When Joshu called, “Manager, are you here?” suddenly the manager became aware. He forgot that he is a manager, he forgot that he is a body; he responded from his heart. He said, “Yes sir.” This asking loudly was so sudden, it was just like a shock. And it was futile, that’s why he said, “Of course I am here. You need not ask me, the question is irrelevant.” Suddenly the past, the old, the mind, drops. The manager is there no more – simply a consciousness responding. Consciousness is always new, constantly new; it is always being born, it is never old.

And Joshu says, “Then have a cup of tea.”

The first thing to be felt is that for Joshu, everything is new, strange, mysterious. Whether it is the known or the unknown, the familiar or the unfamiliar, makes no difference. If you come to this garden every day, by and by you will stop looking at the trees. You will think you have already looked at them, that you know them. By and by you will stop listening to the birds; they will be singing, but you will not listen. You will have become familiar; your eyes are closed, your ears are closed. But if Joshu comes to this garden – and he may have been coming every day for many, many lives – he will hear the birds, he will look at the trees. Everything, every moment, is new for him.

This is what awareness means. For awareness everything is constantly new, nothing is old. Nothing can be old, because everything is being created every moment. It is a continuous flow of creativity. Awareness never carries memory as a burden.

So the first thing: a meditative mind always lives in the new, in the fresh. The whole existence is newly born – as fresh as a dewdrop, as fresh as a leaf coming out in the spring. It is just like the eyes of a newborn babe: everything is fresh, clear, with no dust on it. This is the first thing to be felt. If you look at the world and feel everything is old, it shows you are not meditative. Really, when you feel everything is old, it shows you have an old mind, a rotten mind. If your mind is fresh, the world is fresh. The world is not the question, the mirror is the question. If there is dust on the mirror the world is old; if there is no dust on the mirror how can the world be old? If things get old you will live in boredom. Everybody lives in boredom, everybody is bored to death.

Look at people’s faces: they carry life as a burden – bored, with no meaning. It seems that everything is just a nightmare, a very cruel joke; somebody is playing a trick, torturing them. Life is not a celebration, it cannot be. With a mind burdened by memory life cannot be a celebration. Even if you laugh, your laughter carries boredom. Look at people laughing: they laugh with an effort. Their laugh may be just to be mannerly, their laugh may be just etiquette.