"A Campaign in the Ass." No matter what the votary believes about HRC or Trump and their one party politics, it is clear that Trump (or the character he is portraying in election hoax 2016) is what Chuang Tzo would call a Full Boat; filled with an endless supply of opinions, judging the world like it was his beauty pageant, drawing distinctions among people by the second and on an aggressive hunt for others who want to be dominated and who enjoy feeling necessary to his domination. His boat is much too much - it's more like an overloaded bumper car - purposely crashing into most of the world inhabitants on a hurried pace along an ambitous route to nowhere. In what ways is your boat like Trumps or his supporters?
The following is by Osho Rajineesh. From [HERE] and [HERE]
The Empty Boat
HE WHO RULES MEN, LIVES IN CONFUSION;
HE WHO IS RULED BY MEN LIVES IN SORROW.
TAO THEREFORE DESIRED
NEITHER TO INFLUENCE OTHERS
NOR BE INFLUENCED BY THEM.
THE WAY TO GET CLEAR OF CONFUSION AND FREE OF SORROW
IS TO LIVE WITH TAO 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 YOU CAN EMPTY YOUR OWN BOAT
CROSSING THE RIVER OF THE WORLD,
NO ONE WILL OPPOSE YOU,
NO ONE WILL SEEK TO HARM YOU.
THE STRAIGHT TREE IS THE FIRST TO BE CUT DOWN,
THE SPRING OF CLEAR WATER IS THE FIRST TO BE DRAINED DRY.
IF YOU WISH TO IMPROVE YOUR WISDOM
AND SHAME THE IGNORANT,
TO CULTIVATE YOUR CHARACTER AND OUTSHINE OTHERS,
A LIGHT WILL SHINE AROUND YOU
AS IF YOU HAD SWALLOWED THE SUN AND THE MOON -
AND YOU WILL NOT AVOID CALAMITY.
A WISE MAN HAS SAID:
"HE WHO IS CONTENT WITH HIMSELF
HAS DONE WORTHLESS WORK.
ACHIEVEMENT IS THE BEGINNING OF FAILURE,
FAME IS THE BEGINNING OF DISGRACE."
WHO CAN FREE HIMSELF OF ACHIEVEMENT AND FAME
THEN DESCEND AND BE LOST
AMID THE MASSES OF MEN?
HE WILL FLOW LIKE TAO, UNSEEN,
HE WILL GO ABOUT LIKE LIFE ITSELF
WITH NO NAME AND NO HOME.
SIMPLE IS HE, WITHOUT DISTINCTION.
TO ALL APPEARANCES HE IS A FOOL.
HIS STEPS LEAVE NO TRACE. HE HAS NO POWER.
HE ACHIEVES NOTHING, HE HAS NO REPUTATION.
SINCE HE JUDGES NO ONE,
NO ONE JUDGES HIM.
SUCH IS THE PERFECT MAN -
HIS BOAT IS EMPTY.
You have come to me. You have taken a dangerous step. It is a risk because near me you can be lost forever. To come closer will mean death and cannot mean anything else. I am just like an abyss. Come closer to me and you will fall into me. For this, the invitation has been given to you. You have heard it and you have come.
Be aware that through me you are not going to gain anything. Through me you can only lose all -because unless you are lost, the divine cannot happen; unless you disappear totally, the real cannot arise. You are the barrier.
And you are so much, so stubbornly much, you are so filled with yourself that nothing can penetrate you. Your doors are closed. When you disappear, when you are not, the doors open. Then you become just like the vast, infinite sky.
And that is your nature. That is Tao.
Before I enter into Chuang Tzu's beautiful parable of The Empty Boat, I would like to tell you one other story, because that will set the trend for this meditation camp which you are entering.
I have heard that it happened once, in some ancient time, in some unknown country, that a prince suddenly went mad. The king was desperate - the prince was the only son, the only heir to the kingdom. All the magicians were called, miracle makers, medical men were summoned, every effort was made, but in vain. Nobody could help the young prince, he remained mad.
The day he went crazy he threw off his clothes, became naked, and started to live under a big table. He thought that he had become a rooster. Ultimately the king had to accept the fact that the prince could not be reclaimed. He had gone insane permanently; all the experts had failed.
But one day again hope dawned. A sage - a Sufi, a mystic - knocked on the palace door, and said, "Give me one opportunity to cure the prince."
But the king felt suspicious, because this man looked crazy himself, more crazy than the prince. But the mystic said, "Only I can cure him. To cure a madman a greater madman is needed. And your somebodies, your miracle makers, your medical experts, all have failed because they don't know the abc of madness. They have never traveled the path."
