The Satori Experience ~ ZEN AND JAPANESE BUDDHISM by DT Suzuki

CHAPTER IV - THE SATORI EXPERIENCE

[...] The element in Zen that has achieved such an important influence in the molding of Japanese life is what is known as "satori". Satori constitutes the essence of Zen, for where there is no satori there cannot be any form of Zen. Zen resolves around this axial experience.

What then is the satori-experience which has such a weight significance in Zen and char...acterized the whole trend of Japanese culture? Satori is generally translated as "enlightenment" but "awakening" may be a better term. It is both noetic and affective. It is in fact to make an opening to our most fundamental mental activity -the activity which has not yet differentiated itself into anything to be definitively called this or that. When satori is experienced, something far more basic than either intellect or feeling is brought forward into the field of consciousness, though not in its relative sense. The psychologist has not yet given it any specific name, for this event transcends the psychology whose study does not go beyond what can be intellectually handled or scientifically measured. If I say that satori is the awakening of consciousness from the darkness of blind strivings, the psychologist will not understand it.
But as long as satori explores and reveals the deepest and darkest recesses of consciousness which have hitherto escaped our ordinary inspections or introspections, it is "enlightenment". The reason why "awakening" is more appropriate than "enlightenment" to describe the nature of satori-experience, is that while enlightenment is a static state of consciousness, awakening is a process which instantly brightens up the field of consciousness like a flash or lightning, though this does not mean that the consciousness thus once illuminated goes back to its former drabness. If this is the case it will be like the door which closes as soon as it opens. The satori-experience is not of this kind. The door once opened remains open. The vista revealed to the person will not vanish away. But as it does not belong in the category of relativity, it is not at all communicable in any ordinary logical way.
In this connection, Sir Charles quotes William James: "This incommunicableness of the transport is the keynote of all mysticism". Satori is no doubt incommunicable, but it is not any sort of transport. If it is, it will be a mere psychological phenomenon and cannot have any deeper import. But it really is what stands at the basis of every philosophical system. It thus has a metaphysical connotation. "Satoru", which is the verbal form of "satori", is synonymous with "sameru", which means "to wake" from sleep or torpor. Satori in this sense is the act of awakening itself and not the state of consciousness satori makes one acquainted with. As to incommunicableness, nothing that enters into the very constitution of our being can be transmitted to others -which means that what is at all communicable is the result of intellection or conceptualization. We humans all aspire perfect communication, but every form of communication implies some kind of medium. And as soon as we appeal to a medium the original experience is lost or at least loses its personal value. The retention of this value, which makes up the reality or vitality or intimacy of the experience, is possible only where the recipient himself has the same experience. In fact, whatever communication at all effective takes place only between minds that share the same experience. Love is possible only among those who already have the sense for romance. Satori is not a feeling, but it has the quality of incommunicableness in the sense that where there is no mentality there is no understanding. Sir Charles is right when he goes on to say: "One gathers that satori is not a mystery or secret or anything intellectual which can be imparted. It is a new view of life and of the universe which must be felt" [...]

[from the book ZEN AND JAPANESE BUDDHISM by Daisetz T Suzuki]

a cup of tea, a cup of enlightenment

Ένας μοναχός κάποτε ρώτησε τον Κινέζο Ζεν Μάστερ Zhaozhou, 
"Τι είναι Βούδδας;" 
ο Zhaozhou απάντησε, "Πάνε να πιεις τσάι!"
Ο μοναχός μετά ρώτησε "Τι είναι Ντάρμα;"
ο Ζhaozhou απάντησε, "Πάνε να πιεις τσάι!" 
Ο μοναχός επέμενε "Τι είναι Σάνγκα;" 
ο Zhaozhou είπε πάλι, "Πάνε να πιεις τσάι!"

