It is very strange that just by silently sitting, watching your thoughts moving here and there as if they do not belong to you - you don't have to do anything about them, not even make a judgment - just sitting silently not doing anything, and the door opens. Your ultimate reality is not something to be sought in the outside world; it is hidden in the seeker himself. The moment you start looking for it here and there, you are going far away, far away from yourself. There is no need to go anywhere. Just sit down, settle down. The mind is just like dust in water. If you are patient enough, the dust will settle and the crystal-clear water will be there reflecting the full moon.

Zen does not preach any discipline, any doctrine, any practice. It is one of the greatest blessings to humanity that Zen has made the search for oneself so obvious and so simple.

SITTING MEDITATION IS THE METHOD OF GREAT LIBERATION; ALL THE TEACHINGS FLOW FORTH FROM THIS; MYRIAD PRACTICES ARE MASTERED THIS WAY. SUPERNORMAL POWERS, KNOWLEDGE, WISDOM AND VIRTUE, ALL ARISE FROM HERE. THE PATH OF LIFE OF HUMANS AND GODS OPENS HEREIN; ALL THE BUDDHAS HAVE ENTERED AND LEFT BY THIS DOOR.

These sentences have to be remembered. While sitting silently you will come across a door within you, just an opening. If you remain in this opening, still, many things will start happening to you: knowledge, wisdom, some miraculous powers, great virtue - but this is only the door.

A few are sitting outside the door; they can sit as long as they want. They are exoteric people who cannot look in, who always look out. They have become obsessed with the outside reality. They are also sitting by the side of the door. But their back is towards the door, not their face.

The disciple is also sitting, but his face is towards the door. But this is only a door to a tremendous phenomenon of existence. You are not to stop here, although it will allure you with great wisdom, miraculous powers, virtues. It will bring you peace and silence.

But Daikaku says, ALL THE BUDDHAS HAVE ENTERED AND LEFT BY THIS DOOR.

There is something more beyond this door. The buddhas have entered and left the door behind. They have gone beyond.

What is beyond knowledge? - innocence. What is beyond wisdom? - just a sense that "I know nothing." What is beyond miracles? - no buddha has done a miracle.

Buddha did not walk on water and did not turn water into wine and did not make any Lazarus come back to life. Compared to Jesus he has not done anything, but he is far beyond Jesus. Jesus is only at the door; he has not entered into the ultimate reality. Buddha cannot do any miracle for the simple reason that he is no more. He cannot be knowledgeable because he has dropped himself, like a dewdrop from the lotus leaf into the ocean. His let-go is so total that a tremendous energy field is created around him in which anything may happen; but he is not the doer.

I would like to show you the difference. Lazarus died - he was a friend of Jesus, and a follower. His sisters were followers of Jesus. They wouldn't allow the town's people to bury the dead man. Jesus was informed; he was far away. It took four days, and when he came, the dead body of Lazarus was being kept in a cave in the mountains. He called, "Lazarus! Come out!" and Lazarus came out. This is thought to be the greatest miracle of Jesus.

A similar situation arose before Buddha, but the story is totally different. A woman was going to drown herself, but people saved her somehow. Her husband had died but she had a small child, so she thought to live for the child. But then the child died; now there was nothing for her to live for. People said, "Don't be worried, Buddha is in the town. You come with us, bring the dead body of the child. And if he cannot make him alive, then nobody can do anything."

The woman came crying, weeping, carrying the body of the dead child. Buddha said, "Leave the child here. I will bring him back to life on one condition: you have to bring some mustard seeds from a house where nobody has ever died."

The poor woman could not understand the logic of it. She thought, "What a great opportunity! This is not difficult" - because mustard seed was the principal crop in that village. "There must be some house where nobody has died." She went from house to house.

And they said, "How many mustard seeds do you want? We can bring many carts full if your child can be revived. But it won't help, because not only one person but thousands of people must have died in this house, in this family. And you are unnecessarily wasting your time - you cannot find a house where nobody has died."

But she went on searching - perhaps... a hope against hope. By the evening it became clear that everybody who is born dies, and she could not find the required mustard seeds. But her tears disappeared, and instead of tears a great awareness arose, that "Life and death exist together. And what does it matter if my child dies today or tomorrow? He would have to die, and it is good that he has died before me. If I had died first he would have been an orphan, a beggar. This is a great blessing."

By the time she reached Buddha the sun was setting, and Buddha said, "Where are the mustard seeds?"
She fell down at Buddha's feet and she said, "I have brought myself, not the mustard seeds. I want to be initiated into the search for that which never dies."

Now you can see the difference between the two stories. In one Lazarus is resurrected, but he will have to die again. What was the point of resurrecting him? He has not been transformed. He has not gained any insight, he has not become awakened. But this woman in a similar situation with a great master, encounters the very basic problem: how to transcend life and death? How to get beyond this circle of life and death?

Buddha initiated her, and he said, "For this reason I had to send you - so that the understanding arose on your own that everybody dies. Now the question is, is there something that never dies? And I am happy that you have come back with that understanding. Your initiation is not an imitation, your initiation is out of understanding."

Christian missionaries continuously go on saying that except for Jesus, nobody - neither Buddha nor Bodhidharma... there have been thousands of masters, but Jesus is unique because of his miracles. But buddhas will laugh.
The real miracle is that the woman has come to an understanding that she wants to enter into herself. From the outside you may not think it a great miracle. To resurrect the body is not the question - he will die again, you are simply giving him another chance to die.
Even Christian scholars are finding all the miracles of Jesus unfounded. They have been added three hundred years after Jesus, to give him a glamour that he is really the son of God. All pure fiction!

Now there is a great controversy going on in Christian circles: can we accept Jesus if his miracles are proved fictitious? Take away the miracles and Jesus is nothing. But take anything away from Gautam Buddha, he is still a Gautam Buddha. You cannot take away anything from him because nothing is added. He has remained simply himself, no fiction, no mythology. This is a real miracle, that a man who influenced the whole East also managed that nobody add any mythology, any fiction to his life. His life has remained a pure flame without any smoke.

From: Osho, Turning IN
- one volume from the Zen set- Zen All Colours of the Rainbow