posted September 05, 2006 03:16 AM         

1. Irrationality
By this I mean that satori is not a conclusion to be reached by reasoning, and defies all intellectual determination. Those who have experienced it are always at a loss to explain it coherently or logically. When it is explained at all, either in words or gestures, its content more or less unergoes a mutilation. The uninitiated are thus unable to grasp it by what is outwardly visible, while those who have had the experience is thus always characterized by irrationality, inexplicability, and incommunicability.

Listen to Tai-hui once more: "This matter [i.e. Zen] is like a great mass of fire; when you approach it your face is sure to be schorched. It is again like a sword about to be drawn; when it is once out of the scabbard, someone is sure to lose his life. But if you neither fling away the scabbard nor approach the fire, you are no better than a piece of rock or of wood. Coming to this pass, one has to be quite a resolute character full of spirit. There is nothing here suggestive of cool reasoning and quiet metaphysical or epistemological analysis, but of a certain desperate will to break through an insurmountable barrier, of the will empelled by some irrational or unconscious power behind it. Therefore, the outcome also defies intellection or coneptualization.

2. Intuitive insight
That there is noetic quality in mystic experiences has been pointed out by James in his Varieties of Religious Experience, and this applies also to the Zen experience known as saturi. Another name for satori is "ken-sho" (chien-hsing in Chinese) meaning "to see essence or nature", which apparantly proves that there is "seeing" or "perceiving" in satori. That this seeing is of quite a different quality from what is ordinarily designated as knowledge need not be specifically noticed. Hui-k's is reported to have made this statement concerning his satori which was confirmed by Bodhidharma himself: "[As to my satori], it is not a total annihilation; it is knowledge of the most adequate kind; only it cannot be expressed in words". I this respect Shen-hui was more explicit, for he says the "the one character chih (knowledge) is the source of all mysteries".

Without this noetic quality satori will lose all its pungency, for it is really the reason of satori itself. It is noteworthy that the knowledge contained in satori is concerned with something universal and at the same time with the individual aspect of existance. When a finger is lifted, the lifting means, from the viewpoint of satori, far more than the act of lifting. Some may call it symbolic, but satori does not point to anything beyond itself, being final as it is. Satori is the knowledge of an individual object and also that of Reality which is, if I may say so, at the back of it.

3. Authoritativeness
By this I mean that the knowledge realized by satori is final, that no amount of logical argument can refute it. Being direct and personal it is sufficient unot itself. All that logic can do here is to explain it, to interpret it in connection with other kinds of knowledge with which our minds are filled. Satori is thus a form of percpetion, and inner perception, which takes place in the most interior part of consciousness. Hence the sense of authoritativeness, which means finality. So, it is generally said that Zen is like drinking water, for it is by one's self that one knows whether it is warm or cold. The Zen perception being the last term of experience, it cannot be denied by outsiders who have no such experience.

4. Affirmation
What is authoritative and final can never be negative. For negation has no value for our life, it leads us nowhere; it is not a power that urges, nor does it give one a place to rest. Thought the satori experience is sometimes expressed in negative terms, it is essentially an affirmative attitude towards all things that exist; it accepts them as they come along regardless of their moral values. Buddhists call this kshanti, "patience", or more properly "acceptance", that is, acceptance of things in their suprarelative or transcendental aspect where no dualism of whatever sort avails.

Some may say that this is pantheistic. The term, however, has a definite philosophic meaning and I would not see it used in this connection. When so interpreted the Zen experience exposes itself to endless misunderstanding and "defilements". Tai-hui says in his letter to Miao-tsnung: "An ancient sage says that the Tao itself does not require special disciplining, only let it not be defiled. I would say: To talk about mind or nature is defiling; to talk about the unfathomable or the mysterious is defiling; to practise meditation or tranquillization is defiling; to direct one's attention to it, to think about it is defiling; to be writing about it thus on paper with a brush is especially defiling. What then shall we have to do in order to get ourselves oriented, and properly apply ourselves to it? The precious vajra sword is right here and its purpose is to cut off the head. Do not be concerned with human questions of right and wrong. All is Zen just as it is, and right here you are to apply yourself." Zen is Suchness--a grand affirmation.

5. Sense of the Beyond
Terminology may differ in different religions, and in stori there is always what we may call a sense of the Beyond; the experience indeed is my own but I feel it to be rooted elsewhere. The individual shell in which my peronality is so solidly encased explodes at the moment of satori. Not, necessarily, that I get unified with a being greater than myself or absorbed in it, but that my indiduality, which I found rigidly held together and definately kept seperate from other individual existences, becomes loosened somehow from its tightening grip and melts away into something indescribable, something which is of quite a different order from what I am accustomed to. The feeling that follows is that of a complete release or a complete rest-- the feeling that one has arrived finally at the destination. "Coming home and quietly resting" is the expression commonly used by Zen followers. The story of the prodigal son in the Saddharmapundarika, in the Vajra-samadhi, and also in the New Testament points to the same feeling one has at the moment of a satori experience.

