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Zen is of tremendous importance. It is the greatest flowering of human consciousness yet achieved
and it is one of the fundamental revolutions: it cuts the very roots of the so-called religious structure
of the mind. It is not religion, it is pure religiousness. It is not religion in the sense of being Hindu,
Mohammedan, Christian, Buddhist. Hence to call Zen ’Zen Buddhism’ is wrong: it has nothing to do
with Buddhism at all. It is not oriented in the past, it is not inspired by the past – it has no goal in the
future either – it is living your life passionately, intensely, ecstatically this very moment.
The very idea of this very moment is shattering to the mind because mind lives in the past and the
future. And Zen is a tremendous blow to the mind: it cuts it in a single blow, it destroys it, it takes
you beyond immediately. Zen is a device of sudden enlightenment.
Mind wants to be slow, gradual, it wants to move carefully, cautiously, guardedly, thinking about the
pros and cons. Zen is a jump into the very thick of life. And life surrounds you within and without.
Just as a fish is in the ocean you are in life. Don’t wait for the next moment, live it now. Zen is a
challenge, a risk, a gamble: putting everything at stake for the moment.
The religious people cannot understand it – I mean the so-called religious. And the world is full of
them: there are Christians, and there are Hindus, Mohammedans, Jews, Buddhists, and Jainas –
these people cannot understand Zen at all. Unless you get rid of all these ideologies you will not
understand what Zen is.
Zen is not an ideology, it is not a philosophy, it is living in an existential way, not in an intellectual
way. Zen is not concerned with words, concepts, theories, hypotheses, assumptions, beliefs, its total
concern is with the immediate reality. The reality has to be encountered without any barrier. Unless
your whole mind is put aside you cannot understand Zen.
Samadhi, it certainly is full of zest, zip, zap and zing.