It seemed logical, and the king thought, "There is no harm in it, why not try?" So the opportunity was given to him.
The moment the king said, "Okay, you try," this mystic threw off his clothes, jumped under the table and crowed like a rooster.
The prince became suspicious, and he said, "Who are you? And what do you think you are doing?"
The old man said, "I am a rooster, more experienced than you. You are nothing, you are just a newcomer, at the most an apprentice."
The prince said, "Then it is okay if you are also a rooster, but you look like a human being."
The old man said, "Don't go on appearances, look at my spirit, at my soul. I am a rooster like you."
They became friends. They promised each other that they would always live together and that this whole world was against them.
A few days passed. One day the old man suddenly started dressing. He put on his shirt. The prince said, "What are you doing, have you gone crazy, a rooster trying to put on human dress?"
The old man said, "I am just trying to deceive these fools, these human beings. And remember that even if I am dressed, nothing is changed. My roosterness remains, nobody can change it. Just by dressing like a human being do you think I am changed?" The prince had to concede.
A few days afterwards the old man persuaded the prince to dress because winter was approaching and it was becoming so cold.
Then one day suddenly he ordered food from the palace. The prince became very alert and said, "Wretch, what are you doing? Are you going to eat like those human beings, like them? We are roosters and we have to eat like roosters."
The old man said, "Nothing makes any difference as far as this roos-ter is concerned. You can eat anything and you can enjoy everything. You can live like a human being and remain true to your roosterness.”
By and by the old man persuaded the prince to come back to the world of humanity. He became absolutely normal.
The same is the case with you and me. And remember you are just initiates, beginners. You may think that you are a rooster but you are just learning the alphabet. I am an old hand, and only I can help you. All the experts have failed, that's why you are here. You have knocked on many doors, for many lives you have been in search - nothing has been of help to you.
But I say I can help you because I am not an expert, I am not an outsider. I have traveled the same path, the same insanity, the same madness. I have passed through the same - the same misery, the anguish, the same nightmares. And whatsoever I do is nothing but to persuade - to persuade you to come out of your madness.
To think oneself a rooster is crazy; to think oneself a body is also crazy, even crazier. To think oneself a rooster is madness; to think oneself a human being is a greater madness, because you don't belong to any form. Whether the form is that of a rooster or of a human being is irrelevant -you belong to the formless, you belong to the total, the whole. So whatsoever form you think you are, you are mad. You are formless. You don't belong to any body, you don't belong to any caste, religion, creed; you don't belong to any name. And unless you become formless, nameless, you will never be sane.
Sanity means coming to that which is natural, coming to that which is ultimate in you, coming to that which is hidden behind you. Much effort is needed because to cut form, to drop, eliminate form, is very difficult. You have become so attached and identified with it.
This Samadhi Sadhana Shibir, this meditation camp, is nothing but to persuade you towards the formless - how not to be in the form. Every form means the ego: even a rooster has its ego, and man has his own. Every form is centered in the ego. The formless means egolessness; then you are not centered in the ego, then your center is everywhere or nowhere. This is possible, this which looks almost impossible is possible, because this has happened to me. And when I speak, I speak through experience.
Wherever you are, I was, and wherever I am, you can be. Look at me as deeply as possible and feel me as deeply as possible, because I am your future, I am your possibility.
Whenever I say surrender to me, I mean surrender to this possibility. You can be cured, because your illness is just a thought. The prince went mad because he became identified with the thought that he was a rooster. Everybody is mad unless he comes to understand that he is not identified with any form - only then, sanity.
So a sane person will not be anybody in particular. He cannot be. Only an insane person can be somebody in particular - whether a rooster or a man, a prime minister or a president, or anybody whatsoever. A sane person comes to feel the nobodiness. This is the danger....
You have come to me as somebody, and if you allow me, if you give me the opportunity, this somebodiness can disappear and you can become a nobody. This is the whole effort - to make you a nobody. But why? Why this effort to become a nobody? Because unless you become nobody you cannot be blissful; unless you become nobody you cannot be ecstatic; unless you become nobody the benediction is not for you - you go on missing life.
Really you are not alive, you simply drag, you simply carry yourself like a burden. Much anguish happens, much despair, much sorrow, but not a single ray of bliss - it cannot. If you are somebody, you are like a solid block of stone, nothing can penetrate you. When you are nobody you start to become porous. When you are nobody, really you are an emptiness, transparent, everything can pass through you. There is no hindrance, there is no barrier, no resistance. You become a passivity, a door.
Right now you are like a wall; a wall means somebody. When you become a door you become nobody. A door is just an emptiness, anybody can pass, there is no resistance, no barrier. Somebody...you are mad; nobody..you will become sane for the first time.
