3

On Satori—The Revelation of a New Truth in Zen Buddhism

Without doubt, the concept of satori plays a central role in Suzuki’s presentation of Zen, a point that has been emphasized particularly in Robert Sharf’s writings on Suzuki’s Zen. This important essay, which was written during the 1920s and was included in Essays in Zen Buddhism (First Series), was one of Suzuki’s most extended explorations of a topic to which he would return numerous times in his later career in lectures, articles, and book chapters. For Suzuki, as with Hakuin and Dahui, satori was essential for an understanding of Zen, although Suzuki makes clear elsewhere in his corpus that the insight of satori must be complemented by further practice and study, if one is to achieve a mature understanding of Zen. Suzuki never mentions William James directly in this analysis of satori, but the influence of James’s work on the psychology of religious experience as presented in The Varieties of Religious Experience can be detected in Suzuki’s equation of satori with the concept of religious conversion, which, according to James, amounted to a process by which “a self hitherto divided, and consciously wrong inferior and unhappy, becomes unified and consciously right superior and happy in consequence of its firmer hold on religious realities” (James, Writings, 1902–1910, 177). The citation of Rudolf Otto in the essay and Suzuki’s use of James’s and Otto’s works in courses he taught at Ōtani University during the period in which he wrote this essay make clear the ongoing influence of liberal Protestant interpretations of James’s psychology of religion on Suzuki’s thinking about Zen and religion more generally.

This version of the chapter “On Satori” is taken from the first edition of Essays in Zen Buddhism (First Series), which was published in London by Luzac and Company in 1927. The first edition of the book contained Chinese and Japanese characters for many of the proper names and lengthy passages of Chinese text translated or paraphrased by Suzuki, including bibliographic citations. In postwar editions of the book published in the United Kingdom and the United States, however, the scholarly annotation in Chinese was not reproduced. In this version of the essay, unlike in the original edition, in which all Chinese and Japanese names and passages were placed in a separate set of endnotes, I have merged the substantive English-language notes with the longer Chinese ones, combining the two notes when appropriate. The notes containing Chinese and Japanese names have been removed and have been placed in the glossary for the volume instead. In addition to its inclusion in Essays in Zen Buddhism (First Series), “On Satori—the Revelation of a New Truth in Zen Buddhism” was also included in William Barrett’s influential anthology of Suzuki’s writings, Zen Buddhism: Selected Writings of D. T. Suzuki, published in New York by Doubleday and Company in 1956. The essay reproduced here is based on the version found in Essays in Zen Buddhism (First Series), pp. 213–250, which published by Luzac and Company, London, 1927.

• • •

I

The essence of Zen Buddhism consists in acquiring a new viewpoint of looking at life and things generally. By this I mean that if we want to get into the inmost life of Zen, we must forego all our ordinary habits of thinking which control our everyday life, we must try to see if there is any other way of judging things, or rather if our ordinary way is always sufficient to give us the ultimate satisfaction of our spiritual needs. If we feel dissatisfied somehow with this life, if there is something in our ordinary way of living that deprives us of freedom in its most sanctified sense, we must endeavor to find a way somewhere which gives us a sense of finality and contentment. Zen proposes to do this for us and assures us of the acquirement of a new point of view in which life assumes a fresher, deeper, and more satisfying aspect. This acquirement, however, is really and naturally the greatest mental cataclysm one can go through with in life. It is no easy task, it is a kind of fiery baptism, and one has to go through the storm, the earthquake, the overthrowing of the mountains, and the breaking in pieces of the rocks.

This acquiring of a new point of view in our dealings with life and the world is popularly called by Japanese Zen students “satori” (wu in Chinese). It is really another name for Enlightenment (anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi), which is the word used by the Buddha and his Indian followers ever since his realization under the Bodhi-tree by the River Nairañjanā. There are several other phrases in Chinese designating this spiritual experience, each of which has a special connotation, showing tentatively how this phenomenon is interpreted. At all events, there is no Zen without satori, which is indeed the Alpha and Omega of Zen Buddhism. Zen devoid of satori is like a sun without its light and heat. Zen may lose all its literature, all its monasteries, and all its paraphernalia; but as long as there is satori in it, it will survive to eternity. I want to emphasize this most fundamental fact concerning the very life of Zen; for there are some even among the students of Zen themselves who are blind to this central fact and are apt to think when Zen has been explained away logically or psychologically or as one of the Buddhist philosophies which can be summed up by using highly technical and conceptual Buddhist phrases, Zen is exhausted and there remains nothing in it that makes it what it is. But my contention is, the life of Zen begins with the opening of satori (kaiwu in Chinese).

Satori may be defined as an intuitive looking into the nature of things in contradistinction to the analytical or logical understanding of it. Practically, it means the unfolding of a new world hitherto unperceived in the confusion of a dualistically-trained mind. Or we may say that with satori our entire surroundings are viewed from quite an unexpected angle of perception. Whatever this is, the world for those who have gained a satori is no more the old world as it used to be; even with all its flowing streams and burning fires, it is never the same one again. Logically stated, all its opposites and contradictions are united and harmonized into a consistent organic whole. This is a mystery and a miracle, but according to the Zen masters such is being performed every day. Satori can thus be had only through our once personally experiencing it.

Its semblance or analogy in a more or less feeble and fragmentary way is gained when a difficult mathematical problem is solved, or when a great discovery is made, or when a sudden means of escape is realized in the midst of most desperate complications, in short, when one exclaims, “Eureka! eureka!” But this refers only to the intellectual aspect of satori, which is therefore necessarily partial and incomplete and does not touch the very foundations of life considered one indivisible whole. Satori as the Zen experience must be concerned with the entirety of life. For what Zen proposes to do is the revolution, and the revaluation as well, of oneself as a spiritual unity. The solving of a mathematical problem ends with the solution, it does not affect one’s whole life. So with all other particular questions, practical or scientific, they do not enter the basic life-tone of the individual concerned. But the opening of satori is the re-making of life itself. When it is genuine—for there are many simulacra of it—its effects on one’s moral and spiritual life are revolutionary, and they are so enhancing, purifying, as well as exacting. When a master was asked what constituted Buddhahood, he answered, “The bottom of a pail is broken through.” From this we can see what a complete revolution is produced by this spiritual experience. The birth of a new man is really cataclysmic.

In the psychology of religion this spiritual enhancement of one’s whole life is called “conversion.” But as the term is generally used by Christian converts, it cannot be applied in its strict sense to the Buddhist experience, especially to that of the Zen followers; the term has too affective or emotional a shade to take the place of satori, which is above all noetic. The general tendency of Buddhism is as we know more intellectual than emotional, and its doctrine of Enlightenment distinguishes it sharply from the Christian view of salvation; Zen as one of the Mahayana schools naturally shares a large amount of what we may call transcendental intellectualism which does not issue in logical dualism. When poetically or figuratively expressed, satori is “the opening of the mind-flower,”1 or “the removing of the bar,”² or “the brightening up of the mind-works.”³ All these tend to mean the clearing up of a passage which has been somehow blocked, preventing the free, unobstructed operation of a machine or a full display of the inner works. With the removal of the obstruction, a new vista opens before one, boundless in expanse and reaching the end of time. As life thus feels quite free in its activity, which was not the case before the awakening, it now enjoys itself to the fullest extent of its possibilities, to attain which is the object of Zen discipline. This is often taken to be equivalent to “vacuity of interest and poverty of purpose.” But according to the Zen masters the doctrine of non-achievement concerns itself with the subjective attitude of mind which goes beyond the limitations of thought. It does not deny ethical ideals, nor does it transcend them; it is simply an inner state of consciousness without reference to its objective consequences.

