The Diamond Sutra

I love Gautama Buddha because he represents to me the essential core of religion. He is not the founder of Buddhism- Buddhism is a by-product- but he is the begineer of a totally different kind of religion in the world. He's the founder of a religionless religion. He has propounded not religion but religionless. And this is a great radical change in the history of human consciousness.

When a Buddha moves the wheel of dharma, it takes two thousand five hundred years for it to stop completely… The wheel that Buddha moved has stopped. The wheel has to be moved again. And that is going to be my and your life's - work - that wheel has to be moved again. Once it starts revolving it will again have twenty-five centuries' life.

From the Introduction:

"You are the people Buddha talking about. And you are the people I am depending in. The wheel of Dharma has stopped. It has to be turned again."

As listen to these words, I realize Osho is doing the impossible: bridging a historical gap of 2,500 years and bringing Gautama the Buddha into the present, into the here and now.

In theses discourses, Osho makes us witness to a rare event: Buddha talking to Subhuti, a devoted disciple on the verge of enlightenment, helping him understand the significance of being a bothisattva - one who has the potential to help others experience the same blissful state as Buddha.

But the real significance of this book reveals itself only when, while reading about Buddha and Subhuti, you suddenly realize that the past has become the present. Osho is offering the same possibility to us, to you and to me. He is inviting us to rise with him to those Himalayan heights of consciousness where we can see our potential as bodhisattvas. We, too, are living in a time when the flower of buddhahood is blossoming. And we are doubly blessed, because we are the very beginning.,p> As Osho points out, the five epochs of Buddha's turning the wheel of Dharma have come to an end. A new cycle is beginning, a new dawn is breaking, a new type of bodhisattva is being born.

This book is an invitation to all those who, feeling the truth of Osho's words deep in their hearts, understand that it is time to awaken as spiritual beings to begin to claim their long-forgotten buddhahood.

Anand Subhuti

From the Back of the Book:

A contemporary Buddha speaks on Buddha, once again bringing these beautiful words of life and illuminating the meaning inherent in them. The Diamond Sutra is one of Gautama the Buddha's most powerful teachings, and here Osho brings a modern-day clarity to these mysterious sutras. [Osho's] greatness is that he doesn't give solutions. Only tools to people to realize themselves. Elle Magazine, Italy