Long ago, when I was first opening toward spirituality and had encountered just a few sutras, I had a little fantasy about the Buddha sitting in the forest with his monks.
He called forth his favorite disciple saying, “My dear monk today as a reward for your diligent and devoted practice I will show you pure unfettered reality.”
Excitedly, the monk came forth and sat before the master. Buddha then placed an onion before the monk’s face and began to recite, “This is the plane of the senses — the smell, the sight, the sound, and here is the plane of perception, and this is the plane of thought ….” The disciple’s eyes filled with amazement and tears with each peeling away of a layer of the onion until none was left.
The Buddha then said, “Now that there is no longer a smelly onion in front of your face; now that your vision is no longer blurred with tears of pleasure and pain; now that you are uncertain even about the Buddha; I invite you to look with a calm and open mind and see pure unfettered reality.”
The disciple looked, was amazed at the wonders, and then wondered if each of his past marvelous insights, arriving as layer by layer peeled away, had been but dreams, including his present view of pure unfettered reality.
One might say, “As the mind wanders, one gains a wonder and a wonder.”
