Essays in Zen Buddhism

by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki

ON SATORI—THE REVELATION OF A NEW TRUTH IN ZEN BUDDHISM

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 endeavour 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”[5.1] (wu in Chinese). It is really another name for Enlightenment (anuttara-samyak-saṁbodhi), which is the word used by the Buddha and his Indian followers ever since his realisation 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 emphasise 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 (kai wu in Chinese).[5.2]

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 harmonised 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 realised 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 pale 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,”[5.3] or “the removing of the bar,”[5.4] or “the brightening up of the mind-works.”[5.5] 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 Bodhi-Dharma (Bodai-daruma in Japanese, P‘u-ti Ta-mo 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”[5.6] 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, Yeno (Hui-nêng), was distinguished because of his upholding the satori aspect of dhyana against the mere mental tranquillisation of the Northern School of Zen under the leadership of Jinshu (Shên-hsiu). Baso (Ma-tsu), Obaku (Huan-po), Rinzai (Lin-chi), and all the other stars illuminating the early days of Zen in the T‘ang dynasty were advocates of satori. Their life-activities were unceasingly directed towards the advancement of this; and as one can readily recognise, they so differed from those merely absorbed in contemplation or the practising 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 practise, 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 Shoshitsu (that is, by Bodhi-Dharma, 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 T‘ang 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,”[5.7] discusses the question of Chien-hsing[f104] 見性 or satori, which, according to the author constitutes the essence of Zen Buddhism. The following passages are extracts.