Zen Roshi, Lola McDowell Lee, explains that enlightenment is not a goal. “A goal is like the horizon. You can never reach it.” The immediate is the ultimate. You have to be aware and wake up to this moment. This moment is eternity. Human beings do a lot of unconscious abstracting. Lola explains.The teacher asks, “Do I have a staff or do I not have a staff?” The monk tries to answer in different ways. Finally he is so frustrated he gives up and leaves. He wanders for 12 years and finally returns to the teacher. He repeats the question to the teacher who responds with, “Is that what I said? How silly of me.” Zen is not a belief system. The purpose of Zen is to disturb the dreaming mind. It is a method to awaken. The puzzles in Zen are intended to create such a strain in you that you cannot ignore. Lola recounts the tale of the monk who repeatedly notices his teacher worshiping a statue of the Buddha. He asks him, “Why do you sit there and worship the Buddha? The teacher answers that it is because I like worshiping the Buddha. The monk then asks, “Why do you like worshipping the Buddha?” The monk continues to ask him question after question about this subject which puzzles him. Then the teacher gets up and slaps him. Why did the teacher do that, asks Lola.Zen teachers try to create a fire in the monk’s cauldron, a pot in his gut. The monk’s mind is tethered. So the teacher allows question after question… until he runs out of questions. Then the slap. Lola explains, “When you come to me with questions and I answer them, it does nothing for your consciousness, you’re being. It just gives you more stuff in your head.” Zen is a milieu, and atmosphere, in which to better understand yourself. When you truly practice, you are in the milieu, the Work. And you have made yourself available to God. Nov 12, 1984