II

The coming of Bodhidharma (Bodaidaruma in Japanese, Puti Damo in Chinese) to China early in the sixth century was simply to introduce this satori element into the body of Buddhism whose advocates were then so engrossed in subtleties of philosophical discussion or in the mere literary observance of rituals and disciplinary rules. By the “absolute transmission of the spiritual seal”⁴ which was claimed by the first patriarch, is meant the opening of satori, obtaining an eye to see into the spirit of the Buddhist teaching. The sixth patriarch, Enō (Huineng), was distinguished because of his upholding the satori aspect of dhyana against the mere mental tranquilization of the Northern School of Zen under the leadership of Jinshū (Shenxiu). Baso (Mazu), Ōbaku (Huangbo), Rinzai (Linji), and all the other stars illuminating the early days of Zen in the Tang dynasty were advocates of satori. Their life-activities were unceasingly directed toward the advancement of this; and as one can readily recognize, they so differed from those merely absorbed in contemplation or the practicing of dhyana so called. They were strongly against quietism, declaring its adherents to be purblind and living in the cave of darkness. Before we go on, it is advisable, therefore, to have this point clearly understood so that we leave no doubt as to the ultimate purport of Zen, which is by no means wasting one’s life away in a trance-inducing practice, but consists in seeing into the life of one’s being or opening an eye of satori.

There is in Japan a book going under the title of Six Essays by Shōshitsu (that is, by Bodhidharma, the first patriarch of Zen); the book contains no doubt some of the sayings of Dharma, but most of the essays are not his; they were probably composed during the Tang dynasty when Zen Buddhism began to make its influence more generally felt among the Chinese Buddhists. The spirit however pervading the book is in perfect accord with the principle of Zen. One of the essays entitled “Kechimyakuron,” or “Treatise on the Lineage of Faith,”5 discusses the question of jianxing⁶ or satori, which, according to the author, constitutes the essence of Zen Buddhism. The following passages are extracts.

If you wish to seek the Buddha, you ought to see into your own Nature (xing); for this Nature is the Buddha himself. If you have not seen into your own Nature, what is the use of thinking of the Buddha, reciting the Sutras, observing a fast, or keeping the precepts? By thinking of the Buddha, your cause [i.e., meritorious deed] may bear fruit; by reciting the Sutras your intelligence may grow brighter; by keeping the precepts you may be born in the heavens; by practicing charity you may be rewarded abundantly; but as to seeking the Buddha, you are far away from him. If your Self is not yet clearly comprehended, you ought to see a wise teacher and get a thorough understanding as to the root of birth-and-death. One who has not seen into one’s own Nature, is not to be called a wise teacher.

When this [seeing into one’s own Nature] is not attained, one cannot escape from the transmigration of birth-and-death, however well one may be versed in the study of the sacred scriptures in twelve divisions. No time will ever come to one to get out of the sufferings of the triple world. Anciently there was a Bhikshu Zenshō (Shanxing⁷) who was capable of reciting all the twelve divisions of scriptures, yet he could not save himself from transmigration, because he had no insight into his own Nature. If this was the case even with Zenshō, how about those moderners who being able to discourse only on a few Sutras and Shastras regard themselves as exponents of Buddhism? They are truly simple-minded ones. When Mind is not understood, it is absolutely of no avail to recite and discourse on idle literature. If you want to seek the Buddha, you ought to see into your own Nature, which is the Buddha himself. The Buddha is a free man—a man who neither works nor achieves. If, instead of seeing into your own Nature, you turn away and seek the Buddha in external things, you will never get at him.

The Buddha is your own Mind, make no mistake to bow [to external objects]. “Buddha” is a Western word, and in this country it means “enlightened nature”; and by “enlightened” is meant “spiritually enlightened.” It is one’s own spiritual Nature in enlightenment that responds to the external world, comes in contact with objects, raises the eyebrows, winks the eyelids, and moves the hands and legs. This Nature is the Mind, and the Mind is the Buddha, and the Buddha is the Way, and the Way is Zen. This simple word, Zen, is beyond the comprehension both of the wise and the ignorant. To see directly into one’s original Nature, this is Zen. Even if you are well learned in hundreds of the Sutras and Shastras, you still remain an ignoramus in Buddhism when you have not yet seen into your original Nature. Buddhism is not there [in mere learning]. The highest truth is unfathomably deep, is not an object of talk or discussion, and even the canonical texts have no way to bring it within our reach. Let us once see into our own original Nature and we have the truth even when we are quite illiterate, not knowing a word. . . .

Those who have not seen into their own Nature, may read the Sutras, think of the Buddha, study long, work hard, practice religion throughout the six periods of the day, sit for a long time and never lie down for sleep, and may be wide in learning and well-informed in all things; and they may believe that all this is Buddhism. All the Buddhas in successive ages only talk of seeing into one’s Nature. All things are impermanent; until you get an insight into your Nature, do not say, “I have perfect knowledge.” Such is really committing a very grave crime. Ānanda, one of the ten great disciples of the Buddha, was known for his wide information, but did not have any insight into Buddhahood, because he was so bent on gaining information only. . . .

The sixth patriarch, Huineng (Enō), insists on this in a most unmistakable way when he answers the question: “As to your commission from the fifth patriarch of Huangmei, how do you direct and instruct others in it?” The answer was: “No direction, no instruction there is; we speak only of seeing into one’s Nature and not of practicing dhyana and seeking deliverance thereby.” Elsewhere they are designated as the “confused” and “not worth consulting with,” they that are empty-minded and sit quietly having no thoughts whatever; whereas “even ignorant ones, if they all of a sudden realize the truth and open their mental eyes, are after all wise men and may attain even to Buddhahood.” Again when the patriarch was told of the method of instruction adopted by the masters of the Northern School of Zen, which consisted in stopping all mental activities, quietly absorbed in contemplation, and in sitting cross-legged for the longest while at a stretch, he declared such practices to be abnormal and not at all to the point, being far from the truth of Zen, and added this stanza which was quoted elsewhere:

While living one sits up and lies not

When dead, one lies and sits not;

A set of ill-smelling skeleton!

What is the use of toiling and moiling so?

When at Denbōin, Baso used to sit cross-legged all day and meditating. His master, Nangaku Ejō (Nanyue Huairang, 677–744), saw him and asked,8

“What seekest thou here thus sitting cross-legged?”

“My desire is to become a Buddha.”

Thereupon, the master took up a piece of brick and began to polish it hard on the stone nearby.

“What workest thou on so, my master?” asked Baso.

“I am trying to turn this into a mirror.”

“No amount of polishing will make a mirror of the brick, sir.”

“If so, no amount of sitting cross-legged as thou doest will make of thee a Buddha,” said the master.

“What shall I have to do then?”

“It is like driving a cart; when it moveth not, wilt thou whip the cart or the ox?”

Baso made no answer.

The master continued: “Wilt thou practice this sitting cross-legged in order to attain dhyana or to attain Buddhahood? If it is dhyana, dhyana does not consist in sitting or lying; if it is Buddhahood, the Buddha has no fixed forms. As he has no abiding place anywhere, no one can take hold of him, nor can he be let go. If thou seekest Buddhahood by thus sitting cross-legged, thou murderest him. So long as thou freest thyself not from sitting so,9 thou never comest to the truth.”