As far as the pschology of satori is considered, a sense of the Beyond is all we can say about it; to call this the Beyond, the Absolute, or God, or a Person is to go further than the experience itself and to plunge into t theology or metaphysics. Even the "Beyond" is saying a little too much. When a Zen master says, "There is not a fragment of a tile above my head, there is not an ince of earth beneath my feet," the expression seems to be an appropriate one. I have called it elsewhere the Unconscious, though this has a psychological taint.

6. Impersonal Tone
Perhaps the most remarkable spect of the Zen experience is that it has no personal note in it as is observable in Christian mystic experiences. There is no reference whatever in Buddhist satori to such personal and frequently sexual feelings and relationships as are to be gleamed from these terms: flame of love, a wonderful love shed in the heart, embrace, the beloved, bride, bridegroom, spiritual matrimony, Father, God, the Son of God, God's child, etc. We may say that all these terms are interpretations bases on a definite system of thought and really have nothing to do with the experience itself. At any rate, alike in India, China, and Japan, satori has remained thoroughly impersonal, or rather highly intellectual.

Is this owing to the peculiar character of Buddhist philosophy? Does the experience itself take its colours from the philosophy or theology? Whatever this is, there is no doubt that in spite of its having some points of similitude to the Christian personal or human colourings. Chao-pien, a great government officer of the Sun dynasty, was a lay-disciple of Fach'uan of Chiang-shan. One day after his offical duties were over, he found himself leisurely sitting in his office, when all of a sudden a clash of thunder burst on his ear, and he realized a state of satori. The poem he then composed depicts one aspect of the Zen experience:

"Devoid of thought, I sat quietly by the desk in my
offical room,
With my fountain-mind undisturbed, as serene as water;
A sudden clash of thunder, the mind-doors burst open,
And lo, there sitteth the old man in all his
homeliness."

This is perhaps all the personal tone on can find in the Zen experience, and what a distance between "the old man in his homeliness" and "God in all his glory", not to say anything about such feelings as "the heavenly sweetness of Christ's excellent love", etc.! How barren, how unromantic satori is when compared with the Christian mystic experiences!

NOt only satori itself is such a prosaic and non-glorious event, but the occasion that inspires it also seems to be unromantic and altogether lacking in supersensuality. Satori is experienced in connection with any ordinary occurrence in one's daily life. It does not appear to be an extraordinary phenomenon as is recorded in Christian books of mysticism. Someone takes hold of you, or slaps you, or brings you a cup of tea, or makes some most commonplace remark, or recites some passage from a sutra or from a book of poetry, and when your mind is ripe for its outburst, you come at once to satori. There is no romance of love-making, no voice of the Holy Ghost, no plenitude of Divine Grace, no glorification of any sort. Her is nothing painted in high colours, all is grey and extremely unobtrusive and unnattractive.

7. Feeling of Exaltation
That this feeing inevitably accompanies satori is due to the fact that it is the breaking-up of the restriction imposed on one as an individual being, and this breaking up is not a mere negatative incident but quite a positive one fraught with signification because it means an infinite expansion of the individual. The general feeling, though we are not always conscious of it, which characterizes all our functions of consciousness, is that of restriction and dependence, because consciousness itself ist he outcome of two forces conditioning or restricting each other. Satori, on the contrary, essentially consists in doing away with the opposition of two terms in whatever sense-- and this opposition is the principle of consciousness as before mentioned, while satori is to realize the Unconscious which goes beyond the opposition.

To be released of this, therefore, must make one feel above all things intensely exalted. A wandering outcast maltreated everywhere not only by others but by himself finds that he is the possessor of all the wealth and power that is ever attainable in this world by a mortal being--if this does not give him a high feeling of self-glorification, what could? Says a Zen master, "When you have satori you are able to reveal a palatial mansion made of precious stones on a single blade of grass; but when you have no satori, a palatial mansion itself is concealed behind a simple blade of grass."

Another Zen master, evidently alluding to the Avatamsaka, declares: "O monks, lo and behold! A most auspicious light is shining with the utmost brilliancy all over the great chiliocosm, simultaneously revealing all the countries, all the oceans, all the Sumerus, all the suns and moons, all the heavens, all the lands--each of which number as many as hundreds of thousands of kotis. O monks, do you not see the light?" But the Zen feeling of exaltation is rather a quiet feeling of self-contentment; it is not at all demonstrative, when the first glow of it passes away. The Unconcious does not proclaim itself so boisterously in the Zen consciousness.

