"You're already enlightened, Milo."

Milo blinked. "I don't see how that could be," he said. "I haven't..."

"You haven't had an explosion of light inside your head or seen the future or had fire shoot out of your nose?"

"No, I haven't."

"That's not what enlightenment is. It's not some mystical explosion, it's noticing what's going on around you here and now, and you do that."

"Not always."

"Well, you are not always enlightened."

"So then basically, everyone's enlightened probably at least some of the time. Like this guy whose leg I had to cut off. He screamed so hard he was drooling, and his eyes rolled back in his head."

Balbeer squinted, thinking. "I don't know," he said.

Milo was surprised; he had never heard a teacher or a serious student say, "I don't know." It sounded frightfully intelligent. "Why does a rhino have horns on its face instead of up the top of its head?" Milo asked.

"I don't know," said Balbeer.

"That's wonderful! How come wood burns? Why do our armpits stink? What does it mean if I dream about being naked in the marketplace?"

"I don't know," said Balbeer. "I thought I was the only one who had the naked dream."

—Michael Poore: Reincarnation Blues

Holly Margl is the award-winning author of Witnessing Grief; Inviting Trauma and Loss to Our Coaching Conversations, An Enneagram Perspective, coach, coach mentor, and trainer specializing in grief, trauma, and the Enneagram.