| |
Osho on Enjoying
Suffering
Question:
Osho, When you talk about our having to suffer, you tell
us to be joyful at the same time. Trying to compromise
these two things seems difficult.
Osho: When I say suffer
joyfully it looks paradoxical and your mind starts
thinking how to compromise both, because to you they are
contradictory. They are not, they only appear
contradictory. You can enjoy suffering. What is the
secret- how to enjoy suffering? The first thing is: if
you don't escape, if you allow the suffering to be
there, if you are ready to face it, if you are not
trying somehow to forget it, then you are different.
Suffering is there but just around you; it is not in the
center, it is on the periphery.
It is impossible for suffering to be in the center; it
is not in the nature of things. It is always on the
periphery and you are the center. So when you allow it
to happen, when you don't escape, you don't run, you are
not in a panic, suddenly you become aware that suffering
is there on the periphery, as if happening to someone
else, not to you, and you are looking at it. A subtle
joy spreads all over your being because you have
realized one of the basic truths of life: that you are
bliss and not suffering.
So when I say enjoy
it I don't mean become a masochist; I don't mean create
suffering for yourself and enjoy it. I don't mean: go
on, fall down from a cliff, have fractures and then
enjoy it- no. There are people of that type and many of
them have become ascetics, tapasvis, and they are
creating suffering for themselves. They are masochists,
they are ill. They are very dangerous people. They
wanted to make others suffer but they are not so
courageous.
They wanted to kill others, be violent with others,
cripple others, but they are not so courageous, so their
whole violence has turned within. Now they are crippling
themselves, torturing themselves, and enjoying it.I am
not saying be a masochist; I am simply saying suffering
is there, you need not seek for it. Enough suffering is
there already, you need no go in search. Suffering is
already there; life by its very nature creates
suffering. Illness is there, death is there, the body is
there- by their very nature suffering is created.
See it, look at it with a very dispassionate eye. Look
at it -- what it is, what is happening. Don't escape.
Immediately the mind says, "Escape from here, don't look
at it." But if you escape then you cannot be blissful.Next time you fall ill and the doctor suggests
to remain in bed, take it as a blessing. Close your eyes
and rest on the bed and just look at the illness. Watch
it, what it is. Don't try to analyze it, don't go into
theories, just watch it, what it is.
The whole body tired, feverish -- watch it. Suddenly,
you will feel that you are surrounded by fever but there
is a very cool point within you; the fever cannot touch
it, cannot influence it. The whole body may be burning
but that cool point cannot be touched.
I have heard about
one Zen nun. She died, but before she died she asked her
disciples, "What do you suggest? How should I die?" It
is an old tradition in Zen that masters ask; they can
die consciously, so they can ask. And they are so
playful even about death, so humorous about it, joking,
laughing, they enjoy devising methods how to die. So
disciples may suggest, "Master, this will be good, if
you die standing on your head." Or someone suggests,
"Walking, because we have never seen anyone die
walking." So this Zen nun asked," What do you suggest?"
They said, "It will
be good if we prepare a fire, and you sit in it and die
meditating."
She said, " This is beautiful, and never heard of
before." So they prepared a funeral pyre, the nun made
herself comfortable in it, sat in a Buddha posture, and
then they lit the fire.
One man from the
crowd asked, "How does it feel there? It is so hot that
I cannot even come nearer to ask you- that's why I am
shouting. How does it feel there?"
The nun laughed and said, "Only a fool can ask such a
question -- How does it feel there? There it always
feels cool, perfectly cool." She is talking of her inner
being, her center. There it is always cool and only a
foolish person can ask. It is obvious. When a person is
ready to sit in a pyre meditating, and then the pyre is
burnt and she is sitting silently, obviously it shows
that this person must have achieved the innermost cool
point which cannot be disturbed by any fire. Otherwise,
it is not possible.
So when you are
lying on your bed, feverish, on fire, the whole body
burning, just watch it. Watching, you will recede
towards the source. Watching, not doing anything....
What can you do? The fever is there, you have to pass
through it; it is no use unnecessarily fighting with it.
You are resting, and if you fight with the fever you
will become more feverish, that's all. So watch it.
Watching fever, you become cool; watching more, you
become cooler.
Just watching, you reach to a peak, such a cool peak,
even the Himalayas will feel jealous; even their peaks
are not so cool. This is the Gourishankar, the Everest
within. And when you feel that the fever has
disappeared.... It has never really been there; it has
only been in the body, very, very far away. Infinite
space exists between you and your body -- infinite
space, I say. An unbridgeable gap exists between you and
your body. And all suffering exists on the periphery.
Hindus say it is a dream because the distance is so
vast, unbridgeable.
It is just like a dream happening somewhere else -- not
happening to you -- in some other world, on some other
planet. When you watch suffering suddenly you are not the
sufferer, and you start enjoying. Through suffering you
become aware of the opposite pole, the blissful inner
being. So when I say enjoy, I am saying: Watch. Return
to the source, get centered. Then, suddenly, there is no
agony; only ecstasy exists. Those who are on the
periphery exist in agony. For them, no ecstasy.
For those who have come to their center no agony exists.
For them, only ecstasy. When I say break the cup it is
breaking the periphery. And when I say be totally empty
it is coming back to the original source, because
through emptiness we are born, and into emptiness we
return. Emptiness is the word, really, which is better
to use than God, because with God we start feeling there
is some person.
So Buddha never used "God" he always used sunyata --
emptiness, nothingness. In the center you are a
nonbeing, nothingness, just a vast space, eternally
cool, silent, blissful. So when I say enjoy I mean
watch, and you will enjoy. When I say enjoy, I mean
don't escape.
Source: from book "A
bird on the Wing" by Osho
^Top Back
to Questions on Meditation
|
|