These are all plain statements, and no doubts are left as to the ultimate end of Zen, which is not sinking oneself into a state of torpidity by sitting quietly after the fashion of a Hindu saint and trying to exclude all the mental ripplings that seem to come up from nowhere and after a while pass away—where nobody knows. These preliminary remarks will help the reader carefully to consider the following “Questions and Answers” (known as mondō in Japanese); for they will illustrate my thesis that Zen aims at the opening of satori, or at acquiring a new point of view as regards life and the universe. The Zen masters, as we see below, are always found trying to avail themselves of every apparently trivial incident of life in order to make the disciples’ minds flow into a channel hitherto altogether unperceived. It is like picking a hidden lock, the flood of new experiences gushes forth from the opening. It is again like the clock’s striking the hours; when the appointed time comes it clicks, and the whole percussion of sounds is released. The mind seems to have something of this mechanism; when a certain moment is reached, a hitherto closed screen is lifted, an entirely new vista opens up, and the tone of one’s whole life thereafter changes. This mental clicking or opening is called satori by the Zen masters and is insisted upon as the main object of their discipline.

In this connection the reader will find the following words of Meister Eckhart quite illuminative: “Upon this matter a heathen sage hath a fine saying in speech with another sage: ‘I become aware of something in me which flashes upon my reason. I perceive of it that it is something, but what it is I cannot perceive. Only meseems that, could I conceive it, I should comprehend all truth.’”¹⁰

III

The records quoted below do not always give the whole history of the mental development leading up to a satori, that is, from the first moment when the disciple came to the master until the last moment of realization, with all the intermittent psychological vicissitudes which he had to go through. The examples are just to show that the whole Zen discipline gains meaning when there takes place this turning of the mental hinge to a wider and deeper world. For when this wider and deeper world opens, everyday life, even the most trivial thing of it, grows loaded with the truths of Zen. On the one hand, therefore, satori is a most prosaic and matter-of-fact thing, but on the other hand when it is not understood it is something of a mystery. But after all is not life itself filled with wonders, mysteries, and unfathomabilities, far beyond our discursive understanding?

A monk asked Jōshū (Zhaozhou Congshen, 778–897) to be instructed in Zen. Said the master, “Have you had your breakfast or not?” “Yes, master, I have,” answered the monk. “If so, have your dishes washed,” was an immediate response, which, it is said, at once opened the monk’s mind to the truth of Zen.

This is enough to show what a commonplace thing satori is; but to see what an important role this most trivial incident of life plays in Zen, it will be necessary to add some remarks which were made by the masters, and through these the reader may have a glimpse into the content of satori. Unmon (Yunmen Wenyan, died 949) who lived a little later than Jōshū commented on him: “Was there any special instruction in the remark of Jōshū, or not? If there was, what was it? If there was not, what satori was it that the monk attained?” Later, Unpo Mon’etsu (Yunfeng Wenyue, 997–1062) made a retort, saying, “The great master Unmon does not know what is what, hence this comment of his. It was altogether unnecessary, it was like painting legs to the snake and growing a beard to the eunuch. My view differs from his: that monk who seems to have attained a satori goes to hell as straight as an arrow!”11

Now, what does this all mean—Jōshū’s remark about washing the dishes, the monk’s attainment of satori, Unmon’s alternatives, and Mon’etsu’s assurance? Are they speaking against each other? Is this much ado about nothing? This is where Zen is difficult to grasp and at the same time difficult to explain. Let me add a few more queries. How did Jōshū make the monk’s eye open by such a prosaic remark? Did the remark have any hidden meaning, however, which happened to coincide with the mental tone of the monk? How was the monk so mentally prepared for the final stroke of the master whose service was just pressing the button as it were? Nothing of satori is so far gleaned from washing the dishes; we have to look somewhere else for the truth of Zen. At any rate, we could not say that Jōshū had nothing to do with the monk’s realization. Hence Unmon’s remark which is somewhat enigmatic, yet to the point. As to Mon’etsu’s comment, it is what is technically known as Nenrō, “handling and playing,” or “playful criticism.” He appears to be making a disparaging remark about Unmon, but in truth he is joining hands with his predecessors.

Tokusan (Deshan Xuanjian, 779–865)¹² was a great scholar of the Diamond Sutra (Vajracchedikā). Learning that there was such a thing as Zen, ignoring all the written scriptures, and directly laying hand on one’s soul, he came to Ryūtan (Longtan) to be instructed in the doctrine. One day Tokusan was sitting outside trying to see into the mystery of Zen. Ryūtan said, “Why don’t you come in?” Replied Tokusan, “It is pitch dark.” A candle was lighted and handed over to Tokusan. When the latter was at the point of taking it, Ryūtan suddenly blew the light out, whereupon the mind of Tokusan was opened.¹³

Hyakujō (Baizhang Huaihai, 724–814)¹⁴ one day went out attending his master Baso (Mazu). A flock of wild geese was seen flying and Baso asked

“What are they?”

“They are wild geese, sir.”

“Whither are they flying?”

“They have flown away, sir.”

Baso abruptly taking hold of Hyakujō’s nose gave it a twist. Overcome with pain, Hyakujō cried aloud, “Oh! Oh!”

“You say they have flown away,” Baso said, “but all the same they have been here from the very beginning.”

This made Hyakujō’s back wet with cold perspiration. He had satori.

Is there any connection in any possible way between the washing of the dishes and the blowing out of a candle and the twisting of the nose? We must say with Unmon: If there is none, how could they all come to the realization of the truth of Zen? If there is, what inner relationship is there? What is this satori? What new point of viewing things is this? So long as our observation is limited to those conditions which preceded the opening of a disciple’s eye we cannot perhaps fully comprehend where lies the ultimate issue. They are matters of everyday occurrence, and if Zen lies objectively among them, every one of us is a master before we are told of it. This is partly true inasmuch as there is nothing artificially constructed in Zen, but if the nose is to be really twisted or the candle blown out in order to take the scale off the eye, our attention must be directed inwardly to the working of our minds, and it will be there where we are to take hold of the hidden relation existing between the flying geese and the washed dishes and the blown out candle and any other happenings that weave out infinitely variegated patterns of human life.

Under Daie (Dahui, 1089–1163), the great Zen teacher of the Song dynasty, there was a monk named Dōken (Daoqian) who had spent many years in the study of Zen, but who had not yet delved into its secrets if there were any. He was discouraged when he was sent on an errand to a distant city. A trip requiring half a year to finish would surely be a hindrance rather than a help to his study. Sōgen (Zongyuan), one of his fellow-monks, took pity on him and said, “I will accompany you on this trip and do all that I can for you. There is no reason why you cannot go on with your meditation even while traveling.” They started together. One evening Dōken despairingly implored his friend to assist him in the solution of the mystery of life. The friend said, “I am willing to help you in every way, but there are five things in which I cannot be of any help to you. These you must look after yourself.” Dōken expressed the desire to know what they were. “For instance,” said the friend, “when you are hungry or thirsty, my eating of food or drinking does not fill your stomach. You must drink and eat yourself. When you want to respond to the calls of nature, you must take care of them yourself, for I cannot be of any use to you. And then it will be nobody else but yourself that will carry this corpse of yours [i.e., the body] along this highway.” This remark at once opened the mind of the truth-seeking monk, who, so transported with his discovery, did not know how to express his joy. Gen now told him that his work was done and that his further companionship would have no meaning after this. So they parted company and Dōken was left alone to continue the trip. After the half-year Dōken came back to his own monastery.15 Daie, his teacher, happened to meet him on his way down the mountain, and made the following remark, “This time he knows it all.” What was it, one may remark, that flashed through Dōken’s mind when his friend gave him a most matter-of-fact advice?

