' Nothing is Gained with Enlightenment '...

I once lived in an apartment so small I had to step outside into the adjacent
hallway to open my oven door. There was room only for a bed, a radio, and a
cardboard carton of books. I kept my clothes in a closet down the hall.

Even
in this confined space, there was housework to be done. Indeed, the demands
of maintenance follow us wherever we find ourselves, from palaces to prison
cells.

The Italian poet Cesare Pavese wrote in his journal that we never remember
days, we remember only moments. And Zen teachers tell us that this moment
is the only one we’ll ever have. Perhaps this is a better way of looking at
enlightenment. It’s not achieving or gathering something.

Nor is it losing or
overcoming something else. It’s simply stepping outside of the room you’re in
and allowing the oven door to open. It’s checking the ceiling overhead and
cleaning up the spills beneath your feet.



- Gary Thorp, "The Dust Beyond the Cushion"