Someone asked me in a recent lecture, his face hard set with doubt, “Are you really enlightened?” I answered him with a question: “Do you know what enlightenment is?” He said no. Then I told him, “If you don’t know what enlightenment is, you would not believe me if I were to tell you that I am enlightened or believe me if I told you that I was not enlightened.” He pressed on, again with an expression of someone reluctantly mining for the truth: “Then what was it that you were enlightened to?” Laughing, I answered him, “I was enlightened to the fact that there is nothing to be enlightened about.” These lines are copied from Ilchi lee book.
Although the reluctant truth-seeker did not continue with his interrogation, I sensed that many in the audience had the same question or curiosity in mind about the nature of enlightenment. I pointed to the ceiling with my index finger and asked, “How many fingers do you see?” The audience giggled, some looking mildly offended and others looking childishly eager to find the deep. Zen koan answer behind such a simple question. “I see only one,” I continued. “How about you? When there are no special conditions or devices preventing us from seeing something as it is, there is no difference in what you see and what I see. Truth is thus. Unless you have an impediment or a handicap with your sight, without any preconceived prejudice to see more than one finger, one finger will look like one finger to you all. This is enlightenment.”
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Tags: Yoga Meditation
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