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disappear, because all thoughts are either of the past or of the future. No thought is of the present.
The present is so pure, so clean, so clear, just an opening into the cosmos. This is Zen, and this is the key to enter into life eternal. The very feel of life eternal takes all tensions, anxieties of old age, of sickness, of death, and birth away from you.
You have never been born and you will never die.
It is the body that has been changing.
You have been changing houses.
But you are the reality, the truth.
The truth is not outside you, it is at the innermost hidden center.
So Zen simply means doing nothing, just being. And in that utter silence of being, you slowly slowly relax, and the spring comes and the grass grows by itself. You suddenly start blossoming -- your eyes start having a new depth. Your gestures start having a new grace -- your every act becomes sheer joy. It may be just chopping wood, it may be just carrying water from the well -- it doesn't matter.
Once you know you are not accidental to existence, once you know you are existence itself, life takes a tremendous quantum leap. You are no longer confined to the body, you are no longer confined to the small mind. You become vast and infinite, and only in this vastness and infinity can you rejoice, can you be blissful.
And this vastness has become available to you because God is dead; otherwise he was occupying every place, he was watching you from every side. He was judging you continuously, poking his nose into your affairs, condemning you -- "This is wrong, don't do it." And all his commandments were against life.
I have heard an old story ....
When God made the world he went with his commandments to the Babylonians first, and asked them, "Would you like to have a commandment?"
They said, "First, we would like to know what the commandment is."
And he said, "Thou should not commit adultery."
They said, "Forget all about it. Without adultery there is no joy in life. Just take your commandments."
God was very much disappointed, "What kind of people are these?"
He went to the Egyptians
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