In ancient times, there were sixteen Bodhisattvas. At the monks’ bath-time, following the rule, they had baths. They suddenly experienced realization through the touch of the water.
You reverend Zen students, do you understand their words? – “We experienced the subtle and clear touch, have attained buddhahood, and still retain it.”
You will be able to attain this condition after seven times piercing and eight times breaking through.

Maneesha, before I discuss the anecdote I have to give you the background. First, buddhahood is your nature. If you are sensitive enough, you can become aware of it through any sense: through touch, through taste, through the eyes, through the ears. Because it is not outside of you, it is only a question of deep concentration. Then any sense that is predominant in you will become the revelation.

Remember, everybody has different senses of different intensity. Somebody can see more, only then can he become a painter. Most people cannot see like a painter. Somebody has ears for music… Not everybody has: the subtler the music, the deeper the sensitivity that will be needed to hear it.

I am reminded of a great dancer, Nijinsky, who used to jump in his dances to such heights… Which were scientifically impossible: they were going against gravitation. You can jump only to a certain limit. It was a miracle to see Nijinsky jumping – beyond gravitation, as if he has become so light and free from gravitation.

Even more miraculous was his coming back to the earth. If anything comes toward the earth, it comes with a force, the gravitation pulls it. You cannot hesitate, and you cannot delay and postpone. It is not in your hands. If you fall from a height, it is not in your hands to go with lesser speed or more speed. There is no speedometer in your hands.

But Nijinsky fell just like a feather, showing again that gravitation is transcended. He was asked again and again – obviously: “What is the secret?”

And he said, “Don’t ask me, because whenever ‘I’ try I fail. I cannot jump that height, neither can I fall like a feather. But dancing, once in a while I forget myself and suddenly it happens. The moment I am not – the miracle! I cannot give you the secret, because there is no secret in my hands.”

Nijinsky was not a mystic, but he was experiencing a mystical state. He was not a philosopher; hence he could not even give an explanation. He simply said in the most authentic, sincere way that, “There comes a moment in my dance that I don’t find myself anywhere. In that state whatever happens is not my doing.”

You can experience buddhahood just by being silent or just by being so loving that your hands melt into love; or by being so total in any act that your “I” disappears and only isness remains.

Isness is another name of buddhahood.

It is always within you, the question is by which door you are going to enter in.

This anecdote says: