The boat is empty

[1]

Swami Chaitanya Keerti [1]

I have seen many people getting possessed by strong emotions and it takes a while to be free from its poisonous effect. And it is not just about our major conflicts with people, even insignificant things may trigger something in our unconscious mind that may lead to big emotional explosions.

In such moments, we become helpless and we start getting angry at others who may be totally innocent. We become angry even at inanimate things. Many people, when they are in some kind of rage, find themselves pushing or banging a door, venting your anger on the door.
How to deal with such clumsy situations?
There is an insight about this in a Zen story: A great Zen master, Lin Chi, used to say, “While I was young I was very fascinated by boating. I had one small boat, and I would go on the lake alone. For hours together I would remain there. One night, I was meditating in my boat. One empty boat came floating downstream and struck my boat. My eyes were closed, so I thought, ‘Someone is here with his boat, and he has struck my boat.’ Anger arose. I opened my eyes and I was just about to utter something to that man in anger, when I realised that the boat was empty. To whom should I express my anger? The boast was empty and was just floating downstream. So there was nothing to do. There was no possibility to project the anger on an empty boat.”
So Lin Chi said, “The anger was there, but finding no way out, I closed my eyes and just floated backward with the anger. And that empty boat became my realisation. I came to a point within myself. That empty boat was my master. And now if someone comes and insults me, I laugh and I say, ‘This boat is also empty.’ I close my eyes and I go within.”
Osho provides a powerful method to deal with the strong emotions: Just a simple phenomenon has to be learnt — I call it meditation. It has been called by different names. Lord Buddha used to call it sammasati, right mindfulness. Armenian spiritual teacher George Gurdjieff called it self-remembering. The whole thing is how to become a witness.
When you are angry there is no need to fight with it — it is a great opportunity to watch. No need to indulge in it, no need to act according to it and no need either to go to the opposite extreme and start fighting with it. Avoid both. Just remain cool, detached, a simple observer, as if it has nothing to do with you. Your concern should be scientific, you are observing, so you have to look minutely at what anger is in all its details, in its whole mystery. Your interest has to be scientific; “I have to go deeper into the whole method of it. If I follow it I will not be able to go into it. I will become angry.” In that hot state how can you watch? “If I fight with it again, it will be the same: I will be running away, repressing, avoiding.” How can you watch something of which you are afraid?
No need to be afraid, no need to follow — just sit silently and watch and a miracle starts happening slowly: the more you watch, the more you see that it is dispersing on its own. Just as dewdrops evaporate in the morning sun, as your awareness becomes more intense it starts evaporating faster.

Swami Chaitanya Keerti, editor of Osho World, is the author of Osho Fragrance