8. Momentariness
Satori comes upon one abruptly and in a momentary experience. In fact, if it is not abrupt and momentary, it is not satori. This abruptness [tun] is what characterizes the Hui-neng school of Zen ever since its proclaimation late in the seventh century. His opponent Shen-hsiu was insistent on a gradual unfoldment of Zen consciousness. Hui-neng's followers were thus distinguished as strong upholders of the doctrine of abruptness. This abrupt experience of satori, then, opens up in one moment [ekamuhurtena] an altogether new vista, and the whole existence is appraised from quite a new angle of observation.

posted September 05, 2006 05:24 AM         

LiaLei !

Thank You

posted September 06, 2006 12:46 AM         

------------------
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

posted September 06, 2006 09:49 AM         

Sorry, it was late, I was tired,
and I should have given credit to the author:
Zen Buddhism--selected writings of D.T. Suzuki

Some more little interesting bits:

It goes without saying that Zen has nothing to do with mere striking or roughly shaking the questioner. If you take this as contituting the essentials of Zen, you would commit the same gross error as one who took the finger for the moon. As in everything else, but most particularly in Zen, all its outward manifestations or demonstrations must never be regarded as final. They just indicate the way where to look for the facts. Therefore these indicators are important, we cannot do well without them. But once caught in them, which are like entangling meshes, we are doomed; for Zen can never be comprehended. Some may think Zen is always trying to catch you in the net of logic or by the snare of words. If you once slip your steps, you are bound for eternal damnation, you will never get to freedom, for which your hearts are so burning. Therefore, Rinazai grasps with his naked hands what is directly presented to us all. If a third eye of ours is opened undimmed, we shall know in a most unmistakable manner where Rinzai is driving us. We have first of all to get into the very spirit of the master and interview the inner man right there. No amount of wordy explanations will ever lead us into the nature of our own selves. The more you explain, the further it runs away from you. When you realize it, you read deep into the spirit of Rinzai or Obaku, and their real kindheartedness will begin to be appreciated.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Zen always deals in concrete facts and does not induldge in generalization. And I do not wish to add unnecessary legs to the painted snake, but if I try to waste my philosophical comments on Bokuju, I may say this. We are all finite, we cannot live out of time and space; inasmuch as we are earth-created, there is no way to grasp the infinite, how can we deliver ourselves from the limitations of existance? This is perhaps the idea put in the first question of the monk, to which the master replies:
Salvation must be sought in the finite itself, there is nothing infinite apart from finite things; if you seek something transcendental, that will cut you off from this world of relativity, which is the same thing as the annihilation of yourself. You do not want salvatin at the cost of your own existence. If so, drink and eat, and find your way of freedom in this drinking and eating. This was too much for the questioner, who, therefore, confessed himself as not understanding the meaning of the master. Therefore, the latter continued: Whether you understand or not, just the same go on living in the finite, with the finite; for you die if you stop eating and keeping yourself warm on account of your aspiration for the infinite. No matter how you struggle, Nirvana is to be sought in the midst of Samsara (birth-and-death). Whether an enlightened Zen master or an ignoramus of the first degree, neither can escape the so-called laws of nature. When the stomach is empty, both are hungry; when it snows, both have to put on an extra flannel. I do not, however, mean that they are both material existences, but they are what they are, regardless of their conditions of spiritual development. As the Buddhist scriptures have it, the darkness of the cave itself turns into enlightenment when a torch of spiritual insight burns. It is not that a thing called darkness is first taken out and another thing known by the name of enlightenment is carried in later, but that enlightenment and darkness are substantially one and the same thing from the very beginning.; the change from the one to the oth er has taken place only inwardly or subjectively. Therefore the finite is the infinite, and vice versa. These are not two separate things, though we are compelled to conceive them so, intellectually. This is the idea, logically interpreted, perhaps contained in Bokuju's answer give to the monk. The mistake consists in our splitting into two what is really and absolutely one. Is not life one as we live it, which we cut to peices by recklessly applying the murderous knife of intellectual surgery?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When we try to explain Enlightenment logically we always find ourselves involved in contridictions. But when an appeal is made to our symbolocial imagination--especially if one is liberally endowed with this faculty--the matter is more readily comprehended.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Things are all like this, they are all creations of one's own mind. When mind discriminates there is manifoldness of things; but when it does not it looks into the true state of things.

posted September 06, 2006 10:00 AM         

I find this interesting, because looking back, i've most often had physic (supernatural) experiences or epiphanies
while doing the most mundane tasks: doing dishes, driving,labouring, etc,.
There is a stillness in doing these things, isn't there, where the mind, free of it's need to be clever or grasp, just 'shuts down' and allows.

posted September 06, 2006 01:08 PM         

Do you watch House, M.D on channel 11(i.e Fox)? I love that because of the way he gets those satori moments off work. Sometimes in the university fountain