Kyōgen (Xiangyan) was a disciple of Hyakujō. After the master’s death he went to Isan (Weishan, 771–853) who was a senior disciple of Hyakujō. Isan asked him,¹⁶ “I am told that you have been under my late master Hyakujō, and also that you have remarkable intelligence; but the understanding of Zen through this medium necessarily ends in intellectual and analytical comprehension, which is not of much use. Yet you may have had an insight into the truth of Zen. Let me have your view as to the reason of birth and death, that is, as to your own being before your parents gave birth to you.”

Thus asked, Kyōgen did not know how to reply. He retired into his own room and assiduously made research among his notes which he had taken of the sermons given by his late master. He failed to come across a suitable passage he might present as his own view. He returned to Isan and implored him to teach in the faith of Zen. But Isan said, “I really have nothing to impart to you, and if I tried to do so, you may have occasion to make me an object of ridicule later on. Besides, whatever I can instruct you is my own and will never be yours.” Kyōgen was disappointed and considered his senior disciple unkind. Finally he came to the decision to burn up all his notes and memorandums which were of no help to his spiritual welfare, and, retiring altogether from the world, to spend the rest of his life in solitude and simplicity in accordance with the Buddhist rules. He reasoned, “What is the use of studying Buddhism, so difficult to comprehend and too subtle to receive instructions from another? I shall be a plain homeless monk, troubled with no desire to master things too deep for thought.” He left Isan and built a hut near the tomb of Chū (Huizhong), the National Master, at Nanyang. One day he was weeding and sweeping the ground, and when a piece of rock brushed away struck a bamboo, the sound produced by the percussion unexpectedly elevated his mind to a state of satori. The question proposed by Isan became transparent; his joy was boundless, he felt as if meeting again his lost parent. Besides he came to realize the kindness of his abandoned senior brother monk who refused him instruction. For he now knew that this would not have happened to him if Isan had been unkind enough to explain things for him.

Below is the verse he composed soon after his achievement from which we may get an idea of his satori.

One stroke has made me forget all my previous knowledge.

No artificial discipline is at all needed;

In every movement I uphold the ancient way,

And never fall into the rut of mere quietism;

Wherever I walk no traces are left,

And my senses are not fettered by rules of conduct;

Everywhere those who have attained to the truth,

All declare this to be of the highest order.

IV

There is something, we must admit, in Zen that defies explanation, and to which no master however ingenious can lead his disciples through intellectual analysis. Kyōgen or Tokusan had enough knowledge of the canonical teachings or of the master’s expository discourses; but when the real thing was demanded of them, they significantly failed to produce it either to their inner satisfaction or for the master’s approval. The satori is not a thing after all to be gained through the understanding. But once the key is within one’s grasp, everything seems to be laid bare before him; the entire world assumes then a different aspect. By those who know, this inner change is recognized. The Dōken before he started on his mission and the Dōken after the realization were apparently the same person; but as soon as Daie saw him, he knew what had taken place in him even when he uttered not a word. Baso twisted Hyakujō’s nose, and the latter turned into such a wild soul as to have the audacity to roll up the matting before his master’s discourse had hardly begun (see below). The experience they have gone through within themselves is not a very elaborate, complicated, and intellectually demonstrable thing; for none of them ever try to expound it by a series of learned discourses, they do just this thing or that, or utter a single phrase unintelligible to outsiders, and the whole affair proves most satisfactory both to the master and to the disciple. The satori cannot be a phantasm, empty and contentless, and lacking in real value, while it must be the simplest possible experience perhaps because it is the very foundation of all experiences.

As to the opening of satori, all that Zen can do is to indicate the way and leave the rest all to one’s own experience; that is to say, following up the indication and arriving at the goal—this is to be done by oneself and without another’s help. With all that the master can do, he is helpless to make the disciple take hold of the thing, unless the latter is inwardly fully prepared for it. Just as we cannot make a horse drink against his will, the taking hold of the ultimate reality is to be done by oneself. Just as the flower blooms out of its inner necessity, the looking into one’s own nature must be the outcome of one’s own inner overflowing. This is where Zen is so personal and subjective, in the sense of being inner and creative. In the Āgama or Nikāya literature we encounter so frequently such phrases as “Atta-dīpā viharatha atta-saraṇā anañña-saraṇā,” or “sayaṃ abhiññā,” or “Diṭṭha-dhammo patta-dhammo vidita-dhammo pariyogāḷha-dhammo aparappaccayo satthu sāsane”; they show that Enlightenment is the awakening, within oneself and not depending on others, of an inner sense in one’s consciousness, enabling one to create a world of eternal harmony and beauty—the home of Nirvana.

I said that Zen does not give us any intellectual assistance, nor does it waste time in arguing the point with us, but it merely suggests or indicates, not because it wants to be indefinite, but because that is really the only thing it can do for us. If it could, it would do anything to help us come to an understanding. In fact Zen is exhausting every possible means to do that, as we can see in all the great masters’ attitudes toward their disciples.17 When they are actually knocking them down, their kindheartedness is never to be doubted. They are just waiting for the time when their pupils’ minds get all ripened for the final moment. When this has come, the opportunity of opening an eye to the truth of Zen lies everywhere. One can pick it up in the hearing of an inarticulate sound, or listening to an unintelligible remark, or in the observation of a flower blooming, or in the encountering of any trivial everyday incident such as stumbling, rolling up a screen, using a fan, etc. These are all sufficient conditions that will awaken one’s inner sense. Evidently a most insignificant happening, and yet its effect on the mind infinitely surpasses all that one could expect of it. A light touch of an ignited wire, and an explosion shaking the very foundations of the earth. In fact, all the causes of satori are in the mind. That is why when the clock clicks, all that has been lying there bursts up like a volcanic eruption or flashes out like a bolt of lightning.¹⁸ Zen calls this “returning to one’s own home”; for its followers will declare: “You have now found yourself; from the very beginning nothing has been kept away from you. It was yourself that closed the eye to the fact. In Zen there is nothing to explain, nothing to teach, that will add to your knowledge. Unless it grows out of yourself, no knowledge is really of value to you, a borrowed plumage never grows.”

Kō Zankoku (Huang Shangu),¹⁹ a Confucian poet and statesman, came to Kaidō (Huitang, 1024–1100)²⁰ to be initiated into Zen. Said the Zen master, “There is a passage in the text you are so thoroughly familiar with, which fitly describes the teaching of Zen. Did not Confucius declare, ‘Do you think I am holding back something from you, O my disciples? Indeed I have held nothing back from you.’” Sankoku tried to answer, but Kaidō immediately made him keep silence by saying, “No, no!” The Confucian disciple felt troubled in mind, and did not know how to express himself. Some time later they were having a walk in the mountains. The wild laurel was in full bloom and the air was redolent. Asked the Zen master, “Do you smell it?” When the Confucian answered affirmatively, Kaidō said, “There, I have kept nothing back from you!” This suggestion from the teacher at once led to the opening of Kō Zankoku’s mind. Is it not evident now that satori is not a thing to be imposed upon another, but that it is self-growing from within? Though nothing is kept away from us, it is through a satori that we become cognizant of the fact, being convinced that we are all sufficient unto ourselves. All that therefore Zen contrives is to assert that there is such a thing as self-revelation, or the opening of satori.