But the whole society, education, civilization, culture, all cultivate you and help you to become somebodies. That is why I say: religion is against civilization, religion is against education, religion is against culture - because religion is for nature, for Tao.
All civilizations are against nature, because they want to make you somebody in particular. And the more you are crystallized as somebody, the less and less the divine can penetrate into you.
You go to the temples, to the churches, to the priests, but there too you are searching for a way to become somebody in the other world, for a way to attain something, for a way to succeed. The achieving mind follows you like a shadow. Wherever you go, you go with the idea of profit, achievement, success, attainment. If somebody has come here with this idea he should leave as soon as possible, run as fast as possible from me, because I cannot help you to become somebody.
I am not your enemy. I can only help you to be nobody. I can only push you into the abyss...bottomless. You will never reach anywhere; you will simply dissolve. You will fall and fall and fall and dissolve, and the moment you dissolve the whole existence feels ecstatic. The whole existence celebrates this happening.
Buddha attained this. Because of language I say attained; otherwise the word is ugly, there is no attainment - but you will understand. Buddha attained this emptiness, this nothingness. For two weeks, for fourteen days continuously, he sat in silence, not moving, not saying, not doing anything.
It is said that the deities in heaven became disturbed - rarely it happens that someone becomes such total emptiness. The whole of existence felt a celebration, so deities came. They bowed down before Buddha and they said, "You must say something, you must say what you have attained. Buddha is reported to have laughed and said, "I have not attained anything; rather, because of this mind, which always wants to attain something, I was missing everything. I have not achieved anything, this is not an achievement; rather, on the contrary, the achiever has disappeared. I am no more, and, see the beauty of it - when I was, I was miserable, and when I am no more, everything is blissful, the bliss is showering and showering continuously on me, everywhere. Now there is no misery."
Buddha had said before: Life is misery, birth is misery, death is misery - everything is miserable. It was miserable because the ego was there. The boat had not been empty. Now the boat was empty; now there was no misery, no sorrow, no sadness. Existence had become a celebration and it would remain a celebration to eternity, for ever and forever.
That's why I say that it is dangerous that you have come to me. You have taken a risky step. If you are courageous, then be ready for the jump.
The whole effort is how to kill you, the whole effort is how to destroy you. Once you are destroyed, the indestructible will come up - it is there, hidden. Once all that which is nonessential is eliminated, the essential will be like a flame - aliveness, total glory.
This parable of Chuang Tzu is beautiful. He says that a wise man is like an empty boat.
SUCH IS THE PERFECT MAN -
HIS BOAT IS EMPTY.
There is nobody inside.
If you meet a Chuang Tzu, or a Lao Tzu, or me, the boat is there, but it is empty, nobody is in it. If you simply look at the surface, then somebody is there, because the boat is there. But if you penetrate deeper, if you really become intimate with me, if you forget the body, the boat, then you come to encounter a nothingness.
Chuang Tzu is a rare flowering, because to become nobody is the most difficult, almost impossible, most extraordinary thing in the world.
The ordinary mind hankers to be extraordinary, that is part of ordinariness; the ordinary mind desires to be somebody in particular, that is part of ordinariness. You may become an Alexander, but you remain ordinary - then who is the extraordinary one? The extraordinariness starts only when you don't hanker after extraordinariness. Then the journey has started, then a new seed has sprouted.
This is what Chuang Tzu means when he says: A perfect man is like an empty boat. Many things are implied in it. First, an empty boat is not going anywhere because there is nobody to direct it, nobody to manipulate it, nobody to drive it somewhere. An empty boat is just there, it is not going anywhere. Even if it is moving it is not going anywhere.
When the mind is not there life will remain a movement, but it will not be directed. You will move, you will change, you will be a riverlike flow, but not going anywhere, with no goal in view. A perfect man lives without any purpose; a perfect man moves but without any motive. If you ask a perfect man, "What are you doing?" he will say, "I don't know, but this is what is happening." If you ask me why I am talking to you, I will say, "Ask the flower why the flower is flowering." This is happening, this is not manipulated. There is no one to manipulate it, the boat is empty. When there is purpose you will always be in misery. Why?
Once a man asked a miser, a great miser, "How did you succeed in accumulating so much wealth?"
The miser said, "This is my motto: whatsoever is to be done tomorrow should be done today, and whatsoever is to be enjoyed today should be enjoyed tomorrow. This has been my motto.” He succeeded in accumulating wealth - and this is how people succeed in accumulating nonsense also!
That miser was also miserable. On one hand he had succeeded in accumulating wealth, on the other hand he had succeeded in accumulating misery. And the motto is the same for accumulating money as it is for accumulating misery: whatsoever is to be done tomorrow do it today, right now, don't postpone it. And whatsoever can be enjoyed right now, never enjoy it right now, postpone it for tomorrow.
