Satori roughly translates into individual enlightenment, or a flash of sudden awareness. Satori is as well an intuitive experience. The feeling of satori is that of infinite space. A brief experience of enlightenment is sometimes called Kensho. Semantically, kensho and satori have virtually the same meaning and are often used interchangeably.
The only way that one can "attain" Satori is through personal experience. The traditional way of achieving satori, and the most typical way taught to Zen students in the west - but is not the only way - is through the use of koans such as those found in the Gateless Gate, the Mumonkan. Koans are "riddles" students use to assist in the realization of satori; these words and phrases were also used by the early Zen masters.
Another method is meditation. Satori can be brought about through zazen meditation. This meditation would create an objective self associated awareness with a feeling of joy that overrides any other feelings of joy or sorrow.
Even though satori is a key concept in Zen, it should be brought to the attention of the reader that Zen and it's traditions does NOT have exclusive rights to the enlightenment process or experience. That which is called satori in Zen is a term that is wrapped around a phenomenon that "is" and that "is" is not "owned" by any group, religion, or sect.
It is often said that when you truly need a teacher - or that which will function in lieu of a teacher - that is, a teacher or satori for example, will fall upon you. This may due to some inexplicable serendipity. It may be due to the fact that the seeker has searched deeply within himself or herself and determined what sort of instruction seems to be required. It could be a spiritual desperation on the part of the seeker, or maybe no more than a successful sales pitch by a teacher (sincere or not). It may be a combination of the previous factors, or some intuitive awareness beyond expression. For whatever the reason, the saying often applies and the coming together of the results of inner and outside forces, some within one's control, some without.
However, in the end , it is not just potential Zen masters in ancient China nor people in India that such events transpire, but everyday people as well.
The following six points on Satori are from D.T. Suzuki's An Introduction to Zen Buddhism
1. People often imagine that the discipline of Zen is to produce a state of self-suggestion through meditation. This entirely misses the mark, as can be seen from the various instances cites above. Satori does not consist in producing a certain premeditated condition by intensely thinking of it. It is acquiring a new point of view for looking at things. Ever since the unfoldment of consciousness we have been led to respond to the inner and outer conditions in a certain conceptual and analytical manner. The discipline of Zen consists in upsetting this groundwork once for all and reconstructing the old frame on an entirely new basis. It is evident, therefore, that meditating on metaphysical and symbolic statements, which are products of the relative consciousness, play no part in Zen.
2. Without the attainment of Satori no one can enter into the truth of Zen. Satori is the sudden flashing into consciousness of a new truth hitherto undreamed of. It is a sort of mental catastrophe taking place all at once, after much piling up of matters intellectual and demonstrative. The piling has reached a limit of stability and the whole edifice has come tumbling to the ground, when, behold, a new heaven is open to full survey. When the freezing point is reached, water suddenly turns into ice; the liquid has suddenly turned into a solid body and no more flows freely. Satori comes upon a man unawares, when he feels that he has exhausted his whole being. Religiously, it is a new birth; intellectually, it is the acquiring of a new viewpoint. The world now appears as if dressed in a new garment, which seems to cover up all the unsightliness of dualism, which is called delusion in Buddhist phraseology.
3. Satori is the raison d'etre of Zen without which Zen is no Zen. Therefore every contrivance, disciplinary and doctrinal, is directed towards Satori. Zen masters could not remain patient for Satori to come by itself; that is, to come sporadically or at its own pleasure. In their earnestness to aid their disciples in the search after the truth of Zen their manifestly enigmatical presentations were designed to create in their disciples a state of mind which would more systematically open the way to enlightenment. All the intellectual demonstrations and exhortatory persuasions so far carried out by most religious and philosophical leaders had failed to produce the desired effect, and their disciples thereby had been father and father led astray. Especially was this the case when Buddhism was first introduced into China, with all its Indian heritage of highly metaphysical abstractions and most complicated systems of Yoga discipline, which left the more practical Chinese at the loss as to how to grasp the central point of the doctrine of Sakyamuni. Bodhidharma, the Sixth Patriarch Hui-neng, Baso, and other Chinese masters noticed the fact, and the proclamation and development of Zen was the natural outcome. By them Satori was placed above sutra-learning and scholarly discussions of the shastras and was identified with Zen itself. Zen, therefore, without Satori is like pepper without its pungency. But there is also such a thing as too much attachment to the experience of Satori, which is to be detested.
