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BHANTE GUNARATANA
B.G.: This sudden attainment of enlightenment seems to work as an incentive for some people. But when they get involved, they realize it does not come that easily. It does not come that quickly. Remember that famous Zen story? Zen people have beautiful stories. A professor goes to a Zen teacher to learn Zen. So the Zen teacher asks the professor to tea. He gave him the cup. And the Zen master was pouring, pouring tea into his cup; it built up, but the teacher did not stop. He kept pouring, pouring, and pouring, and it went onto the saucer. He didn't stop. The tea started to go onto the professor's beautiful, neat trousers. And he got really upset, and was shouting at the teacher to stop. Then the teacher asked: Did you learn Zen?
It means that when the mind is full, we have got to empty it. You have got to uncondition the conditions you already have-before you learn something. You've got to empty, or remove, those unwholesome conditions in order to gain enlightenment. You prepare the soil first. It is like the lotus plant that comes out of the mud. At the very first sign of rain that falls on it, the lotus opens. Other plants in the water do not open like that. Only this one does. Why? Because it has grown so far, so slowly—and so very naturally. It comes to the top, and, when the right moment comes, it opens. Similarly, the attainment of enlightenment requires an enormous amount of temporal experience-of training and practice in order to receive enlightenment. Sudden attainment may definitely appear to be sudden; as when you see fruit dropping from a tree. It appears to us to happen very suddenly. In fact, the fruit has spent a lot of time on the tree preparing itself, growing, maturing, and ripening. And then, when the right moment came, it dropped.
L.M.: That state of being enlightened, is there any way you can describe it?
B.G.: For instance, we can say that it is peaceful. But someone who knows nothing about peace may wonder what it is. It is serene, calm. There is no ripple of any thought in that state. But explaining it is very difficult.
L.M.: What about love? All of the wisdom traditions, be it Jesus' saying that, “the kingdom of God is within you”; or be it the Hindu Upanishads declaring “thou art that”-all of them seem to point to the very important practice of love.
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