This is the way to enter hell. It always succeeds, it has never been a failure. Try it and you will succeed - or, you may have already succeeded. You may have been trying it without knowing. Postpone all that which can be enjoyed, just think of the tomorrow.
Jesus was crucified by the Jews for this reason, not for any other reason. Not that they were against Jesus - Jesus was a perfect man, a beautiful man, why should the Jews have been against him? Rather, on the contrary, they had been waiting for this man. For centuries they had been hoping and waiting: When will the messiah come?
And then suddenly this Jesus declared, "I am the messiah for whom you have been waiting, and I have come now. Now look at me."
They were disturbed - because the mind can wait, it always enjoys waiting, but the mind cannot face the fact, the mind cannot encounter this moment. It can always postpone, it was easy to postpone: The messiah is to come, soon he will be coming.... For centuries the Jews had been thinking and postponing and then suddenly this man destroyed all hope, because he said, "I am here." The mind was disturbed. They had to kill this man, otherwise they would not have been able to live with the hope of the tomorrow.
And not only Jesus, many others have declared since then, "I am here, I am the messiah!" And Jews always deny, because if they don't deny, then how will they be able to hope and how will they be able to postpone? They have lived with this hope with such fervor, with such deep intensity, you can hardly believe it. There have been Jews who would go to bed at night hoping that this would be the last night, that in the morning the messiah would be there....
I have heard about one rabbi who used to say to his wife, "If he comes in the night, don't waste a single minute, wake me up immediately." The messiah is coming and coming, he may come at any moment.
I have heard of another rabbi whose son was going to be married, so he sent invitations to the marriage to friends and he wrote on the invitation, "My son is going to be married in Jerusalem on such-and-such a date, but if the messiah hasn't come by then, my son will be married in this village of Korz." Who knows, by the time the day of the marriage comes, the messiah may have come. Then I will not be here, I will be in Jerusalem, celebrating. So if he has not come by the date of the marriage, only then will it be held here in this village; otherwise, it will be in Jerusalem.
They have been waiting and waiting, dreaming. The whole Jewish mind has been obsessed with the coming messiah. But whenever the messiah comes, they immediately deny him. This has to be understood. This is how the mind functions: you wait for the bliss, for the ecstasy, and whenever it comes you deny it, you just turn your back towards it.
Mind can live in the future, but cannot live in the present. In the present you can simply hope and desire. And that's how you create misery. If you start living this very moment, here and now, misery disappears.
But how is it related to the ego? Ego is the past accumulated. Whatsoever you have known, experienced, read, whatsoever has happened to you in the past, the whole is accumulated there. That whole past is the ego, it is you.
The past can project into the future - the future is nothing but the past extended - but the past cannot face the present. The present is totally different, it has a quality of being here and now. The past is always dead, the present is life, the very source of all aliveness. The past cannot face the present so it moves into the future - but both are dead, both are nonexistential. The present is life; the future cannot encounter the present, nor can the past encounter the present. And your ego, your somebodiness, is your past. Unless you are empty you cannot be here, and unless you are here you cannot be alive.
How can you know the bliss of life? Every moment it is showering on you and you are bypassing it.
Says Chuang Tzu:
SUCH IS THE PERFECT MAN -
HIS BOAT IS EMPTY.
Empty of what? Empty of the I, empty of the ego, empty of somebody there inside.
HE WHO RULES MEN, LIVES IN CONFUSION;
HE WHO IS RULED BY MEN LIVES IN SORROW.
HE WHO RULES MEN, LIVES IN CONFUSION. Why? The desire to rule comes from the ego; the desire to possess, to be powerful, the desire to dominate, comes from the ego. The greater the kingdom you can dominate, the greater the ego you can achieve. With your possessions your inner somebody goes on becoming bigger and bigger and bigger. Sometimes the boat becomes very small because the ego becomes so big....
This is what is happening to politicians, to people obsessed with wealth, prestige, power. Their egos become so big that their boats cannot contain them. Every moment they are on the point of drowning, on the verge, afraid, scared to death. And the more afraid you are the more possessive you become, because you think that through possessions somehow security is achieved. The more afraid you are, the more you think that if your kingdom could be a little greater, you would be more secure.
HE WHO RULES MEN, LIVES IN CONFUSION….
Really, the desire to rule comes out of your confusion; the desire to be leaders of men comes out of your confusion. When you start leading others you forget your confusion - this is a sort of escape, a trick. You are ill, but if somebody is ill and you become interested in curing that man, you forget your illness.