there’s a dispute about what it’s going to be. The food
is sometimes good and sometimes terrible; it’s just a
very uncomfortable place. The reason it’s uncomfort-
able is that you can’t get away from yourself there.
However, the more people make friends with them-
selves, the more they find it a nurturing and support-
ive place where you can find out the buddhaness of
your own self as you are right now, today. Right now
today, could you make an unconditional relationship
with yourself? Just at the height you are, the weight
you are, the amount of intelligence that you have, the
burden of pain that you have? Could you enter into
an unconditional relationship with that?
Giving up any hope of fruition has something in
common with the title of my previous book, The Wis-
dom of No Escape. “No escape” leaves you continually
right in the present, and the present is whatever it is,
whatever mood you happen to be in, whatever
thoughts you happen to be having. That’s it.
Whether you get meditation instruction from the
Theravada tradition or the Zen tradition or the Vajra-
yana tradition, the basic instruction is always about
being awake in the present moment. What they don’t
tell you is that the present moment can be you, this
you about whom you sometimes don’t feel very good.
That’s what there is to wake up to.
When one of the emperors of China asked Bod-
hidharma (the Zen master who brought Zen from
India to China) what enlightenment was, his answer
142 Abandon Any Hope of Fruition