A Cup of Tea (162). “When you are hungry you eat, when you are thirsty you drink, and when you meet a friend you greet him.”
Thinking is necessary but not enough,
one must know living also,
otherwise one becomes like the philosopher
mentioned by Soren Kierkegaard
who builds a fine palace
but is doomed not to live in it –
he has a shed for himself
next door to what he has constructed for others,
including himself,
to look at!
Meditation is not thinking, but living.
Live it daily, moment to moment;
that is, live in it or let it live in you.
It is not something other-worldly either,
because all such distinctions are from the mind:
they are speculative and not existential,
and meditation is existential.
It is no more than one’s everyday life lived totally.
When Mencius says: The truth is near and people
seek it far away,
he means this.
When Tokusan is asked about it he replies:
When you are hungry you eat,
when you are thirsty you drink,
and when you meet a friend you greet him.
He means this.
Sings Ho Koji: How wondrous this, how mysterious!
I carry fuel, I draw water.
He also means this.
And when you are near me
whatsoever I may say I always mean this.
Or I may not say anything –
but then too I always mean this.
Osho, A Cup of Tea, letter 162
Photo by Dhinubhai taken in Manali – Credit to Osho Resources Centre (oshoresourcecenter.com – facebook.com) – partially spot-retouched manually by Osho News
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