“In language it is always a problem to express things.”
What is turning inwards?
Turning inwards is not a turning at all. Going inwards is not a going at all. Turning inwards simply means that you have been running after this desire and that, and you have been running and running and you have been coming again and again to frustration. That each desire brings misery, that there is no fulfillment through desire. That you never reach anywhere, that contentment is impossible. Seeing this truth, that running after desires takes you nowhere, you stop. Not that you make any effort to stop. If you make any effort to stop it is again running, in a subtle way. You are still desiring – maybe now it is desirelessness that you desire.
If you are making an effort to go in, you are still going out. Any effort can only take you out, outwards. All journeys are outward journeys, there is no inward journey. How can you journey inwards? You are already there, there is no point in going. When going stops, journeying disappears, when desiring is no more clouding your mind, you are in. This is called turning in. But it is not a turning at all, it is simply not going out.
But in language it is always a problem to express these things.
There is an ancient parable: It was a beautiful afternoon, and a tortoise went for a walk on the land. And he rested under sunlit trees and he roamed around in the bushes just for the delight of it. Then he came back to the pond.
One of his friends, a fish, asked, ‘Where have you been?’
And he said, ‘I went for a walk on the land.’
And the fish said, ‘What do you mean by “a walk on the land”? You must mean swimming.’
And the tortoise laughed and he said, ‘No, it was not swimming, it was nothing like swimming. It was a walk on the solid land.’
And the fish said, ‘Are you kidding or something? I have been to every place, you can swim everywhere. I have never seen a place where you cannot dive and swim. You are talking nonsense. Have you gone mad?’
You understand the difficulty of the fish? She has never been on the land, walking on the land makes no sense. If the tortoise wants to make sense of his statement he will have to say, ‘I went swimming on the solid land.’ Which will be absurd. But only the word ‘swimming’ can be understood by the fish. […]
You always remain here. Here and now is the only reality, there is no other. But desire can create a dream. And in desire you go on moving outwards. […]
Once the energy is not moving anywhere… Remember, I repeat again, turning in is not moving in. When the energy is not moving at all, when there is no movement, when everything is still, when all has stopped – because seeing the futility of desire you cannot move anywhere, there is nowhere to go – stillness descends.
The world stops.
That’s what is meant by ‘turning in’. Suddenly you are in. You have always been there, now you are awake. The night is over, the morning has come, you are awake. This is what is meant by Buddhahood – to become aware, awake, of that which is already the case. […]
Osho, This Very Body the Buddha: Talks on Hakuin’s Song of Meditation, Ch 9, Q 1 (excerpt)
Series compiled by Shanti
All excerpts of this series can be found in: 1001 Tales
Featured image: Galapagos Island Giant Tortoises on Santa Cruz Island, by Benjamint444 – own work, GFDL 1.2, commons.wikimedia.org via Wikimedia Commons
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