The Breakfast Is Getting Cold
One day, a student approached his Zen master with a series of profound questions.
„Master, is the soul immortal or not? Do we survive the death of the body, or are we completely erased? Do we truly reincarnate?
Does the soul dissolve into its constituent parts and become recycled, or does it enter another living being as a complete entity?
Do we retain our memories, or do we lose them? Is the doctrine of reincarnation mistaken? Or perhaps the Christian understanding of survival after death is closer to the truth?
And if that is the case, do we rise again, or does the soul enter a purely spiritual realm, as Plato imagined?“
The student continued speaking, piling question upon question, searching for certainty about the mysteries of existence.
The master listened patiently.
When the student finally finished, the master simply replied:
„Your breakfast is getting cold.“
The Lesson
Zen has little interest in abstract speculation about realities that cannot be experienced directly. Questions about the afterlife, reincarnation, heaven, and the ultimate fate of the soul may be intellectually fascinating, but Zen asks a more immediate question:
What about this moment?
The student was so focused on what might happen after death that he was overlooking the life unfolding directly before him. His mind had wandered into theories, possibilities, and philosophical systems while his breakfast sat untouched.
This does not mean that Zen denies the existence of an afterlife or claims certainty regarding what happens after death. Rather, it suggests that becoming obsessed with such questions can distract us from the only reality we can encounter directly-the present moment.
Many people spend their lives worrying about the future, regretting the past, or constructing elaborate explanations about realities beyond their experience. In doing so, they miss the simple miracle of being alive right now.
For Zen, the here and now is more important than any heaven, any afterlife, any religion, and any philosophy. Eternity is not somewhere else waiting to be discovered. It is hidden within this very moment.
The breakfast is getting cold.
And life, too, passes while we are busy thinking about it.
The Scent of the Mountain Laurels
A Confucian scholar once went to study under a Zen master in search of enlightenment.
Despite spending a great deal of time with the master, he remained dissatisfied. He constantly complained that something about the teachings felt incomplete. There seemed to be a missing piece, a hidden truth that the master refused to reveal.
Again and again, the master assured him:
„I am hiding nothing from you.“
But the student remained unconvinced.
„No,“ he insisted. „There is something you know that you are not telling me. There is a vital clue that you are deliberately withholding.“
Months passed, yet the student’s suspicion never disappeared.
One day, the two were walking together along a mountain path.
The air was fresh and quiet.
Suddenly, the master stopped and asked:
„Do you smell the fragrance of the mountain laurels?“
The student took a breath.
„Yes,“ he replied.
The master smiled.
„There,“ he said. „You see? I hide nothing from you.“
The student stood silently, unsure how to respond.
What he had been searching for was already present. The master had never concealed anything. The problem was that the student had been looking for something extraordinary while overlooking the reality directly before him.
This simplicity toward which Zen masters point often requires the seeker to abandon the search itself.
As the great Zen master Ikkyū once said:
„Mind? Since there is no such thing as mind, what enlightenment could possibly enlighten it?“
The Lesson
One of the greatest paradoxes in Zen is that the harder a person searches for enlightenment, the further it often seems to recede. The seeker imagines that awakening must be some extraordinary experience hidden behind years of study, secret teachings, or mystical revelations.
The Zen masters repeatedly challenge this assumption.
The student’s mistake was not a lack of effort but a lack of presence. He expected enlightenment to arrive as a special piece of knowledge, something separate from ordinary experience. Meanwhile, the scent of the mountain laurels was already there, available in the immediacy of the moment.
Zen teaches that reality is not hidden behind life-it is life itself. The sound of the wind, the warmth of sunlight, the taste of tea, the scent of flowers, and the simple fact of being alive are not distractions from truth. They are expressions of it.
Ikkyū’s statement points even deeper. If the self we are trying to enlighten is itself a conceptual construction, then who exactly is seeking enlightenment? Zen often suggests that awakening occurs not when we finally find something, but when we stop searching for what was never absent.
The fragrance of the mountain laurels was not a metaphor. It was the answer.
The student simply expected something more complicated.
The Prime Minister in the Rain
A politician once went to a wise Zen master and complained:
„You told me to meditate, to pray, and to practice all these disciplines. I have done everything you suggested, yet enlightenment never comes.“
Outside, a heavy rain was falling.
The master looked at him for a moment and said:
„Go outside and stand in the street for ten minutes.“
The politician frowned.
„Stand outside in this rain?“
„Just go,“ the master replied. „Enlightenment will come.“
The politician thought to himself:
„If enlightenment will come, then it is worth trying. Ten minutes in the rain is not such a great sacrifice.“
So he went outside.
He stood there in the pouring rain.
At first, he tried to remain calm and dignified. But as the minutes passed, people began to notice him. A crowd slowly gathered.
Passersby whispered among themselves.
„Isn’t that the Prime Minister?“
„What is he doing standing in the rain?“
Others laughed.
The politician felt increasingly uncomfortable.
He closed his eyes and tried to endure the situation, but every so often he checked his watch. Ten minutes felt like an eternity. The crowd grew larger, and the laughter grew louder.
By the time the ten minutes were over, he was completely soaked.
He rushed back inside and confronted the master.
„Nothing happened!“ he shouted. „You lied to me!“
The master looked at him and asked:
„Tell me, then-how did you feel?“
The politician hesitated.
„Like a fool,“ he admitted. „Standing out there, I felt like a complete idiot.“
The master smiled.
„That is a great enlightenment, isn’t it? In only ten minutes you discovered that you are a very foolish man. Is that not a remarkable realization?“
The Lesson
This story captures the essence of Zen‘s approach to spiritual growth. Zen does not promise heavenly rewards, mystical status, or special powers. Instead, it strips away illusions and confronts us with ourselves.
Most people seek enlightenment as another achievement. They imagine it as a prize that will make them wiser, more important, more respected, or somehow superior to others. In doing so, the search itself becomes another expression of the ego.
The politician wanted enlightenment, but he wanted it on his own terms. He wanted a reward without humiliation, insight without vulnerability, and wisdom without having to question his self-image.
The master’s exercise shattered that image. Standing in the rain while people laughed at him forced the politician to confront something he usually avoided: his attachment to dignity, status, and public approval.
Zen often works in this way. Rather than giving us new beliefs, it removes the beliefs we already cling to. Rather than lifting us into grand spiritual fantasies, it grounds us in reality. It takes away our excuses, our self-importance, and our cherished ideas about who we think we are.
The promise of a reward easily becomes food for the ego. Then the seeker is no longer seeking truth but seeking a more satisfying image of himself. Zen refuses to cooperate with this game.
It asks us to let go of everything-what we consider sacred and what we consider profane, what we are for and what we are against. It asks us to step into the unknown with empty hands.
And here lies the paradox: the harder we try to grasp enlightenment, the further away it seems. The moment we stop chasing it, reality is already here.
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Author: Vasil Stoyanov
