When Lin Chi was asked, ”What has happened to you? People say that you have become enlightened,” he shrugged his shoulders and said, ”Happened? Nothing. I cut wood in the forest, and carry water to the ashram – carry water from the well, cut wood because the winter is approaching.” He shrugged his shoulders – a very meaningful gesture. He is saying, ”Nothing has happened. What nonsense you are asking! It is natural: carrying water from the well, cutting wood in the forest. Life is absolutely natural.” Says Lin Chi, ”When I feel sleepy, I go to sleep; and when I feel hungry, I eat. Life has become absolutely natural.” Liberation is your being perfectly natural. Liberation is not something to be bragged about, that you have attained something very great. It is nothing great, it is nothing extraordinary. It is just being natural, just being yourself. So what to do? Drop pretensions, drop hypocrisies, drop all that you have cultivated around your natural being – become natural. In the beginning it will be a very very arduous thing, but only in the beginning. Once you get attuned to it, others will also start feeling something has happened to you, because an authentic being is such a force, such a magnetism. They will start feeling something has happened: ”This man no more moves as part of us, he has become totally different.” And you will not be at a loss, because only artificial things will drop. And once the emptiness is created by throwing away artificial things, pretensions, masks, then the natural being starts flowing. It needs space. Be empty, loose and natural. Let that be the most fundamental principle in your life.
Posted on: Sat, 01 Feb 2014 05:53:40 +0000