The empty heart is the buddha

Maneesha has asked:

OUR BELOVED MASTER, IN THE WEST, THEY SAY THAT LOVE -- TWO FULL HEARTS -- MAKES THE WORLD GO ROUND. JUDGING BY THE CASUALTY RATE, FULL HEARTS

DON'T SEEM TO BE THE ANSWER. WHAT IS THE WORLD OF THE EMPTY HEART OF ZEN?

In the first place, whatever is said in the West, that "love -- two full hearts -- makes the world go round" is all nonsense. Whether you are here or not, the world will continue to go round. And two hearts full of love... where are you going to find them? The world would have stopped long ago if it were dependent on two hearts full of love. Even to find one heart is very difficult; two is too much! But those are just mass-mind oriented proverbs, not statements of a man like Bukko. When Bukko says the empty heart is the buddha, he is talking about a very authentic experience. And it does not depend on anybody else. Love is both, a joy and a misery, because two are involved. Wherever there is duality, there is going to be conflict. You can put the conflict aside for a few days on the honeymoon, but after the honeymoon the conflict arises on every point. What kind of curtains? -- and immediately there are two voices. What kind of carpets, and what kind of literature, what kind of furniture? On every point you will find that those great lovers are in absolute disagreement! There is the beginning of real love, which always ends in divorce. The world of religion is not the world of duality. It is a world of oneness. You have to find your own heart, utterly empty, empty of all rubbish. And when your heart is empty of all rubbish, you are the buddha. There is no other experience which goes beyond it. Now before you become buddhas, a few laughs, because a few may come back, a few may not come back. Those who come back will celebrate, but for those who will not come back from this great inner journey, some laughs as a goodbye.... 

Kowalski and Olga are making love in the upstairs bedroom. Just as Kowalski is about to start up his machinery, they hear a loud banging noise downstairs. "What's that?" asks Olga, jumping up in bed.

"Nothing," pants Kowalski. "Come on, let's get on with it!" "No! No way!" demands Olga. "No lovemaking until you find out what is going on downstairs."

Poor Kowalski stumbles downstairs with a very large erection, and flips on the the lights. Suddenly, the cat jumps out of the window. The dog dives under the sofa. And the parrot, trapped in its cage, looks around frantically, then tucks one leg under its wing and screams, "Wait! Wait, you silly Polack... you wouldn't fuck a cripple would you?" 

Terrence and Mrs. Tuber, the TV Couch Potatoes, are propped up on their potato couch, chewing peanuts and watching their favorite soap opera "The Potato Family" on television. When the doorbell rings, Chip the dog starts barking, and Terrence looks around at it and accidentally pops a peanut into his ear. He is still sitting on his potato couch with his head tipped to one side, trying to get the peanut out, when his daughter and her boyfriend Frito walk in. Frito immediately sees the situation and offers to help Terrence to get the peanut out. "Look," says Frito, "I'll cover your mouth, stick my two fingers into your nostrils and then blow into your other ear." In desperation, Terrence agrees to give this a try. Frito stuffs his fingers tightly into the couch potato's nose and blows into his ear. Sure enough, the peanut pops out the other side. Later that evening, Terrence and Mrs. Tuber are propped up in bed watching a re-run of "The Potato Family" on television, when Mrs. Tuber asks her husband, "That Frito is such a nice boy, what do you think he will do when he leaves school?" "I don't know what his plans are," replies Terrence. "But from the smell of his fingers, I think he will probably be our son-in-law." 

"Hey man," says Swami Haridas to his friend, Stonehead Niskriya, "how come you got home so early from your date with Papaya Pineapple last night?" "Well," explains Stonehead, "after dinner we went back to her apartment. We sat on her bed listening to music, talked for a while, and drank some herb tea. Then she slowly undressed, pulled back the bed covers, lay down, reached over me, and turned out the light." "So?" asks Haridas. "What happened?" "Well, I can take a hint," replies Stonehead. "So I went home!" 

Nivedano...

(Gibberish)

Nivedano...

Be silent. Close your eyes. Feel your body to be frozen; gather all your life energy inwards and look in. Deeper and deeper. Find the center of your being. 

Finding the center of your being is the door that leads you beyond yourself, that makes you a buddha.

Osho, The Buddha _The Emptiness of the Heart