V

As satori strikes at the primary fact of existence, its attainment marks a turning point in one’s life. The attainment, however, must be thoroughgoing and clear-cut in order to produce a satisfactory result. To deserve the name “satori” the mental revolution must be so complete as to make one really and sincerely feel that there took place a fiery baptism of the spirit. The intensity of this feeling is proportional to the amount of effort the opener of satori has put into the achievement. For there is a gradation in satori as to its intensity, as in all our mental activity. The possessor of a lukewarm satori may suffer no such spiritual revolution as Rinzai, or Bukkō (Foguang) whose case is quoted below. Zen is a matter of character and not of the intellect, which means that Zen grows out of the will as the first principle of life. A brilliant intellect may fail to unravel all the mysteries of Zen, but a strong soul will drink deep of the inexhaustible fountain. I do not know if the intellect is superficial and touches only the fringe of one’s personality, but the fact is that the will is the man himself, and Zen appeals to it. When one becomes penetratingly conscious of the working of this agency, there is the opening of satori and the understanding of Zen. As they say, the snake has now grown into the dragon; or more graphically, a common cur—a most miserable creature wagging its tail for food and sympathy, and kicked about by the street boys so mercilessly—has now turned into a golden-haired lion whose roar frightens to death all the feeble-minded.

Therefore, when Rinzai was meekly submitting to the “thirty blows” of Ōbaku, he was a pitiable sight; as soon as he attained satori, he was quite a different personage and his first exclamation was, “There is not much after all in the Buddhism of Ōbaku.”21 And when he saw the reproachful Ōbaku again, he returned his favor by giving him a slap on the face. “What an arrogance, what an impudence!” Ōbaku exclaimed; but there was reason in Rinzai’s rudeness, and the old master could not but be pleased with this treatment from his former tearful Rinzai.

When Tokusan gained an insight into the truth of Zen, he immediately took up all his commentaries on the Diamond Sutra, once so valued and considered indispensable that he had to carry them wherever he went; he now set fire to them, reducing all the manuscripts into nothingness. He exclaimed: “However deep your knowledge of abstruse philosophy, it is like a piece of hair placed in the vastness of space; and however important your experience in things worldly, it is like a drop of water thrown into an unfathomable abyss.”²²

On the day following the incident of the flying geese,²³ to which reference was made elsewhere, Baso appeared in the preaching hall and was about to speak before a congregation, when Hyakujō came forward and began to roll up the matting.²⁴ Baso without protesting came down from his seat and returned to his own room. He then called Hyakujō and asked him why he rolled up the matting before he uttered a word.

“Yesterday you twisted my nose,” replied Hyakujō, “and it was quite painful.”

“Where,” said Baso, “was your thought wandering then?”

“It is not painful anymore today, master.” How differently he behaves now! When his nose was pinched, he was quite an ignoramus in the secrets of Zen. He is now a golden-haired lion, he is master of himself, and acts so freely as if he owned the world, pushing away even his own master far into the background.

There is no doubt that satori goes deep into the very root of individuality. The change achieved thereby is quite remarkable, as we see in the examples above cited.

VI

Some masters have left in the form of verse known as “Ge” (gatha) what they perceived or felt at the time when their mental eye was opened. The verse has the special name of “Tōki-no-ge”25 and from the following translations the reader may draw his own conclusions as to the nature and content of a satori so highly prized by the Zen followers. But there is one thing to which I like to call his attention, which is that the contents of these gathas are so varied and dissimilar as far as their literary and intelligible sense is concerned that one may be at a loss how to make a comparison of these divers exclamations. Being sometimes merely descriptive verses of the feelings of the author at the moment of satori, analysis is impossible unless the critic himself has once experienced them in his own inner life. Nevertheless these verses will be of interest to the psychological students of Buddhist mysticism even as merely emotional utterances of the supreme moment.

The following is by Chōkei (Changqing, died 932) whose eye was opened when he was rolling up the screen:

How deluded I was! How deluded, indeed!

Lift up the screen, and come see the world!

“What religion believest thou?” you ask.

I raise my hossu²⁶ and hit your mouth.²⁷

Hōen (Fayan) of Gosozan (Wuzushan), who died in 1104, succeeded Shutan (Shouduan), of Hakuun (Baiyun), and was the teacher of Engo (Yuanwu), composed the following when his mental eye was first opened:

A patch of farm land quietly lies by the hill,

Crossing my hands over the chest I ask the old farmer kindly:

“How often have you sold it and bought it back by yourself?”

I like the pines and bamboos that invite a refreshing breeze.²⁸

Engo (Yuanwu, 1063–1135) was one of the greatest teachers in the Song dynasty and the author of a Zen textbook known as the Hekigan shū. His verse stands in such contrast to that of his teacher, Hōen, and the reader will find it hard to unearth anything of Zen from the following romanticism:

The golden duck no more issues odorous smoke behind the brocade screens,

Amid flute-playing and singing, he retreats, thoroughly in liquor and supported by others:

A happy event in the life of a romantic youth,

It is his sweetheart alone that is allowed to know.29

Enju, of Yōmeiji (Yongming Yanshou, 904–975), who belonged to the Hōgen School of Zen Buddhism, was the author of a book called “Shukyōroku” (Record of Truth-Mirror) in one hundred fasciculi, and flourished in the early Song. His realization took place when he heard a bundle of fuel dropping on the ground.

Something dropped! It is no other thing;

Right and left, there is nothing earthy:

Rivers and mountains and the great earth—

In them all revealed is the Body of the Dharmarāja.³⁰

The first of the following two verses is by Yō Dainen (Yang Danian, 973–1020), a statesman of the Song dynasty,³¹ and the second by Iku, of Toryō (Tuling Yu),³² who was a disciple of Yōgi (Yangqi, 1024–1072),³³ the founder of the Yōgi Branch of the Rinzai School.

An octagonal millstone rushes through the air;

A golden-colored lion has turned into a cur:

If you want to hide yourself in the North Star,

Turn round and fold your hands behind the South Star.

I have one jewel shining bright,

Long buried it was underneath worldly worries;

This morning the dusty veil is off, and restored is its luster.

Illumining rivers and mountains and ten thousand things.

A sufficient variety of the verses has been given here to show how they vary from one another and how it is impossible to suggest any intelligible explanation of the content of satori by merely comparing them or by analyzing them. Some of them are easily understood, I suppose, as expressive of the feeling of a new revelation; but as to what that revelation itself is, it will require a certain amount of personal knowledge to be able to describe it more intelligently. In any event all these masters testify to the fact that there is such a thing in Zen as satori through which one is admitted into a new world of value. The old way of viewing things is abandoned and the world acquires a new signification. Some of them would declare that they were “deluded” or that their “previous knowledge” was thrown into oblivion, while others would confess they were hitherto unaware of a new beauty which exists in the “refreshing breeze” and in the “shining jewel.”

