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you have done before enlightenment looks like a very tiny effort.
The great effort starts with your first glimpse of enlightenment. You can fall from it -- the whole past will be pulling you backwards, the whole past will be saying to you that this is all imagination.
You have to be very alert. The past is your enemy, and this fresh sprout, this new flower -- so small and so fragile, but so beautiful -- if you can manage to protect it, soon it will become your eternity. Soon it will become your nature. Then there is no effort.
When Zen masters say "effortlessness" they are referring to the state when your enlightenment is well rooted. Now there is no need of any effort; now you can be relaxed and at ease, it will grow on its own accord. It will bring much foliage, and many flowers, and many blessings.
Sekiso wrote:
THE DHARMA SPRING
HAS NEVER RUN DRY;
IT IS FLOWING EVEN NOW.
A SINGLE DROP HAS FALLEN AND SPREAD
FAR AND DEEP.
DON'T BE CAUGHT
BY THE DECORATIONS AT THE EDGE
AND THE WALL AROUND IT.
IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT THE MOON SHINES
FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE POND.
What Sekiso is saying is very symbolic. THE DHARMA SPRING -- the spring when those who are ripe become suddenly full of flowers, when the dark night ends and the morning has come -- THE DHARMA SPRING HAS NEVER RUN DRY. He is saying, "Remember, the dharma spring has never run dry; it always comes, just as it used to come in Gautam Buddha's time, or even before." It is part of eternal nature. It is just that you have to be ready to catch the train. The train always comes, but mostly either you reach the railway station before the train has come, or you reach after the train has left -- you always find an empty platform. Sad and frustrated, you go back home.
I have heard, three professors were discussing very hotly some philosophical point at the railway station. They got so involved in the discussion, and they forgot that the train stops for only three minutes. As the train started moving, still they were not aware. Suddenly one of them saw, and all three ran to catch the train. Only two could manage
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