“BUKKO SAID: TAKING THINGS EASILY AND WITHOUT FORCING, AFTER SOME TIME THE RUSH OF THOUGHT, OUTWARD AND INWARD, SUBSIDES NATURALLY, AND THE TRUE FACE SHOWS ITSELF.

That's what I have been telling you. To be a buddha is not a difficult job. It is not some achievement for which you need a Nobel Prize. It is the easiest thing in the world, because it has already happened without your knowing.

The buddha is already breathing in you. Just a little recognition, just a little turning inwards... and that has not to be done forcibly. If you do it forcibly you will miss the point. It is very delicate. You have to look inward playfully, not seriously. That's what he means by "taking things easily." Don't take anything seriously.

Existence is very easy. You have got your life without any effort, you are living your life without any effort. You are breathing perfectly well without being reminded; your heartbeat continues even in your sleep -- so easy is existence with you! But you are not so easy with existence. You are very close-fisted. You want everything to be turned into an 'achievement'.

Enlightenment cannot be an achievement. That which you have already -- how can it be an achievement?

The authentic master simply takes away things which you don't have and you believe you have, and he gives you that which you already have. You are having many things which you don't have at all, you just believe that you have them. The master's function is that of a surgeon, to cut all that is not you and leave behind just the essential core -- the eternal being.

It is a very easy phenomenon; you can do it on your own. There are no problems and no risk in taking things easily, but people take things very tensely. They take things very seriously, and that spoils the whole game.

And remember, life is a game. Once you understand it as a game, a deep playfulness arises on its own accord. The victory is not the point; the point is to play totally, joyously, dancingly.

What is called playfulness is very essential in the inquiry of your own being.”