February | 2020 | Author – Richard F Holmes

A priest was giving a religious discourse to the inmates of an asylum. He was a few minutes into his sermon when one of the inmates started waving his arms about and shouting, “do we have to listen to this rubbish?” The priest paused, and looked at the support worker who was in attendance and asked, “shall I stop speaking?” The support worker replied, “no, it’s OK, carry on, you won’t hear any more from him; he only has one sane moment every seven years…

Indeed, one sane moment every seven years; that’s something that a lot of people would give their right arms for in this world that seems to have gone completely mad. It is so difficult in this day and age, to keep sane in a completely bonkers world. The problem is that we have all been corrupted by our conditioning, which started at a very early age.

The beauty of Zen, is that once it finds you, you can rest in the natural flow of things as chaos ensues all around. The thing is not to get sucked into the drama, but rather to remain a witness as the drama plays itself out before your eyes. In other words, be the stage, not the play. These days, I’m getting much better at doing this; but I haven’t quite got the knack of never succumbing to the tricks of the egoic mind. Even though I have noticed more and more lately, that everything I need just seems to flow effortlessly to me. I still find myself on occasion playing one of the characters in an unnecessary soap opera. Then inevitably, I have to feel the pain that comes with it before the penny drops and I revert back to the natural flow of the poetry that is Zen.

Don’t listen to the priest (ego), but equally, don’t be content with one sane moment every seven years. Be neither sane nor insane… Just Be…

A rather brash young man decided that he had attained enlightenment and no longer needed the guidance of his guru. He upped and left the temple and went around the region boasting of his spiritual achievements to anyone who would listen. He heard that there was a hermitage in a nearby town and decided he would make the journey and thrill the resident seekers and their master with his wisdom.

Photo by Raychan on Unsplash

En route, he took a pathway through a forest, and as he ambled on his way, he saw in the distance an old sanyassin leaning against a tree; there appeared to be clouds of smoke issuing up from around him. As the young man got closer he saw that the old man was smoking a long-stemmed pipe. He also decided that the old man would be an ideal candidate to hear the story of his spiritual greatness.

“Good day Sir”, said the young man, “I am an enlightened soul and it is your good fortune that I happened upon you. You may throw away your scriptures and spiritual texts, there is no pathway, no individual soul, no karma, no God, there is only the nothingness of consciousness; in fact, nothing exists.”

WHACK! As quick as a flash the old man rapped the young “master” around the head with his pipe. As the young man glared at him in anger, the old sanyassin said, “if nothing exists, where did that anger come from”, and he turned and went on his way..

The subject matter of this parable is something that I have written about before. But, I like this story so much that I wanted to share it here. Of course, technically what the young man said was correct, however, he fully deserved his rap on the head for his audacious display of ego. Truly enlightened souls never make the statement, “I am enlightened”, because in consciousness, “nothing” is indeed all that exists. But, to go around actually speaking of “nothing” in a dualistic world implies also the existence of “something.” Consciousness, in its limitless state of eternal bliss, has no idea that it is referred to as consciousness, because literally, “nothing” exists. So, in summary, to speak of being enlightened in a dualistic world only highlights that the ego is still present. An enlightened soul would never say, “I am enlightened” because the enlightened soul is only aware of the state of enlightenment, there is no duality to imply that there is also the state of “un” or “non” enlightenment.