The Great Path - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 7. MEDITATION IS THE SEED
absolutely nothing – simply sit – for if you do anything, the mind immediately becomes active. On
the face of it this seems very easy, but in fact it is very very difficult to just sit. There is the trouble:
you sit with the eyes closed and the mind begins to race. Your body looks still enough sitting there
unmoving, but in your mind there is great commotion.
If you just sit and do nothing that is meditation. If you just sit doing nothing – there is no Ram-Ram,
no Krishna-Krishna, no ripple of thought – for that too is an activity. If you are simply doing nothing;
if there is no attempt even to stop the thoughts – for you can only do that with another thought – if
you neither repeat God’s name nor remember the world; if you are not saying ’I am the soul’ nor ’I
am Brahma’, for such repetitions are also useless, they are mere thoughts; if you sit, just like a rock,
nothing happening within, nothing happening without, then you are ’JUST SITTING’. This state is
called ’zazen’ in Japan – just sitting. Zen masters use this method. The disciple requires twenty
years, thirty years, to reach this state of just sitting.
This apparently easy sutra is very difficult. The easiest things are the most difficult things in the
world. If you are told to climb the Himalayas you will not find it that difficult. You may become weary,
you may face the difficulties, but still you will climb; but as soon as you attempt to do nothing it will
seem that a great calamity has befallen you.
What happens when you sit quietly? You find that as soon as you sit all kinds of movements occur
in different parts of your body. You feel needles pricking your feet, you feel itchy somewhere else;
suddenly you feel a pain in the neck or the back. A moment before you felt none of this, you were
absolutely all right. Suddenly your body revolts and tells you to do something; even if you were able
to ignore everything else, you will feel compelled to change your position.
Life is supported by action in this mundane world. As you begin to empty yourself of action, the
world is lost. As soon as you try to be still, the body urges you into one activity or other.
People come to me and complain: ”We suffer from no aches and pains, but as soon as we begin to
meditate all kinds of troubles start.” You feel like coughing when there is no reason to do so. You are
the master, and if you do not listen to the body it will quiet down, for how long can it remain agitated?
It is the attention that you give it that acts as its nourishment. You must firmly tell the body: Whatever
happens I am not going to do anything for this one hour. You feel itchy? What of it? How is it going
to harm you?
Have you noticed that if you do not scratch for a minute or two, the itching stops on its own? The
itching sensation is never removed by scratching; rather, it increases. If you have made a firm
resolution that you are the master and not the body, you will find the throat has settled down – there
is no cough. You will have to assert your domination for a few days though. Too long have you
allowed the slave to lord it over you, so when you begin to steal its power it is sure to rebel and defy
you.
You have decided to sit still for an hour. What is the worst that can happen? The feet turn numb...
All right, let them! They feel itchy... So what! It is not a matter of life and death. You will find that
if you remain firm in your resolve, the feet will stop being numb. This was only a ruse of the body
to defeat your purpose. Had you listened to the feet your hands would have clamored for attention,
then your neck and so on; but if you ignore the feet the itch will subside once and for all. A beggar
The Great Path 128 Osho