Ten Zen paintings that tell the famous story of a farmer in search of his lost bull are an allegory for everyone’s search for enlightenment. Originally Taoist, The Ten Bulls were repainted by the 12th century Chinese Zen master, Kakuan, and first appeared in the West in American author, Paul Reps’ book, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones. These discourses are Osho’s commentaries on the paintings. Osho retells these deceptively simple stories with great charm and wisdom while exploring the deeper layers of meaning behind each picture. In many traditions, the tenth picture showing the farmer returning to the marketplace with a bottle of wine has been purposely omitted, whereas for Osho, this is a beautiful symbol of how we can truly celebrate life in the world once we are filled with inner richness and truth. This is his vision of the new man, whom he calls Zorba the Buddha, whose feet are firmly on the ground, yet whose hands can touch the stars.

So the first thing:
I am for life, all for life, and all for enjoyment. I am not for somber seriousness, I am not for sadness. I am against all those religions which go on teaching people to be serious. God is not serious; otherwise flowers won't exist. God is not serious; otherwise birds won't be able to sing. God is tremendously in fun -- that's why we say in India that the creation is not a creation in fact but a play, a leela.

God is playing, he is like a child running hither and thither. Out of sheer energy, overflowing, enjoying, dancing a thousand and one dances, singing a thousand and one songs -- never exhausted, he goes on innovating, goes on peopling the earth. Each person is his new way of dance and each person is his new effort to sing again, to love again, to live again. Each person is again a project, again an effort. He is never tired. Infinite is his play.

God is not serious. God is not Christian. He does not live in a church. He is festive. Look at life: it is a constant festivity. Listen to these birds... a continuous festivity. See the trees go on flowering, the sun and the moon and the stars. From the lowest to the highest, it is the same rhythm of joy. Except for man nobody seems to be serious. Except for man, nobody seems to be worried and anxious. Except for man, the whole of life is fun.

No, I am not for seriousness. I am absolutely against it. I would like you to be playful. Listen to me well: I would like you even to pray as fun. Once seriousness enters in your prayer, it is already dead. I would like you to meditate like love -- a subtle delight, a continuous delight in just being here, in just being alive.
I am not against enjoyment, but I don't see that you are enjoying; hence meditation is needed. Meditation is to make you clean of your seriousness. Meditation is to make you aware of your deadliness. Meditation is to help you get rid of all the hangovers of the past, and all the projections and dreams of the future, so that you can be herenow, simply, spontaneously.

Meditation is to help you to enjoy so tremendously that you disappear in that enjoyment. If you remain, misery remains. Let me say it in this way: you are the misery. If you are, seriousness continues. Wherever you are, immediately you create a serious, somber climate around you; something is already dying. You are your death. You are the disease.

When you are enjoying, dancing, loving, or just sitting doing nothing, you are simply happy for no reason at all. And happiness needs no reason. If you are looking for reasons, you will never be happy. Happiness needs no cause; it cannot be caused. You cannot make it part of the world of cause and effect. It is absolutely illogical. If you want to be happy, be happy! Don't wait, don't arrange -- there is no need for any arrangement. You are capable of being happy just as you are. Nothing is lacking. If you can learn this much from me, you have learnt all, my whole art.
Happiness needs no cause. The cause is created by your misery. The misery says, "Today I am miserable, how right now can I be happy? First, preparations have to be made. Of course, then time will be needed, so tomorrow when everything is ready I will be happy. I have to find a beautiful wife; I have to find the perfect husband. I have to find a good house, a big car... this and that. This is possible only tomorrow. Right now, how is it possible? Time will be needed." This is the trick of the miserable mind.

The miserable mind says time is needed. The miserable mind lives in time, depends on time. Happiness has nothing to do with time. Just now, just herenow, please try to see the point. It is a question of seeing it. If you become a little alert you can see it right now. It is a realization.
Right now, who is barring your path?

And if you are thinking that before you can be happy you have to find a perfect wife... it looks logical: how can you be happy without a perfect wife? But have you ever heard about any perfect wife? Have you ever heard about any perfect husband, a perfect house or a perfect car? All illusions.

I have heard about one man who was searching and searching and searching. He reached seventy, and somebody asked, "Is your search not over? When are you going to get settled?"
He said, "I am in search of a perfect wife."
"Seventy years have passed. Death is already knocking on the door. When will you settle?"
He said, "What can I do? How can you be happy without a perfect wife?"
The friend asked, "But you have been searching so long, couldn't you find one?"
He said, "Yes, once I did find one woman."
Then the man said, "Then why didn't you marry her?"
And the seventy-year-old seeker became very sad. He said, "It was difficult: she was also in search of a perfect husband!"

Perfection is a mind-demand, an ego-trip. Life is beautifully imperfect. Once you understand this, you start enjoying right now. And the more you enjoy, the more you become capable of enjoying.
Let me tell you: happiness needs no cause -- happiness needs only a habit of enjoying, just a natural quality, a capacity to enjoy. Nothing else is needed. And that capacity comes only by enjoying; by nothing else can it come. If you enjoy, you become more capable of enjoyment. The more you become capable, the more you enjoy. And this goes on and on; it reaches a higher and higher crescendo, a higher and higher peak.

Every moment comes out of this moment. The next moment will come out of this moment. If you have lived this moment totally, loved, delighted, the next moment will come out of this moment, and you will be born out of this moment. The next moment will open more possibilities and it will make you more capable.

Happiness is a capacity which you already have, but you have never functioned with it. It is as if a child has never been allowed to walk on his feet and he has become crippled. Not that he has not the capacity to walk, but he has never been allowed. The mother was too afraid he may fall down, so now he continues walking on all fours, because of fear. Every child is born to be happy as naturally as every child is born to walk. There is nothing else to it.

Loving life, one day you love God. Living life, one day you live God.
So don't be halfhearted. Be totally in life. And I am not here to distract you from your life. It has already been done. The whole of humanity is suffering because of that. Religions have proved a calamity because they tried to make goals opposite to life, diametrically opposite to life.

Chapter Titles
Chapter 1: The Search for the Bull; Discovering the Footprints
Chapter 2: Dropping the Why
Chapter 3: Discourse in Silence
Chapter 4: Perceiving the Bull; Catching the Bull
Chapter 5: Taming the Bull;Riding the Bull Home
Chapter 6: Come In!
Chapter 7: The Bull Transcended; Both the Bull and Self Transcended
Chapter 8: Life Is the Goal
Chapter 9: Reaching the Source; In The World

"Kakuan first tried the unconscious language because that is the deepest: he painted these ten bulls. But he felt dissatisfied. Then he wrote ten poems as a supplement, as an appendix. Poetry is mid-way between the unconscious and the conscious: a bridge, a misty land where things are not absolutely in the dark and are not absolutely in the light - just somewhere in the middle. That’s why where prose fails, poetry can indicate. Prose is too superficial; poetry goes deeper. Poetry is more indirect but more meaningful, richer. But still Kakuan felt dissatisfied, so he wrote prose commentaries.