VII

When our consideration is limited to the objective side of satori as illustrated so far, it does not appear to be a very extraordinary thing—this opening an eye to the truth of Zen. The master makes some remarks, and if they happen to be opportune enough, the disciple will come at once to a realization and see into a mystery hitherto undreamed of. It seems all to depend upon what kind of mood or what state of mental preparedness one is in at the moment. Zen is after all a haphazard affair, one may be tempted to think. But when we know that it took Nangaku (Nanyue) eight long years to answer the question, “Who is he that thus cometh toward me?” we shall realize the fact that there was in him a great deal of mental anguish and tribulation which he had to go through with before he could come to the final solution and declare, “Even when one asserts that it is a somewhat, one misses it altogether.”34 We must try to look into the psychological aspect of satori, where is revealed the inner mechanism of opening the door to the eternal secrets of the human soul. This is done best by quoting some of the masters themselves whose introspective statements are on record.

Kōhō (Gaofeng, 1238–1285) was one of the great masters in the latter part of the Song dynasty. When his master first let him attend to the “Jōshū’s Mu,”³⁵ he exerted himself hard on the problem. One day his master, Setsugan (Xueyan), suddenly asked him, “Who is it that carries for you this lifeless corpse of yours?”³⁶ The poor fellow did not know what to make of the question; for the master was merciless and it was usually followed by a hard knocking down. Later in the midst of his sleep one night he recalled the fact that once when he was under another master he was told to find out the ultimate signification of the statement, “All things return to one”;³⁷ and this kept him up the rest of that night and through the several days and nights that succeeded. While in this state of an extreme mental tension, he found himself one day looking at Goso Hōen’s verse on his own portrait, which partly read,³⁸

One hundred years—thirty-six thousand morns,

This same old fellow moveth on forever!

This at once made him dissolve his eternal doubt as to “Who’s carrying around this lifeless body of yours?” He was baptized and became an altogether new man.

He leaves us in his “Goroku” (Sayings Recorded) an account of those days of the mental strain in the following narrative: “In olden days when I was at Sōkei (Shuangjing), and before one month was over after my return to the Meditation Hall there, one night while deep in sleep I suddenly found myself fixing my attention on the question: ‘All things return to the One, but where does this One return?’ My attention was so rigidly fixed on this that I neglected sleeping, forgot to eat, and did not distinguish east from west, nor morning from night. While spreading the napkin, producing the bowls, or attending to my natural wants, whether I moved or rested, whether I talked or kept silent, my whole existence was wrapt up with the question, ‘Where does this one return?’ No other thoughts ever disturbed my consciousness; no, even if I wanted to stir up the least bit of thought irrelevant to the central one, I could not do so. It was like being screwed up or glued; however much I tried to shake myself off, it refused to move. Though I was in the midst of a crowd or congregation I felt as if I were all by myself. From morning till evening, from evening till morning, so transparent, so tranquil, so majestically above all things were my feelings! Absolutely pure and not a particle of dust! My one thought covered eternity; so calm was the outside world, so oblivious of the existence of other people I was. Like an idiot, like an imbecile, six days and nights thus elapsed when I entered the Shrine with the rest, reciting the Sutras, and happened to raise my head and looked at the verse by Goso. This made me all of a sudden awake from the spell, and the meaning of ‘Who carries this lifeless corpse of yours?’ burst upon me—the question once given by my old master. I felt as if this boundless space itself were broken up into pieces, and the great earth were altogether leveled away. I forgot myself, I forgot the world, it was like one mirror reflecting another. I tried several koan in my mind and found them so transparently clear! I was no more deceived as to the wonderful working of Prajna (transcendental wisdom).” When Kōhō saw his old master later,39 the latter lost no time in asking him, “Who is it that carries this lifeless corpse of yours?” Kōhō burst out a “Katsu!” Thereupon the master took up a stick ready to give him a blow, but the disciple held it back saying, “You cannot give me a blow today.” “Why can’t I?” was the master’s demand. Instead of replying to him, however, Kōhō left the room briskly. The following day the master asked him. “All things return to the One, and where does the One return to?” “The dog is lapping the boiling water in the cauldron.” “Where did you get this nonsense?” reprimanded the master. “You had better ask yourself,” promptly came the response. The master rested well satisfied.

Hakuin (1683–1768)⁴⁰ is another of those masters who have put down their first Zen experience in writing, and we read in his book entitled Orategama the following account:

When I was twenty-four years old, I stayed at the Eigan Monastery, of Echigo. [“Jōshū’s Mu” being my theme at the time] I assiduously applied myself to it. I did not sleep days and nights, forgot both eating and lying down, when quite abruptly a great mental fixation⁴¹ (dayi) took place. I felt as if freezing in an ice-field extending thousands of miles, and within myself there was a sense of utmost transparency. There was no going forward, no slipping backward; I was like an idiot, like an imbecile, and there was nothing but “Jōshū’s Mu.” Though I attended the lectures by the master, they sounded like a discussion going on somewhere in a distant hall, many yards away. Sometimes my sensation was that of one flying in the air. Several days passed in this state, when one evening a temple-bell struck which upset the whole thing. It was like smashing an ice-basin, or pulling down a house made of jade. When I suddenly awoke again, I found that I myself was Gantō42 (Yantou) the old master, and that all through the shifting changes of time not a bit [of my personality] was lost. Whatever doubts and indecisions I had before were completely dissolved like a piece of thawing ice. I called out loudly, “How wondrous! how wondrous! There is no birth-and-death from which one has to escape, nor is there any supreme knowledge (Bodhi) after which one has to strive. All the complications⁴³ past and present, numbering one thousand seven hundred, are not worth the trouble of even describing them.”

The case of Bukkō (Foguang) the National Teacher⁴⁴ was more extraordinary than that of Hakuin, and fortunately in this case, too, we have his own recording of it in detail. “When I was fourteen,” writes Bukkō,

I went up to Kinzan. When seventeen I made up my mind to study Buddhism and began to unravel the mysteries of “Jōshū’s Mu.” I expected to finish the matter within one year, but I did not come to any understanding of it after all. Another year passed without much avail, and three more years, also finding myself with no progress. In the fifth or sixth year, while no special change came over me, the “Mu” became so inseparably attached to me that I could not get away from it even while asleep. This whole universe seemed to be nothing but the “Mu” itself. In the meantime I was told by an old monk to set it aside for a while and see how things would go with me. According to this advice, I dropped the matter altogether and sat quietly. But owing to the fact that the “Mu” had been with me so long, I could in no way shake it off however much I tried. When I was sitting, I forgot that I was sitting; nor was I conscious of my own body. Nothing but a sense of utter blankness prevailed. Half a year thus passed. Like a bird escaped from its cage, my mind, my consciousness moved about [without restraint] sometimes eastward, sometimes westward, sometimes northward or southward. Sitting⁴⁵ through two days in succession, or through one day and night I did not feel any fatigue.

At the time there were about nine hundred monks residing in the monastery, among whom there were many devoted students of Zen. One day while sitting, I felt as if my mind and my body were separated from each other and lost the chance of getting back together. All the monks about me thought that I was quite dead, but an old monk among them said that I was frozen to a state of immovability while absorbed in deep meditation, and that if I were covered up with warm clothing, I should by myself come to my senses. This proved true, for I finally awoke from it; and when I asked the monks near my seat how long I had been in that condition, they told me it was one day and night.

