Margins
The Buddha book cover
The Buddha
The Emptiness of the Heart
Osho
1989
First Published
4.17
Average Rating
198
Number of Pages

“To be a buddha is not a difficult job. It is not some achievement for which you need a Nobel Prize”. Commenting on anecdotes and haikus by the Zen masters, Osho explains that being a buddha is the easiest thing in the world - it has already happened without you knowing. The empty heart, a place beyond thoughts and feelings, is within everyone. Meditation, and becoming truly thoughtless, is the key. Osho presents Zen as potent, alive, and relevant to the modern world. “Once your heart is empty, you are the buddha - serene, silent, utterly blissful, at home. When I say to you that you are a buddha, I mean it. It is just that you have to recover from your dreams, afflictions, addictions. You just have to penetrate deeply to the point where even the self starts disappearing and the door opens to the vast, to the infinite”. Chapter #1: The Emptiness of the Heart Chapter #2: Twenty-Four Hours a Day Chapter #3: This Knowing Is a Transformation Chapter #4: Enter the Door of Anatta Chapter #5: In the Blink of an Eye Chapter #6: To Take up a Koan Chapter #7: From the Surface to the Center Chapter #8: The Man of Enlightened Freedom

Avg Rating
4.17
Number of Ratings
29
5 STARS
48%
4 STARS
34%
3 STARS
10%
2 STARS
0%
1 STARS
7%
goodreads

Author

Osho
Osho
Author · 307 books

Rajneesh (born Chandra Mohan Jain, 11 December 1931 – 19 January 1990) and latter rebranded as Osho was leader of the Rajneesh movement. During his lifetime he was viewed as a controversial new religious movement leader and mystic. In the 1960s he traveled throughout India as a public speaker and was a vocal critic of socialism, Mahatma Gandhi, and Hindu religious orthodoxy. Rajneesh emphasized the importance of meditation, mindfulness, love, celebration, courage, creativity and humor—qualities that he viewed as being suppressed by adherence to static belief systems, religious tradition and socialization. In advocating a more open attitude to human sexuality he caused controversy in India during the late 1960s and became known as "the sex guru". In 1970, Rajneesh spent time in Mumbai initiating followers known as "neo-sannyasins". During this period he expanded his spiritual teachings and commented extensively in discourses on the writings of religious traditions, mystics, and philosophers from around the world. In 1974 Rajneesh relocated to Pune, where an ashram was established and a variety of therapies, incorporating methods first developed by the Human Potential Movement, were offered to a growing Western following. By the late 1970s, the tension between the ruling Janata Party government of Morarji Desai and the movement led to a curbing of the ashram's development and a back taxes claim estimated at $5 million. In 1981, the Rajneesh movement's efforts refocused on activities in the United States and Rajneesh relocated to a facility known as Rajneeshpuram in Wasco County, Oregon. Almost immediately the movement ran into conflict with county residents and the state government, and a succession of legal battles concerning the ashram's construction and continued development curtailed its success. In 1985, in the wake of a series of serious crimes by his followers, including a mass food poisoning attack with Salmonella bacteria and an aborted assassination plot to murder U.S. Attorney Charles H. Turner, Rajneesh alleged that his personal secretary Ma Anand Sheela and her close supporters had been responsible. He was later deported from the United States in accordance with an Alford plea bargain.[ After his deportation, 21 countries denied him entry. He ultimately returned to India and a revived Pune ashram, where he died in 1990. Rajneesh's ashram, now known as OSHO International Meditation Resort and all associated intellectual property, is managed by the Zurich registered Osho International Foundation (formerly Rajneesh International Foundation). Rajneesh's teachings have had a notable impact on Western New Age thought, and their popularity has increased markedly since his death.

548 Market St PMB 65688, San Francisco California 94104-5401 USA
© 2026 Paratext Inc. All rights reserved