Zen & Buddhism

Ordinary Mind is the Way

The 108th teaching: enlightenment is your ordinary consciousness, just as it is.

After studying 107 teachings, you arrive at the supreme truth: ordinary mind is the Way. You don't need to become special or achieve altered states. The mind that brushes teeth, drinks tea, walks to work - this ordinary consciousness, fully present and free from grasping, is enlightenment itself. Before practice, mountains are mountains. During practice, mountains are not mountains. After awakening, mountains are mountains again - but everything is transformed. You return to ordinary life, but now every moment reveals the sacred. This is the 108th teaching: wake up to the life you're already living.

'What is the Way?' Nanquan replied, 'Ordinary mind is the Way.' This teaching completes the circle - the end returns to the beginning, but now with eyes open.

Nanquan's Teaching

Written about in

• What Zen says about habit and discipline

  Nanquan's answer closes the loop: after all the form, the destination is your ordinary consciousness brushing teeth and drinking tea. Mountains are mountains, then they are not, then they are mountains again. The discipline does not deliver a different life — it delivers the one you had, minus the grasping.