OSHO Zen The Solitary Bird Cuckoo of the Forest A fascinating collection of talks on Zen stories. “Just go in. This is the way of the bird, this is the song of the solitary cuckoo.” ISBN: 978-81-7261-208-5, HC. 312 pages  euro 17.50 - order here

In this book, Osho tears down the very idea that there is a path to follow. There is only “the way of the birds,” flying freely in the open sky. Commenting on Zen stories and the simple beauty and acuity of Zen poetry, Osho invites the reader to turn in and experience their own silence within, where Zen is no longer a set of ideas or practices, but a state of being.

Chapter Titles
Chapter 1: The Way of the Birds
Chapter 2: Tearing Down, Breaking Up
Chapter 3: Don’t Wobble
Chapter 4: Such a Moon
Chapter 5: A Very Dangerous Place
Chapter 6: This Rackety Town
Chapter 7: Fences, Walls and Broken Tiles
Chapter 8: Listen Carefully!
Chapter 9: No Words, No Mind, and You Are In
Chapter 10: Be at the Center
Chapter 11: Meditation Has No Gate
Chapter 12: Behind Those Reflecting Eyes
Chapter 13: The Price of Rice
Chapter 14: Kwatz!
Chapter 15: The House Where Nobody Lives

Excerpt from Zen: The Solitary Bird, Cuckoo of the Forest
Chapter 1
The bird flying across the sky leaves no footprints. This is called “the way of the birds” – simply disappearing into the nothingness of the sky, without leaving a trace behind. Zen wants you to be just like the birds’ way – a nobody, a nothingness.
It is strange but true that in your nothingness you are for the first time, born. The nothingness is the womb out of which your spiritual heights are revealed.
Just as you cannot follow the bird because he leaves no footprints, the buddha also leaves no footprints. You cannot follow a buddha for the simple reason that you are a buddha; you have just forgotten it. And once you try to follow a buddha, you are going astray.
Those who leave footprints behind them – create organized religions, give commandments for the coming future, scriptures to be followed by those who have not yet come – are all engaged in nonreligious activity. Religion is a rebellion, a rebellion against following.
This is a religious place. You are not my followers: you can love me, I can love you. Following means a subtle spiritual slavery. I don’t have any follower and I don’t want anybody to be a follower of anybody else either. The moment you start following someone, you are going to miss yourself. You will be lost in dark nights and dark clouds, and it will become more and more difficult to find the way back home.

On no other subject Osho has talked more than on Zen.
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