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but no concept will arise in your mind. All conceptual framework disappears. Existence, bare, naked, innocent, remains there in its pure, mirrorlike beingness. And all the concepts, all the imaginations, all the dreams, disappear in the land of the void.
IF A MAN IS CROSSING A RIVER
AND AN EMPTY BOAT COLLIDES WITH HIS OWN SKIFF,
EVEN THOUGH HE BE A BAD-TEMPERED MAN
HE WILL NOT BECOME VERY ANGRY.
BUT IF HE SEES A MAN IN THE BOAT,
HE WILL SHOUT TO HIM TO STEER CLEAR.
AND IF THE SHOUT IS NOT HEARD HE WILL SHOUT
AGAIN, AND YET AGAIN, AND BEGIN CURSING --
AND ALL BECAUSE THERE IS SOMEBODY IN THAT BOAT.
YET IF THE BOAT WERE EMPTY,
HE WOULD NOT BE SHOUTING, AND HE WOULD NOT BE ANGRY.
If people go on colliding with you and if people go on being angry with you, remember, they are not at fault. Your boat is not empty. They are angry because you are there. If the boat is empty they will look foolish, if they are angry they will look foolish.
Those who are very intimate with me sometimes get angry with me and they look very foolish! If the boat is empty you can even enjoy the anger of others, because there is nobody to be angry with, they have not looked at you. So remember, if people go on colliding with you, you are too much of a solid wall. Be a door, become empty, let them pass.
Even then sometimes people will be angry -- they are even angry with a buddha. Because there are foolish people who, if their boat collides with an empty boat, they will not look to see whether someone is in it or not. They will start shouting; they will get so messed up within themselves that they will not be able to see whether someone is in it or not.
But even then the empty boat can enjoy it because then the anger never hits you; you are not there, so whom can it hit?
This symbol of the empty boat is really beautiful. People are angry because you are too much there, because you are too heavy there -- so solid they cannot pass. And life is intertwined with everybody. If you are too much, then everywhere there will be collision, anger, depression, aggression, violence -- the conflict
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