[erepsysoulperj]

Regarding "sudden" enlightenment, there's a story in Tibetan Buddhism that the (enlightened)Indian teacher Tilopa hit his pupil Naropa on the head with a shoe and knocked him unconscious and that when Naropa recovered he had the same realisation as Tilopa.

There's a version of the story here in "Advice on Guru Practice"


The whole point is that without a single exception, Naropa did exactly what his guru told him to do. Like the time they came across a royal wedding, where a king was getting married. There was a magnificent procession with the bride on horseback. Tilopa said, “The disciple who wants enlightenment in this life should go grab that bride.” Naropa thought, “That’s me,” and without any hesitation or doubt went straight up to the wedding party, pulled the woman off the horse and tried to drag her away. All the people immediately jumped on Naropa, bashed him up and even cut off some of his limbs.

Again, Tilopa left him for three days and finally returned to ask, “What’s the matter with you?”

“This happened because I followed my guru’s orders.” Once more Tilopa healed Naropa just by touching him and his severed limbs were miraculously restored.

There’s another story about the day that Tilopa hit Naropa on the head with his shoe so strongly that he passed out. When Naropa came to, his mind and his guru’s holy mind had become one; whatever knowledge Tilopa had, so did Naropa. This was the result of his impeccable guru devotion and doing exactly what Tilopa told him to do.

As the teachings explain, you have to decide completely that the guru is definitely buddha. If you don’t come to that conclusion, then no matter what Dharma practices you do, they won’t be of much benefit; they won’t become a quick path to enlightenment.


http://www.lamayeshe.com/index.php?sect=article&id=408

I also found this article at the Urban Dharma site: "Sudden and Gradual Enlightenment" by a Zen teacher Rev Vajra Karuna, in which he states :

In contrast to most other forms of Buddhism which are usually called Gradual Schools of Enlightenment, Zen (which from now on means Rinzai Zen), is called Sudden Enlightenment School.

All Buddhist schools accept that the enlightenment experience at the very moment it occurs is a sudden event, but this is not the only meaning of Sudden in the Sudden Enlightenment School context.

http://www.urbandharma.org/ibmc/ibmc2/sudden.html ~