Emptiness In My Hand...

On my own personal path to self transformation I came across a very enlightening story of a nun who she herself became enlightened. Here is the short story of Chiyono the nun.

The nun Chiyono studied for years, but was unable to find enlightenment. One night, she was carrying an old pail filled with water. As she was walking along, she was watching the full moon reflected in the pail of water. Suddenly, the bamboo strips that held the pail together broke, and the pail fell apart. The water rushed out; the moon's reflection disappeared--and Chiyono became enlightened. She wrote this verse:  
This way and that way I tried to keep the pail together, hoping the weak bamboo would never break. Suddenly the bottom fell out. No more water; no more moon in the water--emptiness in my hand. 

Enlightenment is not really that hard to reach. Life is not really complicated. Our problems are not hard to solve and life does not have to be stricken with pain. We choose for it to be hard, complicated, and stricken with pain because we live from the mind and the ego. Why did Chiyono become enlightened when her pail of water broke? Shouldn't she be angered that now she has to go all the way back home with no water and who knows how challenging it will be for her to get a new pail. Maybe she will go days without water! Honestly Chiyono did not seem to really worry about all that.

Chiyono realized when her pail broke that she had did everything in her power to keep her pail from breaking yet it was inevitable that it was going to break. What she is realizing is that bad things are going to happen. Change is inevitable and we can not fight against it. We must live in the flow of life. We must look at the obvious and then we must realize there is nothing we can do about it but except it and have faith. 

More than likely most people will not attain the same level of enlightenment that Chiyono did but that is only because they are not open to it. Chiyono gave up a life as a princess. She was very beautiful but she refused to marry anybody. She went to be a nun but none of the monks would except her because she was too beautiful and they feared she would lead the other monks into temptation. So what did she do she burned her face and went back and because she was unrecognizable only then was she able to become a nun. Now I am not saying go out and distort yourself in order to give your life to enlightenment, but what I am saying is Chiyono did what she needed to in search of it. She allowed herself to be open to it and she made a conscious effort to lead a life in search of it. So on that note most will not reach the same level of enlightenment merely because they have not made the conscious decision to do so. More than likely people are comfortable in their misery and only understand how to learn in life from pain. But I will say it one last time. 

"Enlightenment is not really that hard to reach. Life is not really complicated. Our problems are not hard to solve and life does not have to be stricken with pain. We choose for it to be hard, complicated, and stricken with pain because we live from the mind and the ego."

                                                                                    ~Lori Marie

(The excerpt in this blog was taken from Osho's story "Chiyono and her bucket of water")