Losing Enlightenment

Zen is probably the most radical spiritual tradition when it comes to pushing students to Awaken to their True Self.

It’s even so radical that once you attain Enlightenment, after you have probably pushed yourself really hard for many many lifetimes, they don’t really let you enjoy it.

Enjoyment leads to attachment, attachment leads to ignorance, and ignorance leads to suffering.

So, first, you need to attain enlightenment. After you attain enlightenment, you need to forget it.

It’s very common that students who attain a realization seem to lose it after a while.

“I got it. I lost it.”

That’s a very common theme.

There are many stories about Zen masters who had multiple awakening experiences until they could finally put their ignorance to rest.

Many of these stories go like this: A student attains awakening, runs to their master, is super enthusiastic about his attainment, but the master dismisses it and urges the student to keep practicing.

Then they have another awakening, and the same thing happens. They go to the master, and the master dismisses it.

Now they might have become really frustrated. They might think: That’s bullshit.

However, after some time, in these stories, they have a final awakening.

They might go to their master to confirm their insight, or they might not.

At that point, they have lost all need for confirmation. They have even lost the need for claiming their attainment.

They are completely free, even free from the need to be enlightened.

If we take a look at this, we can see that before, they were eager to attain something, to realize something, to get enlightenment.

Then with each enlightenment experience or awakening they had, this energy, this drive, becomes less and less.

There might be an authentic insight into the nature of all things, but there is still some seeking energy left.

They realized something, they think this realization is wonderful, and they attach to it.

But since everything is impermanent, even your most wonderful experiences or insights — even that has to go.

So you basically continue your journey, grasping or seeking less and less because you see that trying to grasp another insight is futile.

You just let go. You let go of the need to become enlightened. You let go of the need to feel wonderful. You let go of everything that is not the highest truth.

At that time, you just differentiate between the Absolute and the Relative, and you discard or let go of the Relative.

When you realize something, and that realization wasn’t there before, it means that it is impermanent and therefore relative, not Absolute.

Every feeling of attainment is that way.

So your desire becomes less and less.

Your desire to turn “what is” into something you want it to be also becomes less.

So there is less and less energy that wants to pull you into some direction. You can now stand at the heart of the moment, of reality, and just abide in this timeless truth.

You may recognize desires coming up, feelings coming up, but they have become weaker so they can’t pull you into a certain direction anymore.

You just abide in what is.

If you have another realization or not, it does not concern you. You recognize this is a desire, and you know it will keep you bound to Samsara, and therefore you just let it go.

You become more rooted in your Being. It’s as if you just stop.

Instead of keeping these relative movements in your mind alive, you just stop.

In Zen we say to go to the point before thinking. This is called the primary point, or “don’t know mind.”

This mind is clear like space. There are no desires, no judgments, no opinions, nothing.

With this mind, everything is already one, but if we attach to our thinking, everything is separate.

So whether you got it and lost it, or you didn’t get it at all – just return to your mind before thinking. Just return to that still point in your mind.

Zen is not about attaining something, about getting something. It’s more about losing everything. Losing everything to the point that there is really nothing left. It’s like hitting the zero button on a calculator. If you want to have a new calculation, you need to put it to zero first, otherwise the outcome will be wrong.

The same with our mind. As long as we have an idea, an opinion, a desire, everything we look at and everything we do will be stained.

Just become completely ZERO.