The Zen Master

The master and his student were sitting on tatami mats, eating bowls of noodles.

“What is the path to enlightenment?” asked the student.

The master slurped up the last of his noodles. He focused his eyes on the far wall.

“Suppose a man...” said the Zen master.

He was interrupted by the ringing of a cell phone.

“Hold that thought,” said the Zen master.

The master pulled his cell phone out of the folds of his fine robes and left through the sliding paper door. He never returned.

The student held that thought for thirty-three years, sitting and sleeping on the tatami mat, eating bowls of noodles, supposing a man. In the thirty-third year, he was enlightened.