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 a notion 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 becomes a different person from then on—never being the same after this pivotal and never-to-be-repeated moment.

I don’t think that’s a very accurate idea, 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.

Something he said one time, although it didn’t have much to do with his topic, (which was the difference between “Don’t Know Mind” and “No Mind”) made me sit up and say, “Aha!”

In that moment, I remembered that when I used to teach Karate, I often referred to what I called “The ‘Aha!’ Moment.”  I would try many different methods to spark that moment in my students’ minds. It was unmistakable when it happened, and it was also a very familiar and obvious occurrence to all my students.

My own “Aha!” moment this time 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 that 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 in a moment of sudden comprehension or delight, “Oh, that’s what that is!” or “Wow, now I get it!” or “Aha!” — that’s enlightenment! That’s it. Nothing more out-of-the-ordinary than that. Enlightenment is just an everyday, plain, familiar, and unexceptionable sort of thing.

(I also noticed the prevalence of the exclamation “Hah!” in the Zen stories, which I take to be “Aha!” in a Zen accent.)

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 which is any different from anyone else’s mundane, unremarkable lives, is that Zen pays attention to these moments; considering them worthy and valuable in the grand scheme of things.

Zen teachers recognize these “Aha!” moments; they write stories about them; they give their students advice about how to make enough internal elbow-room to enable such moments to occur more easily and frequently. That’s also why they bonk their students on the noggin to try and joggle their brains into a roomier arrangement.

So:

 

We might call Zen practitioners

“Stalkers of the ‘Aha! Moment” —

our meditation cushions the equivalent (sort of)

of a blind deep in the woods

or a stand hidden up in a tree,

where we 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 catch the comings and goings of these shy creatures.

 

We might compare Zen study to a home-made sketch map

which traces the dirt roads; the watersheds; the high-meadow campsites

where we go to lurk at dawn or dusk, watching and waiting.

 

Just hanging around waiting for our quarry—

The Wild Aha Moment—

to step warily out of the trees into our view.