Read an Excerpt
1
Someone asked the Master the meaning of the phrase "The Enlightened person travels without moving."
Said the Master, "Sit at your window each day and observe the ever-changing scenery in your backyard as the earth carries you through its annual trip around the sun."
2
Said a disciple to a newcomer at the monastery, "I must warn you that you will not understand a word of what the Master says if you do not have the proper disposition."
"What is the proper disposition?"
"Be like a student eager to learn a foreign language. The words he speaks sound familiar, but don't be taken in; they have an altogether foreign meaning."
3
"A good way to discover your shortcomings," said the Master, "is to observe what irritates you in others."
He once told how his wife had placed a candy box on the kitchen shelf only to find, an hour later, that the box felt light. The whole bottom layer was gone, each piece neatly dropped into a paper bag that sat atop the new cook's belongings. Not willing to cause embarrassment, the Master's kindhearted wife merely replaced the candy and kept it in a cupboard out of temptation's way.
After dinner the cook announced she was leaving the job that very night.
"Why? What's the matter?" asked the Master.
"I won't work for people who steal back."
4
Next day the Master followed this up with the story of the burglar who found this sign on the door of the safe he was about to blow: "Please do not use dynamite. This safe is not locked. Just turn the knob."
The instant the thief turned the knob, a sandbag fell on him, floodlights came on, and sirens woke the entire neighborhood.
The Master visited the man in prison and found him bitter. "How am I ever going to trust another human being again?" he asked.
5
When a guest volunteered to do the dishes after dinner, the Master said, "Are you sure you know how to do dishes?"
The man protested that he had done them all his life. Said the Master, "Ah, I have no doubt of your ability to make dishes clean. I only doubt your ability to wash them."
6
This is the explanation the Master gave his disciples: "There are two ways to wash dishes: One is to wash them in order to make them clean; the other is to wash them in order to wash them."
That was still far from clear, so he added, "The first action is dead, because while your body does the dishes your mind is fixed on the goal of cleaning them; the second is alive, because your mind is where your body is."
7
"Enlightenment," said the Master, "means knowing precisely where you are at any given moment--not an easy task at all!"
And he told of a popular friend of his who was, even in his late eighties, invited to dozens of functions. Once he was spotted at a party and asked how many he was attending that night.
"Six," said the elderly gentleman, carefully examining his little notebook.
"What are you doing? Seeing where you are to go next?" they asked him.
"No," said the dynamic fellow. "Finding out where I am now."
8
The Master was allergic to ideologies.
"In a war of ideas," he said, "it is people who are the casualties."
Later he elaborated, "People kill for money or for power. But the most ruthless murderers are those who kill for their ideas."
9
It was lecture time and the Master said, "The genius of a composer is found in the notes of his music; but analyzing the notes will not reveal his genius. The poet's greatness is contained in his words; yet the study of his words will not disclose his inspiration. God reveals himself in creation; but scrutinize creation as minutely as you wish, you will not find God, any more than you will find the soul through the careful examination of your body."
At question time someone asked, "How then shall we find God?"
"By looking at creation, not by analyzing it."
10
"And how is one to look at creation?" another questioner asked.
The Master explained, "A peasant sets out to find beauty in the sunset, but all he finds is sun and cloud and sky and earth's horizon till he understands that beauty is not a 'thing' but a special way of looking. You will seek for God in vain till you understand that God can't be seen as 'thing'; God needs a special way of looking, similar to that of little children whose sight is undistorted by prefabricated doctrines and beliefs."
