Rajneesh Quotes

At the Cruiserweight Classic finale, I said... I don't know if people had looked it up, or if they had heard it before, but it was an old Zen proverb. 'Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, you chop wood, carry water.' It can be interpreted a lot of ways, but for the most part it's about staying in the moment.

This is the way of meditation: encountering the present in all its tremendous beauty, just being in the present. Inside, the mind stops. Outside, the world changes totally. It is no more the ordinary world you have known before. In fact, you have not known it at all. Your mind was distorting everything, your mind was creating fantasies. Your eyes were full of fantasies and you were looking though those fantasies. They never allowed you to see that which is. If the mind is gone, even for a moment, suddenly the whole existence explodes upon you.

Zen is everywhere.... But for you, Zen is right here.

How simple it is to see that we can only be happy now, and that there will never be a time when it is not now.

That man lives happy and in command of himself, who from day to day can say I have lived. Whether clouds obscure, or the sun illumines the following day, that which is past is beyond recall.

Expectation closes the door to what is happening in the moment.

When you are in the present without thinking, you are for the first time spiritual.

Enlightenment is nothing but your consciousness being concentrated on a single point - now and here.

Zen is non-serious. Zen has a tremendous sense of humor. No other religion has evolved so much that it can have that sense of humor.

I had been reading this book about Zen Koan philosophy, and it was talking about the right here and the right now, and how important it is, and I was really trying to get there in my life.

Zen lives in the present. The Whole teaching is: how to be in the present; how to get out of the past which is no more and how not to get involved in the future which is not yet, and just to be rooted, centered, in that which is.

Your life is a series of moments in "now." The better you make your "now" the better your life.

But I don't think of the future, or the past, I feast on the moment. This is the secret of happiness, but only reached now in middle age.

To live in the present moment is a miracle.

This mind goes on continuing. This mind will go on continuing, unless you become aware. And this is a miracle: that the moment you become aware the continuity is broken. Now you will be, but not of the past. Now you will be of the moment - fresh, young, new. Now each moment you will die, and you will be reborn.

Zen is not effort. Effort is tension, effort is work, effort is to achieve something. Zen is not something to achieve. You are already that. Just relax, relax so deeply that you become a revelation to yourself.

You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.

One has to reach to the absolute state of awareness: that is Zen. You cannot do it every morning for a few minutes or for half an hour and then forget all about it. It has to become like your heartbeat. You have to sit in it, you have to walk in it. Yes, you have even to sleep in it.

The Zen people from Ancient China, "When you're walking, just walk." It turns out to be the hardest thing.

Zen has no theory. It is a non-theoretical approach into reality. It has no doctrine and no dogma - hence it has no church, no priest, no pope.

Zen Buddhism does not preach. Sermons remain words. It waits until people feel stifled and insecure, driven by a secret longing.

How can we live if there is no more here and everything is now?

If you want to experience eternal illumination, put the past and the future out of your mind and remain within the present moment.

No thought about the past or future can pull you away from your present peace and joy. The universe exists in this present moment. No desire can pull you away from this present peace, not even the desire to become a Buddha or the desire to save all beings. Know that to become a Buddha and to save all beings can only be realized on the foundation of the pure peace of the present moment.

In order to be utterly happy the only thing necessary is to refrain from comparing this moment with other moments in the past, which I often did not fully enjoy because I was comparing them with other moments of the future.