How long is this going to take, this process of meditation? When am I going to be enlightened? Many Westerners go to Zen masters looking for enlightenment and particularly, sudden enlightenmen. One Zen teacher I met in Korea said, ‘They come and they ask for the secret of sudden enlightenment. And they will say, “I just don’t have time to meditate. There must be a quicker way.”’ He says to them, ‘If I knew it, I would have used it a long time ago myself.’ What is in question here is the attitude, the preconceptions, and the ego of these people who are too busy to meditate, and are prepared to pay for it of course: (…) It’s Important perhaps for us to understand where they are coming from – from a consumer society where spiritual things like enlightenment have been commodified and been turned into packages, something that you can acquire, something you can buy. They just find meditation a too long process so they are looking for the fastest technique.
( Enlightenment by Laurence Freeman OSB )
