***A man was out rowing on the river when another boat ran into his.
He turned around in anger ready to shout at the other boatman - only to find the other boat was empty.
***Zen story.
Two monks were sitting in the courtyard arguing - about a flag.
The one monk said: "The flag is moving."
The other monk said: "The wind is moving."
The Master came by and said: "Mind is moving."
***The teacher asked her little pupils to tell about their acts of kindness to poor animals. After several of the children had told heart-stirring stories of kindness, the teacher asked little Ernie if he had anything to tell.
"Well," said Ernie proudly, "I once kicked a boy for kicking his dog." *** Mulla Nasrudin got a job in a bank. The cashier tossed him a packet of one-rupee notes and said: "Check them to make sure there are one hundred.
" The Mulla started counting. Finally he got up to "56", "57", "58". Then he threw the package in the drawer.
"If it is right this far," remarked Nasrudin to the man next to him, "it is probably right all the way." ****The boss was complaining to Mulla Nasruddin about his constant tardiness. "It`s funny," he said. "You are always late in the morning and you live right across the street. Now, Billy Wilson, who lives two miles away, is always on time."
"There is nothing funny about it," said Nasruddin. "if Billy is late in the morning, he can hurry, but if I am late, I am here." LEARN TO LAUGH AT YOURSELF ! People laugh at others, but never laugh at themselves. It has to be learned. If you can laugh at yourself, seriousness is already gone. It cannot make its abode within you if you are capable of laughing at yourself.
In Zen monasteries every monk has to laugh. The first thing in the morning to do is to laugh, the very first thing. The moment the monk becomes aware that he is no longer asleep, he has to jump out of bed, stand in a posture like a buffoon, like a circus joker, and start laughing, laughing at himself. There cannot be any better beginning of the day.
Laughing at oneself kills the ego and you are more transparent, more light, when you move in the world. And if you have laughed at yourself, then others' laughter toward you won't disturb you. In fact they are simply cooperating, they are doing the same thing that you were doing. You will feel happy.
To laugh at others is egoistic; to laugh at oneself is very humble. Learn to laugh at yourself-about your seriousness and things like that. You can get serious about seriousness. Then instead of one, you have created two diseases. Then you can get serious about that also, and you can go on and on. There is no end to it; it can go on ad nauseam.
So take hold of it from the very beginning. The moment you feel you are serious, laugh about it and look for where the seriousness is. Laugh, give a good laugh, close the eyes and look for where it is. You will not find it. It exists only in a being who cannot laugh.
A more unfortunate situation cannot be conceived, a poorer being cannot be conceived of, than the man who cannot laugh at himself. So start the morning by laughing at yourself, and whenever you can find a moment in the day when you have nothing to do, have a good laugh. For no particular reason-just because the whole world is so absurd, just because the way you are is so absurd. There is no need to find any particular reason, The whole thing is so absurd that one has to laugh.
Let the laughter be a belly laughter, not a head-thing. One can laugh from the head: then it is dead. From the head everything is dead; the head is absolutely mechanical. You can laugh from the head: then your head will create the laughter, but it will not go deep in the belly to the hara. It will not go to your toes, it will not go to your whole body. A real laugh is just like a small child laughs. Watch his belly shaking, his whole body throbbing with it-he wants to roll on the floor. It is a question of totality. He laughs so much that he starts crying; he laughs so deeply that the laughter becomes tears, tears come out of him. Laughter should be deep and total. This is the medicine that I prescribe for seriousness.
-OSHO- ***One day I saw Mulla Nasruddin walking on the road in great despair, almost ready to burst out crying.
I asked him, "What is the matter? Why are you so miserable?"
He said, "my shoes are very small - I need two sizes bigger - and they hurt like hell."
I said, " Then why don`t you change them?" He said, "that I cannot do."
I asked him, "why can`t you? You have the money."
He said," I have the money, but there is much more involved in it. The whole day I suffer from these shoes, and when in the evening I go home, I throw these shoes away and fall on my bed..
It is such a relief, as if one has come to paradise! And that is the only joy in my life!
I cannot change these shoes - in 24 hours this is the only moment of joy. If I change these shoes, the moment will also disappear. Then there is nothing left."
What we call happiness is just a question of relativity. What Buddha`s call happiness is something absolute. ***"Young man," said the judge, looking sternly at the defendant, "it is alcohol, and alcohol alone, that is responsible for your present sorry state."
"I am glad to hear you say that," replied Paddy, with a sigh of relief. "Everybody else says it is all my fault!"
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