If you ask Zen people they will say; tea is not something that you pour with unawareness and drink like any other drink. It is not a drink, it is meditation; 这是祈祷. So they listen to the kettle creating a melody, and in that listening they become more silent, more alert.
Meditation is not contemplation, it is action — action of the whole, of the total being. In the West particularly. Christianity has created a false impression, and meditation looks like contemplation. It is not. Because of Christianity the West has missed many things, and one of them is meditation, the rarest flowering of a human being, because they have made it equivalent to contemplation. Contemplation is thinking. Meditation is no-thinking.
A religious mind is a nonphilosophical mind. A religious mind is an innocent, intelligent mind. The mirror is clear, the dust has not been gathered; and every day a continuous cleaning goes on. That’s what I call meditation.
Religion has only one answer and that answer is meditation. And meditation means how to empty yourself.
Meditation cannot be a fragmented thing, it should be a continuous effort. Every moment one has to be alert, aware and meditative.
Meditation is just a situation; silence is not going to be the consequence of it. 不, meditation is just creating the soil, the surrounding, preparing the ground. The seed is there, it is always there; you need not put in the seed, the seed has always been with you. That seed is Brahma; that seed is atma. —that seed is you.Just create the situation and the seed will become alive. It will sprout and a plant will be born, and you will start growing. Meditation doesn’t lead you to silence; meditation only creates the situation in which the silence happens. And this should be the criterion — that whenever silence happens laughter will come into your life. A vital celebration will happen all around.
