Another seeming invincible challenge that a person faces on this path is that they lose faith in themselves. They feel “I’m not worthy to become enlightened, I’m not good enough.” The Buddha had to overcome this temptation himself. Some of the Buddhist statues show the Buddha in what’s called the brumi sparsha mudra, which means the touching of the earth gesture. After he had that temptation, according to legend, he touched the earth and the earth shook to bear witness to his self-worth.
At some time you may feel “Yes, the practice is good, I can see it is important, but I can’t do it. I’m not good enough, I’m not this enough, I’m not that enough.” When that comes up, that comes up as ideas and body sensations, “I’ll never get enlightened, I can’t get enlightened. Maybe my teacher is a little bit enlightened, but I won’t be enlightened.”
When that comes up, that’s an idea. It expands in the mind and then fades, and then once again expands in the mind and fades. And associated with it are feeling tones that well up in different locations in the body and then fade. The axiom of consistency in this practice dictates that you will observe even that idea, the idea that “I can’t meditate, I’m not good enough, I’m not disciplined enough, I can’t do it. This won’t work for me.” Even ‘that’ if you remember the axiom of consistency, you can overcome. But it’s a seemingly invincible obstacle, because it’s an obstacle that says “there’s no sense in trying any obstacle, I can’t do it.” Remember the axiom of constancy.
Once I and another American Buddhist teacher, and a Japanese Zen master were interviewed for Japanese television. The guy who interviewed us was a very interesting guy, his name was Rocky Aoki – that’s really his name. Do you know who he is? He’s the guy who started the Benihana chain, all those restaurants. He is a sort of celebrity in Japan. Sometimes Japanese celebrities take English nicknames. He did a very good job of interviewing us, and was very sympathetic, and knew how to interview Buddhist monks.
At one point he asked the question “What is enlightenment?” There were three of us, my friend Daizen, and me, and Maezumi Roshi, the Zen master from the LA Zen Center. He asked Daizen, “What is enlightenment?”, and Daizen looked at me, and I looked at the Roshi, and it was really funny, we were both definitely going to pass on that one. You have to leave that to the senior. And he said, I forget the exact words, like “Well, I think you could say that it is the passing away of the distinction between enlightenment and non-enlightenment.”
So how does of the distinction between enlightenment and non-enlightenment pass away? One way that is passes away is by seeing that the very thought “I’m not good enough to meditate, I’m not enlightened, I can’t get enlightened” that that very thought arises and passes away within the folds of expansion and contraction, within the flow of impermanence. It comes from enlightenment. If you observe your own conviction that you’re not enlightened long enough, then you will see that that very conviction has as its substance enlightenment itself. It’s made out of the activity of impermanence. And then the distinction between “I’m enlightened,” and “I’m not enlightened” will pass away for you. And if that idea causes confusion in your mind, then watch how the confusion wells up and passes away.
So if a seemingly invincible obstacle is “I’m not good enough, I can’t do it, this ain’t for me, I’m not enlightened, I’m not enlightenment material.” Then watch that come up in the mind and the body. And if that’s all that comes up for you for two or three years, then that’s your homework assignment from the universe.
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