That is, when you look in the mirror, you can't see yourself. Instead, enlightenment is like two mirrors facing one another with all things reflected within them. Both mirrors are of the same substance, and there is nothing in either of them that is independent of their mutual reality. When the mirror becomes perfectly clean, when you no longer feel a tension with the world, when your heart is so full of wisdom and compassion that little or nothing disturbs it, then you can say that you are abiding, at least for that time, in enlightenment. The deeper and the more you practice, the more you realize that parts of your being still require work, so you just practice.
Spiritual practice is something that has no final goal, so there's no end to it.
Forever, or you're already there. He is available for retreats, sesshins, and lectures. Echard Musgrave Roshi is a Zen Master in the Soto tradition of Japan, the largest Zen tradition in the world. He received transmission and the title Roshi in 1988 from Reverend Doctor Soyu Matsuoka, bishop of the Soto tradition, one of Japan's most respected Zen masters and patriarch of American Zen. Roshi Echard has been a Zen student for twenty-eight years and has studied under masters of the Rinzai, Korean, Vietnamese and Chinese traditions.