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Do not consider. Do not compromise. Let the truth be as it is; you cannot make it better. You cannot paint it, you cannot give it a little more color, a little more joy, a little more expressibility; you cannot do anything.
If you know it your eyes will be just like empty sky. Your hands will not be like fists holding something but empty indicating that there is nobody inside but a pure nothingness.
But this pure nothingness is alive, this nothingness has a heart. This nothingness blossoms in thousands of flowers and rainbows, and dances in peacocks, and sings in birds. This nothingness roars in the oceans and this nothingness is silent in the meditator.
This nothingness, remember, does not mean what you ordinarily understand by nothingness. It is better to break the word in two. When Bodhidharma uses `nothingness' he simply means no-thingness. Just put a little hyphen -- and you have made Bodhidharma more understandable. I cannot do more than that. Just a little hyphen: nothingness becomes no-thingness. You are a living entity, not a thing.
Emptiness does not have the negative connotation that it carries in our minds. When I show you a room which is completely empty, there are two ways to say something about it. Either you can say that the room is empty or you can say that the room is full of space. Exactly the very word `room' means space. The more furniture you bring in the less room there is. You can fill the whole room with junk and the room disappears. It is there and it is not there. You cannot throw it out, but you can hide it behind your furniture, behind your refrigerator, behind your television. Take them all out... what remains? Roominess, emptiness; in a positive sense, a pure space.
So remember, when Bodhidharma says emptiness, he does not mean your idea of emptiness. His emptiness is immensely full; his emptiness is immensely positive. His nothingness is simply no-thingness; his denying knowing is simply affirming innocence. It is a wonder that in two small statements he has revealed the very heart of religiousness.
BELOVED OSHO,
BOKUSHU ASKED A MONK, "WHERE ARE YOU FROM?" THE MONK GAVE A `KATSU' SHOUT.
BOKUSHU
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