VBT – Week’s Meditation 24
Empty Boat
Do not express, because you are wasting your energy and helping the other also to waste his. Do not suppress, because then you are creating a suspended phenomenon which will have to be released.
Then what to do?
This technique says, do not do anything with the mood itself, just go back to the source from where the mood is coming from. And while the mood is hot, the path is clear, visible inside; you can move on it. Use moods for meditation. The result is miraculous, unbelievable. And once you find the key that shows you how to pour the energy back to the source, you will have a different quality of personality.
Then you will not be dissipating anything, then it will look stupid.
Buddha has said that whenever you are angry against someone, you are punishing yourself for the misdeed of the other. He has insulted you – that is his deed – and you are punishing yourself by being angry; you are dissipating your energy. This is stupid. But then, listening to Buddha, Mahavir, Jesus, we start repressing; we start suppressing our energy. Then we think that it is not good, that it is stupid to be angry.
We use it always to move to the other, and we feel very much frustrated if no one is there to project upon. Then we go on projecting even on inanimate objects. I have seen people being angry at their shoes, throwing them in anger. What are they doing? I have seen angry persons pushing a door in anger, throwing their anger on the door, abusing the door, using dirty language against the door. What are they doing?
Zen insight about this. One of the greatest of Zen masters, Lin Chi, used to say, “While I was young I was very fascinated by boating. I had one small boat, and I would go on the lake alone. For hours together I would remain there.
Once it happened that with closed eyes I was in my boat meditating on the beautiful night. One empty boat came floating downstream and struck my boat. My eyes were closed, so I thought, ‘Someone is here with his boat, and he has struck my boat.’ Anger arose. I opened my eyes and I was just going to say something to that man in anger, then I realized that the boat was empty. Then there was no way to move. To whom could I express the anger? The boat was empty. It was just floating downstream, and it had come and struck my boat. So there was nothing to do. There was no possibility to project the anger on an empty boat.”
So Lin Chi said, “I closed my eyes. The anger was there, but finding no way out, I closed my eyes and just floated backward with the anger. And that empty boat became my realization. I came to a point within myself on that silent night. That empty boat was my master. And now if someone comes and insults me, I laugh and I say, ‘This boat is also empty.’ I close my eyes and I go within.”
Use this technique. It may work miracles for you.
Tags: Empty Boat
