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Chuang Tzu Stories
Apologies
The Owl and the Phoenix
Symphony for a
seabird
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Chuang Tzu was an
enlightened disciple of Lao Tzu. Osho on Chuang Tzu Stories - Chuang Tzu is very rare -- in a way the most unique mystic in the whole history of man. His uniqueness is that he talks in absurdities. All his poems and stories are just absurd. And his reason to choose absurdity as his expression is very significant: the mind has to be silenced. With anything rational, it cannot stop; it goes on and on. Anything logical and the mind finds nourishment through it. It is only the absurd that suddenly shocks the mind -- it is beyond mind's grasp. His stories, his poems and his other statements are so absurd that either people simply left him, thinking that he is mad.... Those who were courageous enough to remain with him found that no other meditation is needed. Just listening to his absurd statements, the mind stops functioning. And that is the meaning of meditation. Meditation is not of the mind. Osho - Even today the absurd stories of Chuang Tzu are as beautiful, as enchanting as they would have been to his contemporaries. Twenty-five centuries have passed, but those stories of Chuang Tzu still retain the freshness of this morning's roses. And he wrote nothing but absurd stories -- absurd for the simple reason that the whole humanity is absurd -- to make you aware how absurd you are. Osho - He (Lao Tzu) had chosen Chuang Tzu as his disciple just because Chuang Tzu was continuously making everybody laugh. He was creating such absurd stories that nobody in the whole world literature can be compared to him. The stories are so complicated and so absurd, you cannot figure out the meaning. But certainly they tickle you. There are points when you suddenly start laughing. Lao Tzu loved Chuang Tzu for the simple reason that he was an absolutely nonserious man. Osho - If you want to find out how a real Master is then read Chuang Tzu -- so absurd, with such a great sense of humour that each line of Chuang Tzu will tickle you to laughter. And his stories are simply far out! He has defeated all the Masters -- even his own Master, Lao Tzu, pales before Chuang Tzu. If Lao Tzu had come back and looked at what Chuang Tzu was writing he would have been angry: 'This is too much! This is going too far!' Of course, Lao Tzu himself was a very lovely man, a beautiful man, but Chuang Tzu would even have made him object: 'This is going too far!' Chuang Tzu's stories are the first absurd stories in the world. Kafka and Sartre and Camus are nothing compared to Chuang Tzu. Each of his stories simply ends in absurdity, but it will give you a good laugh. He is telling you, 'Don't be serious! Take life as fun, as joy! Enjoy it, love it, live it, but don't make a problem out of it. It is not a problem to be solved, it is a mystery to be lived.' |
