On Zen: To love somebody, love like a nobody

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

If you love, love openly

Twenty monks and one nun, who was named Eshun, were practicing meditation with a certain Zen master.

Eshun was very pretty even though her head was shaved and her dress plain. Several monks secretly fell in love with her.

One of them wrote her a love letter, insisting upon a private meeting.

Eshun did not reply.

The following day the master gave a lecture to the group, and when it was over, Eshun arose, addressing the one who had written to her, she said. “If you really love me so much, come and embrace me now.”

Acharya Prashant (AP): We all have heard it. It’s just about acknowledging, is it not? The whole life, the whole game of suffering, the whole thirst for spiritual attainment, is that not all about acknowledging?

You see, there can be only two things:

Either you say that you don’t have it and you go after it and that is the way of attainment — You don’t have it, you are going after it so you ought to attain.

The other is, you have it and all you can do is acknowledge. If you already have it then there is no question of attainment. So now what is left to do? Still, there is something left to do. What is that? You don’t have to maintain it. It can’t be lost. It’s there, still, there is something that the mind must yet do. What is that?

You have a diamond. One situation is that, you feel that the diamond is lost, you dropped it out somewhere and you go out to attain it, that is the way of attainment. The other is that the diamond is still there in the house, it’s right in front of your eyes, now what is left to do? You don’t have to attain it.