"One has to understand – at least those who are with me – that religion is a playfulness, a laughter. Take it easy; then things blossom without any tension. You are not taking it easy, you are making it difficult.

"You say, 'As meditation is deepening, I feel tension and frustration at not being okay with myself, melting more and more.'

"It is not you who is feeling frustrated and who is feeling tense. Your innermost being knows nothing of tension and nothing of frustration. It is your mind who is coming in.

"The absolute criterion to know whether it is mind or not is the desire for more and more. That is the way mind functions in every field of life. If you are earning money, the mind goes on saying more and more. If you are after power, mind goes on saying more and more. If you are doing meditation, mind goes on saying more and more.

"That 'more and more' is the very basic quality of the mind. And mind is always serious. It disturbs everything that comes from the beyond.

"If meditation is deepening, you should feel more joyous. But we think we deserve more, we are worthy of more; we are doing a great obligation to nature because for a few minutes we are sitting in meditation.

"Don't make it serious.

"One emperor of Japan went to see Rinzai, a Zen master who lived in the mountains with the wild animals, with the trees. The emperor had taken a great risk in going there. And he had taken with him a very beautiful robe studded with diamonds and precious stones. He had made it specially as a present for the master.

"The master accepted it, because it would be an insult to the emperor not to accept his present. But when the emperor was returning he told him, 'Please, if you don't mind, take this precious robe with you. Here in the wild if I use this robe all the animals will laugh at me, the trees will laugh at me. The birds will make a laughingstock of me. This will be the talk in the mountains, in the forest, the only talk: Look at that old Zen master."