The Thing About Enlightenment...

 

Okay, I just had a little ‘satori’ about satori.

I could be wrong, but it often seems to me that many Zen practitioners have an idea that “enlightenment” is some kind of special, non-ordinary state of realization in which the one who experiences it is sort of ‘swept away’ and is never the same afterward; who becomes a different person from then on.

I don’t think that’s a very accurate notion, and the reason that I think that is because I’ve been watching Brad Warner’s little dharma-talk videos, almost one a day— like a Zen vitamin supplement— and he talks about enlightenment a lot, with a very pragmatic and no-nonsense perspective.

So this morning, something he said, which didn’t have much to do with his topic (on the difference between “Don’t Know Mind” and “No Mind”) made me sit up and make a connection which caused me to say “Aha!”. Then, I remembered that when I was teaching Karate, I often referred to what I called “The ‘Aha!’ Moment” and I would try many different methods to spark that moment in my students’ minds. It was unmistakable when it happened, and it is also a very familiar and obvious occurrence to everyone.

My “Aha!” moment was simply this: any and all moments like this— moments when a person suddenly ‘gets it’— are worthy of being called enlightenment, or satori, or realization. I think that’s all the Zen masters mean when they talk about this experience. Zen practice is simply the ongoing endeavor to make as much room as possible in our heart/mind/body for such moments to occur.

Enlightenment is not a steady state sort of condition. Any time a person says “Oh, that’s what that is!” or “Wow, now I get it!” or “Aha!” in a moment of sudden comprehension or delight— that’s enlightenment. That’s it. Nothing more out-of-the-ordinary than that. Everyday, plain, familiar, and unexceptionable. (I also noticed the prevalence of the exclamation “Hah!” in the Zen stories, which I take to be “Aha!” in a Zen accent.)

So, the gist of my little satori was this:

So that’s what they mean when they say “Everyone is already enlightened”!

We all know those kinds of moments. We’ve all had them. The only thing about Zen practice that’s any different from anyone else’s mundane, unremarkable lives, is that Zen pays attention to these moments; it considers them worthy and valuable in the grand scheme of things.

Zen recognizes these “Aha!” moments; writes stories about them; gives advice about how to make enough internal elbow-room to enable such moments to occur more easily and frequently.

Zen practitioners might be called stalkers of the ‘Aha! Moment,’ which would make their meditation cushions equivalent (sort of) to a blind deep in the woods or up in a tree, where they wait patiently and silently for the Wild Aha! to wander near, all unsuspecting. Extending this already silly analogy, we might liken the Precepts to trap cameras we carefully set out, year-round, beside likely trails and water-holes, to mark the comings and goings of these shy creatures. Zen study could be compared to a sketch map we make, showing the dirt access roads that lead to the Aha!’s home range, and the meadows where we will camp in order to get up early, hoping to see these marvelous creatures with our very own eyes.