Not Yet, Not Yet...

[Zamurito]

~

There was a Zen student under a Master to whom he was very much devoted. Each time he approached the Master, the latter waved his hand, saying, ”Not yet, not yet.” Some time passed. One evening he became desperate: ”How can this be? I have no word of instruction which will lead me to the realization. The Master simply chases me, saying, ’Not yet, not yet.’ What can I do? What do I have to think about it all?”

He went on like this – thinking, brooding, meditating – in utter desperation, but tenaciously clinging to his object of inquiry and pondering it from every possible point of view, when all of a sudden something flashed on his mind and he realized at once what the Master wanted him to discover.

The following morning he visited the Master, wishing to let him know what happened to him. But the Master seeing him come burst out, ”You have it now, you have it now!”

What happened? For years he was saying,”Not yet, not yet.” Then one day the disciple comes, and he has not even said a single word to the Master, and the Master says, ”You have it now, you have it now.”

The day you will understand my silence and not my words, there will be no need for you to tell me that you have attained it. I will know it immediately; even before you have known it, I will know it.

There is a very subtle relationship between the Master and the disciple. It is almost like a spiritual umbilical cord. The Master knows, and goes on saying, ”Not yet, not yet. Don’t say a single word. It is all foolish, whatsoever you have brought. It is all mind stuff, whatsoever you have brought. It has nothing to do with truth; it is still knowledge. Wait, not yet, don’t say anything.”

In Zen the disciple meditates on a koan, on a Zen puzzle, and comes to the Master, brings a reply, what he has come to understand. The ”Not yet, not yet” is for that, that you have not yet understood – ”Go back, meditate again.” For example, the Zen Master will say, ”Go and listen to the sound of one hand clapping. Listen to the sound of one hand clapping,” and the disciple listens, and tries, and finds out, figures out what to answer, how to find the answer for this puzzle; and then he brings an answer.

But the way you come, the quality of consciousness that you bring, the mind full of ideas and conclusions that you bring, is enough. Your presence is enough for the Master to feel, and he says,”Not yet, not yet.” One day, suddenly, it has happened. It happens out of the blue, all of a sudden.