After this, I still kept up my practice of sitting. I could now sleep a little. When I closed my eyes, a broad expanse of emptiness presented itself before them, which then assumed the form of a farmyard. Through this piece of land I walked and walked until I got thoroughly familiar with the ground. But as soon as my eyes were opened, the vision altogether disappeared. One night sitting far into the night I kept my eyes open and was aware of my sitting up in my seat. All of a sudden the sound of striking the board in front of the head-monk’s room reached my ear, which at once revealed to me the “original man” in full. There was then no more of that vision which appeared at the closing of my eyes. Hastily I came down from the seat and ran out into the moonlit night and went up to the garden house called Ganki, where looking up to the sky I laughed loudly, “Oh, how great is the Dharmakaya! Oh, how great and immense for evermore!”

Thence my joy knew no bounds. I could not quietly sit in the Meditation Hall; I went about with no special purpose in the mountains walking this way and that. I thought of the sun and the moon traversing in a day through a space 4,000,000,000 miles wide. “My present abode is in China,” I reflected then, “And they say the district of Yang is the center of the earth. If so, this place must be 2,000,000,000 miles away from where the sun rises; and how is it that as soon as it comes up, its rays lose no time in striking my face?” I reflected again, “The rays of my own eye must travel just as instantaneously as those of the sun as it reaches the latter; my eyes, my mind, are they not the Dharmakaya itself?” Thinking thus, I felt all the bounds snapped and broken to pieces that had been tying me for so many ages. How many numberless years had I been sitting in the hole of ants! Today even in every pore of my skin there lie all the Buddha-lands in the ten quarters! I thought within myself, “Even if I have no greater satori, I am now all sufficient unto myself.”

Here is the stanza46 composed by Bukkō at the great moment of satori, describing his inner feelings:

With one stroke I have completely smashed the cave of the ghosts;

Behold, there rushes out the iron face of the monster Nata!

Both my ears are as deaf and my tongue is tied;

If thou touchest it idly, the fiery star shoots out!⁴⁷

VIII

These cases will be sufficient to show what mental process one has to go through with before the opening of satori takes place. Of course these are prominent examples and highly accentuated, and every satori is not preceded by such an extraordinary degree of concentration. But an experience more or less like these must be the necessary antecedent to all satori, especially to that which is to be gone through with at the outset of the study. The mirror of mind or the field of consciousness then seems to be so thoroughly swept clean as not to leave a particle of dust on it. When thus all mentation is temporarily suspended, even the consciousness of an effort to keep an idea focused at the center of attention is gone, that is, when, as the Zen followers say, the mind is so completely possessed or identified with its object of thought that even the consciousness of identity is lost as when one mirror reflects another, the subject feels as if living in a crystal palace, all transparent, refreshing, buoyant, and royal. But the end has not yet been reached, this being merely the preliminary condition leading to the consummation called satori. If the mind remains in this state of fixation, there will be no occasion for its being awakened to the truth of Zen. The state of “Great Doubt” (daigi), as it is technically known, is the antecedent. It must be broken up and exploded into the next stage, which is looking into one’s nature or the opening of satori.

The explosion, as it is nothing else, generally takes place when this finely balanced equilibrium tilts for one reason or another. A stone is thrown into a sheet of water in perfect stillness, and the disturbance at once spreads all over the surface. It is somewhat like this. A sound knocks at the gate of consciousness so tightly closed, and it at once reverberates through the entire being of the individual. He is awakened in the most vivid sense of the word. He comes out baptized in the fire of creation. He has seen the work of God in his very workshop. The occasion may not necessarily be the hearing of a temple bell, it may be reading a stanza, or seeing something moving, or the sense of touch irritated, when a most highly accentuated state of concentration bursts out into a satori.

The concentration, however, may not be kept up to such an almost abnormal degree as in the case of Bukkō. It may last just a second or two, and if it is the right kind of concentration and rightly handled by the master, the inevitable opening of the mind will follow. When the monk Jō (Ding) asked Rinzai,48 “What is the ultimate principle of Buddhism?” the master came right down from his seat, took hold of the monk, slapped him with his hand, and pushed him away from him. The monk stood stupefied. A bystander suggested, “Why don’t you make a ‘bow?’” Obeying the order, Jō was about to bow when he abruptly awoke to the truth of Zen. In this case Jō’s self-absorption or concentration did not seemingly last very long, the bowing was the turning point, it broke up the spell and restored him to sense, not to an ordinary sense of awareness, but to the inward consciousness of his own being. Generally we have no records of the inner working prior to a satori, and may pass lightly over the event as a merely happy incident or some intellectual trick having no deeper background. When we read such records, we have to supply from our own experience, whatever this is, all the necessary antecedent conditions for breaking up into a satori.

IX

So far the phenomenon called satori in Zen Buddhism has been treated as constituting the essence of Zen, as the turning point in one’s life which opens the mind to a wider and deeper world, as something to be gleaned even from a most trivial incident of everyday life; and then it was explained how satori is to come out of one’s inner life, and not by any outside help except as merely indicating the way to it. Next I proceeded to describe what a change satori brings in one’s idea of things, that is, how it all upsets the former valuation of things generally, making one stand now entirely on a different footing. For illustrations, some verses were quoted which were composed by the masters at the moment of their attainment of satori. They are mostly descriptive of the feelings they experienced, such as those by Bukkō and Yō Dainen and Engo and others are typical of this class, as they have almost no intellectual elements in them. If one tries to pick up something from these verses by a mere analytical process, one will be greatly disappointed. The psychological side of satori which is minutely narrated by Hakuin and others will be of great interest to those who are desirous of making a psychological inquiry into Zen. Of course these narratives alone will not do, for there are many other things one has to consider in order to study it thoroughly, among which I may mention the general Buddhist attitude toward life and the world and the historical atmosphere in which the students of Zen find themselves.

I wish to close this Essay by making a few general remarks in the way of recapitulation on the Buddhist experience known as satori.

1. People often imagine that the discipline of Zen is to induce a state of self-suggestion through meditation. This is not quite right. As we can see from the various instances above cited, satori does not consist in producing a certain premeditated condition by intensely thinking of it. It is the growing conscious of a new power in the mind, which enables it to judge things from a new point of view. 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 artificially constructed framework once and for all and in re-modeling it on an entirely new basis. The older frame is called “Ignorance” (avidya) and the new one “Enlightenment” (saṃbodhi). It is evident therefore that meditating on a metaphysical or symbolical statement which is a product of our relative consciousness plays no part in Zen, as I have touched on this in the Introduction.

2. Without the attainment of satori no one can enter into the mystery of Zen. It is the sudden flashing of a new truth hitherto altogether undreamed of. It is a sort of mental catastrophe taking place all at once after so much piling of matters intellectual and demonstrative. The piling has reached its limit and the whole edifice has now come to the ground when behold a new heaven is opened to your full survey. Water freezes suddenly when it reaches a certain point, the liquid has turned into a solidity, and it no more flows. Satori comes upon you unawares when you feel you have exhausted your whole being. Religiously this is a new birth, and, morally, the revaluation of one’s relationship to the world. The latter now appears to be dressed in a different garment which covers up all the ugliness of dualism, which is called in Buddhist phraseology delusion (māyā) born of reasoning (tarka) and error (vikalpa).