Στη Σχολή Komyo Reiki Kai εκτιμούμε πολύ την πρακτική "Πάνε να πιεις τσάι!". 
Ο Ιναμότο σενσέι συγκεκριμένα λέει: "Ένα φλυτζάνι τσάι, ένα φλυτζάνι φώτιση". 

A monk once asked the Chinese Zen Master Zhaozhou

"What is Buddha?" 

Zhazhou replied "Go drink tea!"

The monk then asked "What is dharma?"

Zhaozhou replied" "Go drink tea!"

The monk persisted "What is Sangha?"

Zhaozhou again replied "Go drink tea!"

In Komyo Reiki Kai we really appreciate the practice of "Go drink tea!"

As Inamoto sensei says: "A cup of tea, a cup of enlightenment".

About Ki and the Japanese Culture

The Chinese, the Japanese and other Asians have long believed that there is a special energy that flows through the human body from the outside, or from the cosmos, and that this energy is the provider of life and health. In fact, it seems that many if not most ancient cultures in the West as well had exactly the same belief: it may have been expressed in different terms, but it referred to the same thing. It was not until the advent of the scientific age, along with Christianity, that Westerners relegated this belief to the status of utter nonsense at the best and a dangerous pagan superstition at worst.

When Christianity and Western science reached Asia, Asians accepted the science but rejected Christianity (they already had their own much older and more profound religions), but they did not renounce their belief in cosmic energy as the animator of all life. As far as they were concerned, the existence of cosmic energy was obvious. They also had proven more than 2.000 years earlier, in such practices as acupuncture and in a variety of health and martial arts, that some kind of special energy ran through the body. And the interest in this area has not waned in Asia; in the 1980s the Chinese government began a major research effort in an attempt to isolate and understand this power using scientific methods.

The Japanese call this special energy "ki", which is translated variously as "energy", "spirit", "mind" and "cosmic breath". Ki is one of the syllables in aikido, a popular form of martial arts, and in that word ki refers to using this special energy to stop or overcome an opponent. Ki also occurs in kiai (kee-aye) which means "shout", "yell" or "cry" and which is what Japanese kendo practitioners do when they attact an opponent with they bamboo swords, and what Japanese athletes and businessmen do when they want to boost their energy, spirit and drive.

A kiai can be a slogan, a word, or a nonsensical sound. The point is that people can arouse themselves to achieve extraordinary feats of strength, speed and courage by shouting.

In the 1960s and 1970s, many Japanese corporations adopted the practice of kiai into their recruit training programs. Newly hired recruits sent to military-type training camps were required to spend time every day shouting as loud as they could -in some cases while standing in front of train stations where commuters were constantly coming and going. In later years, other companies began sponsoring programs that included a combination of meditation, kiai and dousing with cold water during frigid weather -for older managers who wanted to revitalize themselves.

Regardless of how such practices might sound to the rational and scientifically inclined Westerner, they do seem to work -anyone who has served in the marines has witnessed the effects of shouting. The reason these tactics have not been adopted wholesale by Western companies, as so many other Japanese management techniques have been, is apparently because Westerners look upon such behavior as beneath their dignity.

I will not make any predictions about Western companies integrating kiai into their training programs anytime soon, but the concept of ki and of its more astounding uses are on their way to being accepted universally. Since the mid-1980s, a growing number of Japan's best-known and most influential business tycoons have been flocking to a ki master to learn how to make "the force" work for them. Also, Japan's prestigious Ministry of International Trade and Industry is working with the Tokyo University of Electro-Communications to try to find out what ki is and how to harness it, and the Sony Corporation also has a scientific team studying the phenomenon of ki.

According to the testimony of several top-level executives in internationally famous companies, including Sony and Sega Enterprises, ki has cured ailments, and it has made people more youthful and given them extraordinary energy and insight into managing their companies. With that kind of endorsement, and with the potential that ki offers mankind, no one will be able to afford to ignore it if it should prove to be real.

by Boye Lafayette De Mente

"Japan's Cultural Code Words"