More Osho: On Direction and Rinzai's Roar

Direction is something alive, in the moment. It knows nothing of the future, it knows nothing of the past, but it throbs, it pulsates, here and now. And out of this pulsating moment, the next moment is created. Not by any decision on your part—but just because you live this moment and you live it totally, and you live this moment so wholly, out of this wholeness the next moment is born. It is going to have a direction. That direction is not given by you, it is not imposed by you, it is spontaneous.

You cannot decide direction, you can only live this moment that is available to you. By living it, direction arises. If you dance, the next moment is going to be of a deeper dance. Not that you decide, but you simply dance this moment. You have created a direction, you are not manipulating it. The next moment will be more full of dancing, and still more will be the following.

(snip)

One Zen master, Rinzai, was dying; he was on the deathbed. Somebody asked, “Master, people will ask after you are gone, what was your essential teaching? You have said many things, you have talked about many things—it will be difficult for us to condense it. Before you leave, please, you yourself condense it into a single sentence, so we will treasure it. And whenever people who have not known you desire, we can give them your essential teaching.”

Dying, Rinzai opened his eyes, gave a great Zen shout, a lion’s roar! They were all shocked! They couldn’t believe that this dying man could have so much energy. They were not expecting it. The man was unpredictable, he had always been so, but even with this unpredictable man they were not in any way expecting that dying, at the last moment, he would give such a lion’s roar. And when they were shocked- and of course, their minds stopped, they were surprised, taken aback—Rinzai said, “This is it!” closed his eyes, and died.

This is it…

This moment, this silent moment, this moment uncorrupted by thought, this silence that was surrounding this surprise, this last lion’s roar over death—this is it.

from 'Intuition: insights for a new way of living'