We have talked elsewhere of the great Japanese religious figure, Dogen. And we have discussed Dogen's idea that the act of meditation itself is enlightenment.

At first, this idea doesn't seem so revolutionary. We who practice meditation can accept it fairly easily. All right, we say -- meditation is enlightenment. So if I keep practicing meditation, I will reach enlightenment ....

But that isn't what Dogen is saying. He's saying that meditation is enlightenment -- not that it will lead to it, that it will one day result in it, but that it is enlightenment. In other words, someone settling down right now to do Step 11 meditation for the first time in their recovery is as enlightened as we are, with our months or years of experience.

But how can this be? How can it be that our hesitating, distraction-filled attempts to focus our attention can possibly be enlightenment?

The trouble is, of course, that we're looking for something different. We're looking for an exalted state of some kind. We're thinking that enlightenment is not associated with who or what we are thinking or doing or feeling now. The problem isn't that we can't meditate. It's that we can't see enlightenment when it's staring us in the face.

A Buddhist saying goes: Before I was enlightened, I thought a mountain was a mountain and a tree was a tree. Then, as I practiced, I saw that a mountain was not really a mountain and a tree was not really a tree. But now that my eyes are open, I see that a mountain is indeed a mountain and a tree is indeed a tree.

Or -- as the greatest Christian teacher of them all said -- Knock, and it shall be opened unto you. Seek, and ye shall find.