What Is Meditation?
Excerpt 2. Meditation Is a Happening
When I say you have to drop thinking, don't conclude in a hurry. Because I have to use language, so I say, "Drop thinking" - but if you start dropping, you will miss, because again you will reduce it to a doing.
Drop thinking' simply means: don't do anything. Sit. Let thoughts settle themselves. Let mind drop on its own accord. Just sit gazing at the wall, in a silent corner, not doing anything at all, relaxed, loose, with no effort, not going anywhere, as if you are falling asleep awake. You are awake and you are relaxing and the whole body is falling into sleep. You remain alert inside but the whole body moves into deep relaxation.
Thoughts settle on their own accord, you need not jump amongst them, you need not try to put them right. It is as if a stream has become muddy... what do you do? Do you jump in it and start helping the stream to become clear? You will make it more muddy!
You simply sit on the bank. You wait. There is nothing to be done, because whatsoever you do will make the stream more muddy. If somebody has passed through a stream and the dead leaves have surfaced and the mud has arisen, just patience is needed. You simply sit on the bank. Watch, indifferently. And as the stream goes on flowing, the dead leaves will be taken away, and the mud will start settling because it cannot hang forever. After a while, suddenly you will become aware – the stream is crystal-clear again.
Whenever a desire passes through your mind the stream becomes muddy. So just sit. Don't try to do anything. In Japan this 'sitting silently' is called zazen; just sitting and doing nothing. And one day meditation happens. Not that you bring it to you, it comes to you. And when it comes, you immediately recognize it; it has been always there but you were not looking in the right direction. The treasure has been with you but you were occupied somewhere else: in thoughts, in desires, in a thousand and one things. You were not interested in the only one thing – and that was your own being.
When energy turns in – what Buddha calls paravritti, the coming back of your energy to the source – suddenly clarity is attained. Then you can see clouds a thousand miles away, and then you can hear ancient music in the pines. Then everything is available to you.
Before we enter into this beautiful Zen story a few things about the mind have to be understood, because the more you understand the mechanism of the mind, the more the possibility is that you will not interfere. The more you understand how the mind functions, the more the possibility is that you will be able to sit in zazen. That you will be able just to sit, sit and do nothing, that you will be able to allow meditation to happen. It is a happening.
Excerpted from 'Ancient Music in the Pines' by Osho
