Laughter, the real mantra of life

Bodhidharma was the first patriarch of Zen, who took Buddha’s message of meditation and compassion to China. In Zen monasteries, there has been one serious question to meditate on: Why did Bodhidharma go to China?

Osho gives a simple answer: “I know the reason — the Chinese are more joyous people than Indians, more delighted with life and small things, more colourful. It must be the reason why Bodhidharma travelled so long, crossed the Himalayas to seek and search for people who could laugh with him, and who were not serious, not great scholars and philosophers, and this and that. No, China has not created great philosophers like India has. It has created a few great mystics like Laozi and Zhuang Zhou, but they all are laughing Buddhas. It must be that Bodhidharma’s search in China was a search for people who were nonserious.”

Osho concludes: “My whole effort here is to make you light, non-serious, laughing. People come to me, particularly Indians and complain: ‘What type of sanyasis are you creating? They don’t look like sanyasis. A sanyasi, has to be a serious person, almost dead, a corpse. These people laugh and dance and hug each other. This is unbelievable! Sanyasis doing this?’” And I tell them, “Who else? Who else can do that? — only sanyasis can laugh.” Today, I am delighted to be addressed as the ferocious Buddha. I do not get hurt. Rather I have a big laugh.