4. This emphasizing of Satori in Zen makes the fact quite significant that Zen in not a system of Dhyana as practiced in India and by other Buddhist schools in China. By Dhyana is generally understood a kind of meditation or contemplation directed toward some fixed thought; in Hinayana Buddhism it was a thought of transiency, while in the Mahayana it was more often the doctrine of emptiness. When the mind has been so trained as to be able to realize a state of perfect void in which there is not a trace of consciousness left, even the sense of being unconscious having departed; in other words, when all forms of mental activity are swept away clean from the field of ,consciousness, leaving the mind like the sky devoid of every speck of cloud, a mere broad expense of blue, Dhyana is said to have reached its perfection. This may be called ecstasy or trance, or the First Jhana, but it is not Zen. In Zen there must be not just Kensho, but Satori. There must be a general mental upheaval which destroys the old accumulations of intellection and lays down the foundation for new life; there must be the awakening of a new sense which will review the old things from a hitherto undreamed-of angle of observation. In Dhyana there are none of these things, for it is merely a quieting exercise of mind. As such Dhyana doubtless has its own merit, but Zen must be not identified with it.
5. Satori is not seeing God as he is, as might be contended by some Christian mystics. Zen has from the beginning made clear and insisted upon the main thesis, which is to see into the work of creation; the creator may be found busy moulding his universe, or he may be absent from his workshop, but Zen goes on with its own work. It is not dependent upon the support of a creator; when it grasps the reason for living a life, it is satisfied. Hoyen (died 1104) of Go-so-san used to produce his own hand and ask his disciples why it was called a hand. When we know the reason, there is Satori and we have Zen.
Whereas with the God of mysticism there is the grasping of a definite object; when you have God, what is no-God is excluded. This is self-limiting. Zen wants absolute freedom, even from God. "No abiding place" means that very thing; "Cleanse your mouth when you utter the word Buddha" amounts to the same thing. It is not that Zen wants to be morbidly unholy and godless, but that it recognizes the incompleteness of mere name. Therefore, when Yakusan (aka Yaoshan Weiyan, Yueh-shan Wei-jen, 751-834) was asked to give a lecture, he did not say a word, but instead come down from the pulpit and went off to his own room. Hyakujo merely walked forward a few steps, stood still, and then opened his arms, which was his exposition of the great principle.
6. Satori is not a morbid state of mind, a fit subject for the study of abnormal psychology. If anything, it is a perfectly normal state of mind. When I speak of mental upheaval, one may be led to consider Zen as something to be shunned by ordinary people. This is a most mistaken view of Zen, but one unfortunately often held by prejudiced critics. As Joshu declared, "Zen is your everyday thought"; it all depends on the adjustment of the hinge whether the door opens in or opens out. Even in the twinkling of an eye the whole affair is changed and you have Zen, and you are as perfect and as normal as ever. More than that, you have acquired in the meantime something altogether new. All your mental activities will now be working to a different key, which will be more satisfying, more peaceful, and fuller of joy than anything you ever experienced before. The tone of life will be altered. There is something rejuvenating in the possession of Zen. The spring flowers look prettier, and the mountain stream runs cooler and more transparent. The subjective revolution that brings about this state of things cannot be called abnormal. When life becomes more enjoyable and its expense broadens to include the universe itself, there must be something in Satori that is quite precious and well worth one's striving after.
"Therefore, what I say is false, but true, because I speak of That. The address is false but when you reach the goal, it is Reality. In the same way, all the scriptures and the philosophical books are meant only to indicate that point, and when you reach it they become non-existent, empty. Words are false; only the meaning they convey is true. They are illusion, but they give a meaning. Therefore, All Is Illusion, but to understand the illusion, illusion is needed. For example, to remove a thorn in your finger you use another thorn; then you throw both of them away. But if you keep the second thorn which was used to remove the first one, you'll surely be stuck again."
Shri Ranjit Maharaj
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