Satori Stories

A student asked his Zen guru how to achieve enlightenment. His master said: ‘Do you hear that bubbling brook? Enter there.’

Have you noticed the place where you feel safe? The place where your heart feels like singing and your eyes silently droop? A place where your steps cant take you. A place where you reside right now! A place where no one else lives! A place where you breathe and live without the mechanism called the body. The word ‘place’ is such a misnomer. It is a noun and so it must exist in time and place. But it doesn’t.

 If you close your eyes now, at this very minute , you will enter the kingdom of heaven as was visited by Jesus. Try it. Close your eyes gently, as if they are so heavy that they cant stay open. Your eyes have been holding images of your life , all your waking experiences which have given you no peace. Every time you peer at the world and the people that inhabit it, you feel a sense of discomfort. Either there is a thought, what are they going to say or what are they going to do? The visual images are unsettling. The words that will follow have to be refuted. You have to be on guard. If you are drooping your eyes, you will be caught napping and the other person will win. You are afraid that he will win and you will lose. The fear that you live in while your eyes are open is related to achievement. My ego will be hurt. My mind will not let me be at peace.

The student asked the Zen Guru how to achieve enlightenment.

“Ask and it shall be given.” An enlightened master does not encourage asking but allows the student to explore and experience the depths of his mind. The master does not teach or provide answers so what should the student ask. You must have noticed that when a person gets into the mode of asking he is drawn into the question. He has already researched the question and so has come with an answer. Now he is asking and is expecting that master to affirm that he is on the right track. The word student in Sanskrit is Shishya meaning one who has a mind as the mirror ( Sheesha means mirror and Sheesh means head). The student or Shishya is someone who has a mind which has to just reflect the teachings of his guru. There is no debate, no confrontation. The student has to just reflect as he sits in front of his guru. He has to allow the gurus words to echo while he close his eyes and listens to the sweet rhythmic sounds of his gurus voice. He will reflect the sounds too deep within himself.  There is no asking here, just dissolving into the oneness. The master disappears and the student appears in this wonderful mirage of duality. The oneness emerges thus.

“how to achieve”

To achieve is to own, to possess, to get, to have and you can only have what has substance, weight, mass and you can hold it. Enlightenment is not to own but to be in awe of, enlightenment is not to possess but to be possessed by and to go in and not to get. There is no way that you can have it for there is nothing to have. When we see a cloud we are amazed at the shapes it can take. It seems that it has mass and weight. But little does our mind realize that it is an illusion. The cloud is weightless and floats away similarly that moment of realization is flighty, foaming and furious. It just arises and rises all around. It has an invisibility to others but it is visible to oneself.  It can’t be held or had. It is gentle as the morning sunrise each ray inimitably imperceptibly blending into the sky. The limitless sky beholds it and riding on the rainbow it melts into one bright light.  Where does achievement feature in all this? Thank god that there is no subject called enlightenment in schools and so to say that we are students of enlightenment is a fallacy.

His master said, “Do you hear the bubbling brook”

Do you hear? The master knows that you hear not what you should!  You hear what you should not hear. Your ears are constantly perked up to criticism and disapproval  all round you there seems to be a circle of mistrust which is growing. You can see yourself standing in the middle of it whereas in effect you are standing on the periphery with some detractors ahead of you and other behind you. It seems you are being pulled and pushed and you will lose your balance. You are surrounded by the noise of a crowd who is around you. Move to the centre. As you move to the centre you are moving away from the crowd. When you move to the centre the noise will subside. There will be a hum and drone and after some time as you continue to move to the centre, you will be at the centre of the universe. This will happen as you close your eyes and hear, not with your physical ears but with your inner ears. You will be able to feel the air as it enters your being through the ears and rush up and down, move in and out and bubble. If you keep your eyes close for a longer period of time the rivulet will flow. The sound will be rushing and you will have the imagery of flowing gurgling water. The brook of your inner self will roll. The brook is a small pool where the water collects. Your inner sounds will link and connect into a celestial space. As the water gurgles and spouts it will do away with the thoughts which bind you in stereotyped patterns. Your inner being will  sprint and bubble out.

‘Enter there’   

The master says not to doubt when the echoing within begins. Just enter. Just plunge. Become the wave and ride. Become the droplet and get wet. Scuttle and dash, run and charge, just enter. Don’t wait when that moment comes for it will come in a flash. It will come without any information for in enlightenment there is no information and so enlightenment is not of the mind. Hasten and precipitate, soak and seep. The place where you will enter has no dimension, it is open just like the skies. As a star luminously you will shine there reflecting the light of the master. You will be one with the master!!