OSHO, I THOUGHT THAT MEDITATION WAS A SIMPLE THING. BUT SEEING PEOPLE DOING VIPASSANA, I AM LOSING ALL HOPE OF EVER BECOMING A SUCCESSFUL MEDITATOR. PLEASE GIVE ME A LITTLE ENCOURAGEMENT.
Paul, MEDITATION is simple. PRECISELY because it is simple, it looks difficult. Your mind is accustomed to dealing with difficult problems, and it has completely forgotten how to respond to the simple things of life. The more simple a thing is, the more difficult it looks to the mind, because the mind is very efficient in solving difficult things. It has been trained to solve difficult things, it does not know how to tackle the simple. Meditation is simple, your mind is complex. It is not a problem that meditation is creating. The problem is coming from your mind, not from meditation.
Vipassana is the MOST simple meditation in the world. It is through vipassana that Buddha became enlightened, and it is through vipassana that many more people have become enlightened than through’ any other method. Vipassana is THE method. Yes, there are other methods also, but they have helped only very few people. Vipassana has helped thousands, and it is really very simple; is not like yoga. Yoga is difficult, arduous, complex. You have to torture yourself in many ways: distort your body, contort your body, sit this way and that, torture, stand on your head — exercises and exercises… but yoga seems to be very appealing to people.
Vipassana is SO simple that you don’t take any note of it. In fact, coming across vipassana for the first time, one doubts whether it can be called a meditation at all. What is it? — no physical exercise, no breathing exercise; a very simple phenomenon: just watching your breath coming in, going out… finished, this is the method; sitting silently, watching your breath coming in, going out; not losing track, that’s all. Not that you have to change your breathing — it is not PRANAYAM; it is not a breathing exercise where you have to take deep breaths, exhale, inhale, no. Let the breathing be simple, as it is. You just have to bring one new quality to it: awareness.
OSHO – The guest chap. 15