Growth

Growth is facing the reality, encountering the fact, whatsoever it is. And let me repeat: Pain is simply pain, there is no suffering in it. Suffering comes from your desire that the pain should not be there, and there is something wrong in pain. Watch, witness, and you will be surprised. You have a headache, the pain is there but suffering is not there. Suffering is a secondary phenomenon, pain is primary. The headache is there, the pain is there, it is simply a fact. There is no judgement about it. You cannot call it good or bad, you don't give it any value, it is just a fact...You simply take note of it...Remember, only one thing is going to help you: awareness--nothing else. Growth will remain painful if you don't accept life in all its ups and downs. The summer has to be accepted and the winter too. This is what I call meditation. Meditation is when you you emptied of all that is old and told and done to death. Then you see, or rather, then there is seeing: The Birth of the New.

Osho: From meditation to meditation

Happiness Is A Journey...

For a long time is seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life. This perspective has helped me to see there is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way. So treasure every moment you have and remember that time waits for no one. Happiness is a journey, not a destination.

- Father Alfred D'Souza

Tao Yuanming's Cottage

I built my cottage among the habitations of men,
and yet there is no clamor of carriages and horses.
You ask: "Sir, how can this be done?"
"A heart that is distant creates its own solitude."
I pluck chrysanthemums under the eastern hedge,
then gaze afar towards the southern hills.
The mountain air is fresh at the dusk of day;
The flying birds in flocks return.
In these things there lies a deep meaning;
I want to tell it, but have forgotten the words.

-- Tao Yuan Ming ( 陶渊明)

Work & Meaning

Those of us who start on the path to right livelihood find that our lives are more balanced, simple, clear, and focused. We are no longer strung out in a meaningless cycle of material consumption. The contemporary economy focuses on this cycle of consumption. It doesn't really support our efforts to find meaningful work. Today, work is a means to consume or to pay debt for consumption already indulged in. How many people do you know who really love the work they are doing? How many feel bored and alienated? How many are simply earning the money to spend it on material pleasures? Right livelihood demands that you take responsibility for making your work more meaningful. Good work is dignified. It develops your faculties and serves your community. It is a central human activity.


-- Roger Pritchard, in Claude Whitmyer's Mindfulness and Meaningful Work

Lao Tzu

The ancient masters were subtle, mysterious, profound, responsive.
The depth of their knowledge is unfathomable.
Because it is unfathomable,
All we can do is describe their appearance.
Watchful, like men crossing a winter stream.
Alert, like men aware of danger.
Courteous, like visiting guests.
Yielding, like ice about to melt.
Simple, like the uncarved blocks of wood.
Hollow, like caves.
Opaque, like muddy pools.

Who can wait quietly while the mud settles?
Who can remain still until the moment of action?
Observers of the Tao do not seek fulfillment.
Not seeking fulfillment, they are not swayed by desire for change.

- Lao-tzu

Awareness

The witnessing self is never felt. We always feel some indentity, we always feel some identification. And the witnessing consciousness is the reality. ..."I am pain; I am in pain, I am aware of pain" -- these are three different, very different states. The rishi says, "I am aware of the pain". This much can be allowed, because then you transcend pain, and there is a deep separation. Really, there has never been any relation, the relation begins to appear only because of the nearness, because of the intimate nearness of your consciousness and all that happened around...To be free of pain the pain has to be accepted, inevitably and naturally. Pain is pain -- a simple painful fact -- but suffering is only and always the refusal of pain, the clame that life should not be painful. It is the rejection of a fact, the denial of life and of the nature of things. Death is the mind and mind is dying. Where there is no fear of death, who is there to die.

Osho: From meditation to meditation

Psychoanalysis

In the East nothing like psychoanalysis has ever happened for the simple reason that there were thousands of masters, deep in meditattion, and anybody who came to them...just their love, their sympathy, the way they looked into the eyes of the patient was enough. People were cured. It was not that without psychoanalysis...In the East, what happened to neurotics, to psychotics, was that they were instantly changed. All that they needed was an immense love which asks nothing -- a man of peace and silence, whose very presence is medicine. A man who has meditated for a long time becomes an inmmense source. He radiates something that is invisible to the eyes, but the heart catches it. Something reaches to your inner-most being and changes you. Problems are simple, solutions are simple. Just one has to get out of the mind to see the simplicity. And then whatsoever is done by a man in silence, in peace, in joy, will be medicinal, will be distributing health. It will be a healing force.

Osho: From meditation to meditation