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Aug 07, 2022, 12:30 IST

THE EMPTY BOAT

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Remember that you are the source of everything that you go on projecting onto others. Use your anger, hate, and love to go within, says OSHO

If you are on your honeymoon, the moon looks beautiful, miraculous, wonderful. It seems that the whole world is different. And on the same night, just for your neighbour, this miraculous night may not be in existence at all. His child has died. The same moon is just sad, intolerable. But for you it is enchanting, fascinating; it is maddening. Why? Is the moon the source or is the moon just a screen and you are projecting yourself?

When a mood against someone or for someone arises, do not place it on the person in question — or on the object in question.

Stay Centred
Remain centred. Remember that you are the source, so do not move to the other, move to the source. When you feel hate, do not go to the person to whom it is going, but to the centre from where it is coming. Go within. Use your hate, love, anger, or anything as a journey toward your inner centre, to the source. Move to the source and remain centred there.

Someone has insulted you — anger suddenly erupts, you are feverish. Anger is flowing toward the person who has insulted you. Now you will project this whole anger onto him. He has not done anything. If he has insulted you, what has he done? He has just pricked you; he has helped your anger to arise, but the anger is yours. If he goes to the Buddha and insults him, he will not be able to create any anger in him. So it depends.

Someone has given you a chance to be aware of your own anger. Thank him immediately and forget him.

Close your eyes, move within, and now look at the source from where this love or anger is coming. From where? Go within, move within. You will find the source there because the anger is coming from your source.
It is easy to go to the source when you are angry, in love, or hate, because then you are hot. It is easy to move in then. The wire is hot and you can trace it in, you can move inward with that ‘hotness’. And when you reach a cool point within, you will suddenly realise a different dimension, a different world opening before you. Use anger, hate and love to go within.

Lin Chi’s Boat
One of the greatest Zen masters, Lin Chi, used to say, “While I was young, I was very fascinated by boating. I had one small boat, and I would go on the lake alone. For hours together I would remain there. “Once it happened that with closed eyes, I was in my boat meditating on the beautiful night. One empty boat came floating downstream and struck my boat. My eyes were closed, so I thought, ‘Someone is here with his boat, and he has struck my boat.’ Anger arose. I opened my eyes and I was just going to say something to that man in anger, then I realised that the boat was empty. Then there was no way to move. To whom could I express the anger? The boat was empty. It was just floating downstream, and it had come and struck my boat. So, there was nothing to do. There was no possibility to project the anger on an empty boat.”


So Lin Chi said, “I closed my eyes. The anger was there but finding no way out, I closed my eyes and just floated backward with the anger. And that empty boat became my realisation. I came to a point within myself on that silent night. That empty boat was my master. And now if someone comes and insults me, I laugh and say, ‘This boat is also empty’. I close my eyes and I go within.”

Abridged from The Book Of Secrets, courtesy: Osho International Foundation, www.osho.com ■



 

 

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