The Empty Boat - Osho.pdf - Oshorajneesh.com

CHAPTER 2. THE MAN OF TAO
Buddha taught eight disciplines, and with each discipline he used the word right. He said: Right
effort, because it is very easy to move from action to inaction, from waking to sleep, but to remain in
the middle is difficult. When Buddha used the word right he was saying: Don’t move to the opposite,
just stay in the middle. Right food – he never said to fast. Don’t indulge in too much eating and don’t
indulge in fasting. He said: Right food. Right food means standing in the middle.
When you are standing in the middle you are not gathering any momentum. And this is the beauty
of it – a man who is not gathering any momentum to move anywhere, can be at ease with himself,
can be at home.
You can never be at home, because whatsoever you do you will immediately have to do the opposite
to balance. And the opposite never balances, it simply gives you the impression that you are
becoming balanced, but you will have to move to the opposite again.
A buddha is neither a friend to anyone nor an enemy. He has simply stopped in the middle – the
clock is not functioning.
It is said about one Hassid mystic, Muzheed, that when he attained enlightenment suddenly the clock
on his wall stopped. It may or may not have happened, because it is possible, but the symbolism is
clear: when your mind stops, time stops; when the pendulum stops, the clock stops. From then on
the clock never moved, from then on it always showed the same time.
Time is created by the movement of the mind, just like the movement of the pendulum. Mind moves,
you feel time. When mind is nonmoving, how can you feel time? When there is no movement, time
cannot be felt. Scientists and mystics agree on this point: that movement creates the phenomenon
of time. If you are not moving, if you are still, time disappears, eternity comes into existence.
Your clock is moving fast, and its mechanism is movement from one extreme to another.
The second thing to be understood about mind is that the mind always longs for the distant, never
for the near. The near gives you boredom, you are fed up with it; the distant gives you dreams,
hopes, possibility of pleasure. So the mind always thinks of the distant. It is always somebody else’s
wife who is attractive, beautiful; it is always somebody else’s house which obsesses you; it is always
somebody else’s car which fascinates you. It is always the distant. You are blind to the near. The
mind cannot see that which is very near. It can only see that which is very far.
And what is the furthest, the most distant? The opposite is the most distant. You love a person –
now hatred is the most distant phenomenon; you are overeating – now fasting is the most distant
phenomenon; you are celibate – now sex is the most distant phenomenon; you are a king – now to
be a monk is the most distant phenomenon.
The most distant is the most dreamy. It attracts, it obsesses, it goes on calling, inviting you, and
then when you have reached the other pole, this place from where you have traveled will become
beautiful again. Divorce your wife, and after a few years the wife has again gained beauty.
A film actress came to me. She had divorced her husband fifteen years ago. Now she is old, less
beautiful than she was when she and her husband were separated. Their son was married last year,
The Empty Boat 26 Osho