The Empty Boat - Osho.pdf - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 7. THREE FRIENDS
You can know the past but you cannot know the future. You can put the past into a theory, but how
can you put the future into a theory? The future is always an opening, an infinite opening, and it
goes on opening and opening. So when you explain, the explanation always indicates that which is
dead.
Philosophy has explanations so it cannot be very alive, and you cannot find people who are more
dead than philosophers. Life has ebbed out, life has oozed out of them. They are shrunken heads,
like dead stones. They make much noise but there is no music of life. They have many explanations,
but they have completely forgotten that they have only explanations in their hands,
Explanation is like a closed fist. Life is like an open hand. They are totally different. And when the
fist is completely closed there is no sky in it, no air in it, no space to breathe. You cannot grab the sky
in your closed fist. The fist will miss it. The sky is there, the hand is open, it is available. Explanation
is grabbing, closing, defining – life oozes out.
Even a laugh is greater than any philosophy, and when someone laughs about life he understands
it. So all those who have really known have laughed. And their laughter can be heard even after
centuries. Seeing Buddha holding a flower in his hand, Mahakashyapa laughed. His laughter can
be heard even now. Those who have ears to hear, they will hear his laughter, just like a river flowing
down through the centuries continuously.
In Zen monasteries in Japan, disciples still ask the master, ”Tell us, Master, why did Mahakashyapa
laugh?” And those who are more alert say, ”Tell us, Master, why is Mahakashyapa still laughing?”
They use the present, not the past tense. And it is said that the master will reply only when he feels
that you can hear the laughter of Mahakashyapa. If you cannot hear it, nothing can be said to you
about it.
Buddhas have always been laughing. You may not have heard them because your doors are closed.
You may have looked at a buddha and you may have felt that he is serious, but this seriousness is
projected. It is your own seriousness – you have used the buddha as a screen. Hence, Christians
say Jesus never laughed. This seems absolutely foolish. Jesus must have laughed and he must
have laughed so totally that his whole being must have become laughter – but the disciples couldn’t
hear it, that is true. They must have remained closed, their own seriousness projected.
They could see Jesus on the cross because you all live in such suffering that you can only see
suffering. If they had heard Jesus laughing, they would have omitted it. It is so contradictory to their
life, it doesn’t fit in. A Jesus laughing doesn’t fit in with you, he becomes a stranger.
But in the East it has been different, and in Zen, in Tao, the laughter reached its peak. It became the
polar opposite of philosophy.
A philosopher is serious because he thinks life is a riddle and a solution can be found. He works on
life with his mind, and he gets more and more serious. The more he misses life, the more he gets
serious and dead.
Taoists, Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu, say that if you can laugh, if you can feel belly laughter that comes
from the very core of your being, that is not just painted on the surface, if you can feel laughter that
The Empty Boat 120 Osho