I am here to seduce you into a love of life; to help you to become a little more poetic; to help you die to the mundane and to the ordinary so that the extraordinary explodes in your life. .

Zen is a totally different kind of religion. It brings humanness to religion. It is not bothered about anything superhuman; its whole concern is how to make ordinary life a blessing.

Hence the Bible has no record of his years of preparation; the record is very abrupt. Something about his childhood is said, very fragmentary. And only once is he mentioned: when he was twelve years of age and he started arguing with the priests in the temple - that's all. Then there is a gap of eighteen years... nothing is mentioned.

Without zest, what is life? Just waiting for death? It can't be anything else. Only with zest do you live; otherwise you vegetate.

Life in itself is so beautiful that to ask the question of the meaning of life is simply nonsense.

Don`t allow the fear to overpower you, allow love to overpower you. Love comes from the center, fear always comes from the periphery; don`t allow this periphery to be dominant. And what have you got to lose? Even if there is no rebirth - there is rebirth - but I say even if there is no rebirth and you simply die, what have you got to lose? What will be lost?

Identification with the body, with the mind, with our possessions, with our families, with our friends - any kind of identification takes you outwards. All your possessions will be outwards: your wife, your husband, your children, your body - your body is outside you; your mind - your mind is outside you. The only thing that is not outside you is the witnessing. Just the watchfulness - that is your buddha. Identification means losing witnessing, falling into the trap of attachment. That is our misery, that is our slavery.