I have not come across a greater courage than that – the courage to be meditative.”

Osho, Just Like That, Talk #6

I’ve heard it’s easy to meditate if I focus my mind on something.

“The meditation I am talking about is not a meditation on something: rather, it is a state of meditation. So this is what I mean when I am talking to you about meditation as a state. Meditation does not mean remembering someone. Meditation means to drop everything which is in one's memory and to come to a state where only consciousness remains, where only awareness remains.”

Osho, The Path of Meditation, Talk #6

I’m beginning to see I must set aside time for just me where I’m not busy with anything at all.

“Meditation is just to be, not doing anything – no action, no thought, no emotion. You just are. And it is sheer delight. From where does this delight come when you are not doing anything? It comes from nowhere, or it comes from everywhere. It is uncaused because the existence is made of the stuff called joy. It needs no cause, no reason. If you are unhappy, you have a reason to be unhappy; if you are happy, you are simply happy. There is no reason for it. Your mind tries to find a reason because it cannot believe in the uncaused, because the mind cannot control the uncaused; with the uncaused the mind simply becomes impotent. So the mind goes on finding some reason or other. But I would like to tell you that whenever you are happy, you are happy for no reason at all, whenever you are unhappy, you have some reason to be unhappy because happiness is just the stuff you are made of. It is your very being, it is your innermost core. Joy is your innermost core.”

Osho, Dang Dang Doko Dang, Talk #5

It reminds of when I see children playing happily, they seem filled with sheer delight and focused on what they’re doing.

“A state of meditation is an innocent, silent state. You are blissfully unaware of your awareness. You are, but you are utterly relaxed. You are not in a state of sleep; you are fully alert, more alert than ever. Rather, you are alertness.”

Osho, Walking in Zen, Sitting in Zen, Talk #1

“Enjoy life. Act, but act in a relaxed way. The greatest art in life is to learn how to act in a relaxed way. Action is a must – you cannot live without action – but action can be almost inaction. That's what Lao Tzu means when he uses the word wu wei. That is very fundamental to Lao Tzu and that is very fundamental to me too: I would like you to learn wu wei. Wu wei means action without action – doing a thing in such a way that you are not tense in doing it, doing a thing in such a way that you are playful about it, doing a thing in such a way that you are not worried about it, doing it and yet remaining detached, doing it and yet remaining a witness.”

Osho, The Fish in the Sea Is Not Thirsty, Talk #13

Is action without action a bit like making an effort without making an effort?

“When we say effortless effort, we mean doing something with no other motive than the very pleasure of doing it. Then suddenly you will see that the contradiction has disappeared. For example I am talking to you. There is effort and there is no effort, because I am talking for no other purpose. Talking is effort – but there is no effort because I love it, because I love you. I would like to share something with you. While I am talking I am completely lost in it. There is nobody standing behind; I am not talking with only one part of me. When I am talking, I am just the talking. The effort is there and yet there is no effort. The contradiction exists only for the logical mind, because the logical mind cannot understand play; it can understand only work. It can understand rest; it can understand work. It cannot understand work which is rest too.

“So whenever work becomes play the contradiction is gone. And when contradictions are not there a harmony arises in the contraries. You have something of the beyond penetrating you… a ray of light.”

Osho, God Is Not For Sale, Talk #4

“Self-knowledge has nothing to do with just sitting silently. And if you attain to self-knowledge just sitting silently – never moving, never active, never dynamic, never living – your self-knowledge will be a dead self-knowledge.

“Self-knowledge has to be total. It has to be known while you are sitting silently, and it has to be known while you are in movement. It has to be known in inaction, it has to be known in action. The real man of self-knowledge is both together – simultaneously both. He is action plus inaction. That is the meaning of the Chinese word, wei wu wei. Wei means action, wu means no, wei means action – action-no-action. Wei wu wei: action-no-action.

“This is the polarity: from action to no-action, from no-action to action. The man of self-knowledge moves to both the polarities, he is at ease with both.”

Osho, Zen: The Path of Paradox, Vol. 2, Talk #8