Hard work

There’s a nice story about a disciple of the Buddha who was a very dull disciple, not very bright, who tried hard sometimes, but could never really understand anything that the Buddha was trying to teach him about the true nature of reality The Buddha got rather exasperated with this disciple, and one day he gave him a task. He gave the disciple a very heavy bag of barley and he said, “Take this. Run up this hill.” It was a very tall, steep hill, and he said, “Run up this hill with this bag of barley.” The disciple, who was dull but very obedient and wanted to get enlightened, took the bag of barley on his shoulders and he ran up this steep mountainside and didn’t stop, as he had been told to do. He didn’t stop, and arrived at the top of the mountain in utter exhaustion, totally exhausted. He dropped the bag of barley and, in that moment of total letting go, he was enlightened. His mind was opened. He came back and the Buddha saw from a distance that he was enlightened. So it’s a hard work, this learning to be still, this learning to love ourselves. It’s a hard work, but it’s a work we do in obedience, not out of our own will. It’s in obedience to our Master, the Lord Jesus.