3. Satori is the raison d’être of Zen, and without which Zen is no Zen. Therefore every contrivance (upāya) disciplinary or doctrinal is directed toward the attainment of satori. Zen masters could not remain patient for satori to come by itself, that is, to come sporadically and at its own pleasure. They earnestly seek out some way to make people deliberately or systematically realize the truth of Zen. Their manifestly enigmatical presentations of it were mostly to create a state of mind in their disciples, which would pave the way to the enlightenment of Zen. All the intellectual demonstrations and exhortatory persuasions so far carried out by most religious and philosophical leaders failed to produce the desired effect. The disciples were led further and further astray. Especially when Buddhism was introduced into China with all its Indian equipments, with its highly metaphysical abstractions, and in a most complicated system of moral discipline, the Chinese were at a loss how to grasp the central point of the doctrine of Buddhism. Daruma, Enō, Baso, and other masters noticed the fact. The natural outcome was the proclamation of Zen, satori was placed above Sutra reading and scholarly discussion of the Shastras, and it came to be identified with Zen. Zen therefore without satori is like pepper without its pungency. But at the same time we must not forget that there is such a thing as too much satori, which is indeed to be detested.

4. This emphasizing in Zen of satori above everything else makes the fact quite significant that Zen is not a system of dhyana as practiced in India and by other schools of Buddhism than the Zen. By dhyana is understood popularly a kind of meditation or contemplation, that is, the fixing of thought, especially in Mahayana Buddhism, on the doctrine of emptiness (sunyata). When the mind is so trained as to be able to realize the 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 clean from the field of consciousness which is now like a sky devoid of every speck of cloud, a mere broad expanse of blue, dhyana is said to have reached its perfection. This may be called ecstasy or trance, but it is not Zen. In Zen there must be a satori; there must be a general mental upheaval which destroys the old accumulations of intellectuality and lays down a foundation for a new faith; there must be the awakening of a new sense which will review the old things from an angle of perception entirely and most refreshingly new. In dhyana there are none of these things, for it is merely a quieting exercise of the mind. As such it has doubtless its own merits, but Zen ought not to be identified with such dhyanas. The Buddha therefore got dissatisfied with his two Sankhya teachers, in whose teaching the meditations were so many stages of self-abstraction or thought-annihilation.

5. Satori is not seeing God as he is, as may be contended by some Christian mystics. Zen has from the very beginning made clear its principal thesis, which is to see into the work of creation and not interview the creator himself. The latter may be found then busy molding his universe, but Zen can go along with its own work even when he is not found there. It is not depending on his support. When it grasps the reason of living a life, it is satisfied. Hōen, of Gosozan, used to produce his own hand and asked his disciples why it is called a hand. When one knows the reason, there is satori and one has Zen. Whereas, with the God of mysticism there is the grasping of a definite object, and when you have God, what is not God is excluded. This is self-limiting. Zen wants absolute freedom, even from God. “No abiding place” means that; “Cleanse your mouth even 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 knows the incompleteness of a name. Therefore, when Yakusan (Yaoshan) was asked to give a lecture, he did not say a word, but instead came down from the pulpit and went off to his own room. Hyakujō (Baizhang) merely walked forward a few steps, stood still, and opened his arms—which was his exposition of the great principle of Buddhism.49

6. Satori is the most intimate individual experience and therefore cannot be expressed in words or described in any manner. All that one can do in the way of communicating the experience to others is to suggest or indicate, and this only tentatively. The one who has had it understands readily enough when such indications are given, but when we try to have a glimpse of it through the indices given we utterly fail. We are then like the man who says that he loves the most beautiful woman in the world and yet who knows nothing of her pedigree or social position, of her personal name or family name, knows nothing of her individuality physical as well as moral. We are again like the man who puts up a staircase in a place where four crossroads meet, to mount up thereby into the upper story of a mansion, and yet who knows not just where that mansion is, in the East or West, in the North or South. The Buddha was quite to the point when he thus derided all those philosophers and vain talkers of his day, who merely dealt in abstractions, empty hearsay, and fruitless indications. Zen therefore wants us to build the staircase right at the front of the very palace into whose upper story we are to mount up. When we can say, “This is the very personality, this is the very house,” we have the satori interviewed face to face and realized by oneself. (Diṭṭhe va dhamme sayaṁ abhiññā sacchikatvā.)

7. Satori is not a morbid state of mind, a fit subject for abnormal psychology. If anything, it is a perfectly normal state of mind. When I speak of a mental upheaval, one may be led to consider Zen something to be shunned by ordinary people. This is a mistaken view of Zen, unfortunately often held by prejudiced critics. As Nansen (Nanquan) declared, it is your “everyday thought.” When later a monk asked a master⁵⁰ what was meant by “everyday thought,” he said,

Drinking tea, eating rice,

I pass my time as it comes;

Looking down at the stream, looking up at the mountains,

How serene and relaxed I feel indeed!⁵¹

It all depends upon the adjustment of the hinge whether the door opens in or out. Even in the twinkling of an eye, the whole affair is changed, and you have Zen, and you are as perfect and normal as ever. More than that, you have in the meantime acquired something altogether new. All your mental activities are now working to a different key, which is more satisfying, more peaceful, and fuller of joy than anything you ever had. The tone of your life is altered. There is something rejuvenating in it. The spring flowers look prettier, and the mountain stream runs cooler and more transparent. The subjective revolution that brings out this state of things cannot be called abnormal. When life becomes more enjoyable and its expanse is as broad as the universe itself, there must be something in satori quite healthy and worth one’s striving after its attainment.

8. We are supposedly living in the same world, but who can tell the thing we popularly call a stone lying before this window is the same thing to all of us? According to the way we look at it, to some the stone ceases to be a stone, while to others it forever remains a worthless specimen of geological product. And this initial divergence of views calls forth an endless series of divergencies later in our moral and spiritual lives. Just a little twisting as it were in our modes of thinking and yet what a world of difference will grow up eventually between one another! So with Zen, satori is this twisting or rather screwing, not in the wrong way, but in a deeper and fuller sense, and the result is the revelation of a world of entirely new values.

Again, you and I sip a cup of tea. The act is apparently alike, but who can tell what a wide gap there is subjectively between you and me? In your drinking there may be no Zen while mine is brimful of it. The reason is, the one moves in the logical circle and the other is out of it; that is to say, in one case rigid rules of intellection so called are asserting themselves, and the actor even when acting is unable to unfetter himself from these intellectual bonds; while in the other case the subject has struck a new path and is not at all conscious of the duality of his act, in him life is not split into object and subject or into acting and acted. The drinking at the moment to him means the whole fact, the whole world. Zen lives and is therefore free, whereas our “ordinary” life is in bondage; satori is the first step to freedom.

9. Satori is Enlightenment (saṃbodhi). As long as Buddhism is the doctrine of Enlightenment as we all know from its earliest literature as well as from its later one, and as long as Zen asserts satori to be its culmination, satori must be said to represent the very spirit of the Buddhist teaching. When it announces itself to be the transmission of the Buddha-citta (foxin) not dependent upon the logical and discursive exposition in the canonical writings, either Hinayana or Mahayana, it is by no means exaggerating its fundamental characteristic as distinguished from the other schools of Buddhism that have grown up in Japan and China. Whatever this may be, there is no doubt that Zen is one of the most precious and in many respects the most remarkable spiritual possessions bequeathed to Eastern people. Even when it is considered the Buddhist form of speculative mysticism not unknown to the West in the philosophy of Plotinus, Eckhart, and their followers, its complete literature alone since the sixth patriarch, Enō (Huineng, 637–713), so well preserved, is worth the serious study of scholars and truth-seekers. And then the whole body of the koans systematically grading the progress of the spiritual awakening is the wonderful treasure in the hands of the Zen monks in Japan at present.