Bunch of Bull

"There’s an old Zen story where a monk’s sitting in meditation and his master walks up to him and says, ‘What are you doing?’ He says, ‘I’m polishing my mind so it becomes like a mirror and reflects reality perfectly.’

Isn’t that a nice spiritual idea? The only problem is that it’s a bunch of bull.

So the teacher leans over and picks up this tile off the floor - two tiles - and starts rubbing two tiles together as a response to what his student said.
And the student said, ‘What are you rubbing two tiles together for?’
(Teacher) says, ‘Cause I’m trying to make a perfect mirror.’

And the student, embarrassingly, understood the point. No amount of tile polishing will make the tiles into a perfect mirror. No amount of mind polishing will make the mind unconditioned.

Only the unconditioned is unconditioned.

Your own awareness itself is unconditioned.

Have you noticed?

Not what you are aware of, that’s conditioned to the hilt. But the awareness itself - is completely unconditioned.

It’s as unconditioned as the day before you were born. And by paying attention to that, by just resting as that awareness - spontaneously an unconditioned consciousness becomes conscious of itself. That’s what spiritual awakening is - unconditioned consciousness becomes conscious of itself."

- Adyashanti

Photo -- American-born zen monk Hyon Gak sunim whi teaches in the Korean tradition. He is the current abbot of Bulyee Seon Center in Germany, and teaches especially in Germany and Greece.