The Best Medicine
Laughter is the best medicine. If you can laugh when you are ill you will get your health back sooner. If you cannot laugh, even if you are healthy, sooner or later you will lose your health and you will become ill.
Laughter brings inner energy to the fore. When you really laugh, for those few moments you are in a deep meditative state. Thinking stops. It is impossible to laugh and think together. When you really laugh, suddenly, the mind disappears. And the whole Zen methodology is how to get into no-mind.
If you are possessed by laughter, thinking stops. And if you know a few moments of no-mind, those glimpses will promise you many more rewards that are going to come.
In a few Zen monasteries, every monk has to start his morning with laughter, and has to end his night with laughter. It will be difficult, living in a family set-up, to suddenly laugh early in the morning. But do try it; it’s worth getting out of bed laughing. Yes, for no reason at all. Isn’t it good to be alive?
One day you will not get up in the morning. One day the milkman will knock at the door, the spouse will be snoring, but you will not be there. One day, death will come. Before it knocks you down, have a good laugh – while there is time, have a good laugh.
And look at the whole ridiculousness: again the same day starts; you have done the same things again and again for your whole life. Again you will get into your slippers, rush to the bathroom – for what? Brushing your teeth, taking a shower – for what? Where are you going? Getting ready and nowhere to go!
Look at the whole ridiculousness of it and have a good laugh. Laughter leads to more laughter. And almost always I have seen people doing just the wrong thing. From early morning they get out of bed complaining, gloomy, sad, depressed, and miserable. Then one thing leads to another and for nothing. And they get angry. it is very bad because it will change your climate for the whole day, it will set a pattern for the whole day.
In their insanity, Zen people are saner than you are. They start the day laughing. Then the whole day you will feel laughter bubbling, welling up.
If you become silent after your laughter, one day you will hear God also laughing, you will hear the whole existence laughing with you even the trees and stones and stars.
