A Japanese emperor once asked a Zen master: “What’s the difference after you got enlightened?”

The master said: “Not much. I used to chop wood in the jungle and fetch water from the well. I do the same now. I chop wood and fetch water.”

The emperor was baffled, so the master explained: “Earlier, I did it with my deluded mind. My mind was not there when I chopped wood and fetched water. Now I can do just that. My mind is there. I can see it and enjoy it.” The emperor got the answer.

The master’s everyday life didn’t change. Only the way he lived changed. His mechanical, absent-minded way changed. A thousand thoughts hit his mind when he chopped wood and fetched water. Maybe he got angry at having to do something so menial while his friends were having a good time out there. Often his mind was everywhere but the wood and water. When he was enlightened, a total awareness opened to him. The mind got calm and settled. Now he could really be with what he was doing—chopping wood and fetching water. It was no longer a boring daily chore, but an enjoyable act of witnessing. 

That simple knowing—that awareness—about how his mind worked when he did an everyday job made all the difference. Being in that knowing—in the awareness—purified his mind of things that tainted it. That’s the mind the master carried after enlightenment.

Things do not change for an enlightened person. Only how they see changes. They go about doing the same thing, but they can see them in their untainted purity, in their perfect ‘fullness’. They are totally with the things they do, both physically and mentally. They just have cut off the mind’s ‘attachment’ to or against it. They can still play football or listen to 1974 AD. They can still disco-dance, have a girlfriend or boyfriend, or drink a few glasses of beer. (It’s a different matter that they don’t indulge in 
such things.)

Often we tend to think that enlightened people are outlandish. Not exactly. They don’t go into caves and cut themselves off from people. To the contrary, they come out of caves and mingle with people. They share true love. They know the mind and the world, inside-out, in their purity. Living goes on as usual. It only gets purer.