Zen -- the Path of Paradox

"Theology is Crap"

Osho calls Zen "The Path of Paradox". Perhaps that's the most compact way to describe Zen to someone who is totally new to Zen. Zen challenges all our assumptions about reality, religion and the way we think of ourselves. Osho himself  personified this challenge (he died in 1990). His main advice was to "shut the fuck up, just be". Yet he wrote dozens of books and he has hours of lectures on You Tube. I think it's best to see Osho as a clown -- a court jester -- I don't think he'd be insulted by this advice . Zen is fun and funny. 

Historically speaking, Zen has roots in Buddhism (itself rooted in "Hinduism") and Taoism. Anyone who has dabbled in these two sources will immediately recognize the historical echoes. For someone who has never looked into Zen, it's also important to realize what Zen is not. From Taoism, it recognizes the difference between reality and talking about reality. Accordingly, Zen throws overboard all "theology" or even ideas about reality. Zen is a practice. Zen is about what you do, not your theories. The theory of Zen is to have no theories.

Accordingly, in theory (there is the paradox) there is no god in Zen. Yet, Osho repeatedly uses the word "god" to refer (it seems) to reality itself and talks about Zen as the way to touch god, i.e., to come into reality itself in some mystical way. More conservative Zen masters will just talk about reality as "it". Osho was a "shit disturber", with an openly-declared agenda of throwing his listeners off balance, including his Zen listeners.

Zen is about experience rather than talking about experience: It is an aesthetic framework. My most valued experiences turn out to be best understood in the aesthetic language of Zen. They are the activities when I am totally "in the moment", forced by nature to forget everything else and pay attention to what is happening in this particular second. These include white water canoeing, sailing and SCUBA (not  screwed up sitting in the lotus position trying to clear my mind, by the way).

My first exposure to Zen was the book "Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance". This amazing book is still in print after almost 40 years. It can be found in multiple editions in any book store. Many people I know have the book on their shelves or at least have heard of it. Yet I have not found anyone (beside myself) who have actually read it . I read the book soon after it came out in 1974. I will not attempt to summarize it here -- go read it for yourself :)

Zen shows its Buddhist/Hindu roots in many ways. Most notably, there are lots of "masters", many of whom will teach you how to sit, how to breathe, how to "empty your mind" and so forth. If you ask me, this is Buddhism, not Zen.  Osho (a master himself of course) said that the function of a Zen master is not to teach but to un-teach -- to challenge everything you know until you shut the fuck up and just experience raw reality. Of course he tells you this in dozens of books and hours of lectures, a fact that he himself points out is a huge joke.

It would be easy for me to dismiss Osho as a clown except for the fact that he seemed to know quite a few of the profound truths I have only recently discovered for myself, such as the mysterious boundless nature of the "self". On the other hand, Osho (and a few of the other "masters" I have encountered) also seem to "know" a lot of bullshit. There is an unsettling amount of dogma in their dismissal of dogma.

Bottom line: Zen can teach you how to be (or rather now not to be). In my own case, it helps me to blow away the last vestiges of "hocus pocus" clinging to my Christian background. It helps me to develop a healthy skepticism toward skepticism itself.