Satori is at the heart of Zen practice. This is the enlightenment experience, the flash of truth revealed that every Zen aspirant seeks. It is a huge life-changing event. Like Zen itself, it is something that you can read about, but you can never really understand until you experience it.
Western psychologists have tried to deconstruct satori and may be onto something, but only in a rather dry, clinical sort of way. Satori has been described as the rare moment when the subconscious mind breaks through the chatter of the conscious mind. Because we are so used to all that chatter, such an intrusion can be both jarring and memorable. This is particularly true when the subconscious presents us with a different view of a problem, a view that is a solution or at least leads to one.
A non-Zen example, if anything in life can be called "non-Zen", is found in a story about Archimedes. He had been ordered by King Hiero of Syracuse to discover if the king's new gold crown was a fake, and the goldsmith had made off with the precious metal. As Archimedes sat down in his brimming bathtub, some water was displaced and sloshed over the side. Archimedes immediately saw the answer to his problem. The sage is said to have run naked through the streets of Syracuse toward the palace shouting "Eureka!" ("I have found it."). This was certainly a satori moment, and it shows how powerful such an experience can be, especially when it offers the solution to a problem. By the way, streaking after satori is neither required nor recommended.
For most people, such a subconscious intrusion is simply explained as an odd thought or weird feeling, and is quickly dismissed. One example of this might be the deja-vu experience, that creepy feeling that we have been here before, done this before, or had this conversation before. If this is a similar mechanism involving the subconscious rising to the surface, then satori -like events may be a far more common experience than we usually think, but go largely unnoticed by most people.
I promised more about my experiences, so this is a good time to relate my first satori. It happened when I was about three years old (I was a pretty trippy kid, even then). My parents gave me a Smokey the Bear T-shirt, complete with the big hairy guy in his jeans and ranger hat on the front. On either side of the ursine fire fighter were two "junior forest rangers", a boy and a girl. In the image, each was wearing a smaller version my shirt. When I looked really closely, I could even see the same image reproduced again much smaller still, though it was only a few blobs of color at this level. As I stared at this shirt, I imagined following the decreasing images down, down, down. Suddenly a really odd feeling came over me. For a moment it felt like I was removed from this world. The whole experience lasted just seconds, but was so powerful the details were burned into my brain forever. Much later in life I looked back to that experience and I realized it was a satori, or at least a reasonable facsimile. Was I changed by the experience? I doubt it, since being only three years old there wasn't much to change yet.
Another time when I had this experience I was taught a valuable lesson. I was walking back to my college dormitory after shopping, and was contemplating some question about spiritual life. Suddenly, I had a powerful flash about how my life should be lived. I said to myself, "That's the secret! That's all anybody needs to do!" Just then a driver behind me honked somebody off. I spun around automatically to see if I was in danger, and I FORGOT WHAT THE SECRET OF LIFE WAS! Just like that, everything was gone. I figuratively slapped my forehead and rued that I could have been the big guru with all the chelas (disciples) dancing around me. Wow! What a first-class ticket ego trip I was on. Believers in deities that control our destiny might reflect that God or somebody caused that driver to honk just to keep me out of trouble. I may have lost the Secret of Life, but learned a very important lesson about my ego and how spiritual experiences can be a subtle trap. This cautionary observation is the last thing I will say about my own satori experiences, and is really the only reason I share the story at all. Back now to at least an attempt at modesty.
Rinzai Zen students are put into a sort of spiritual pressure cooker by their roshi through koan study. The koan is usually a quirky riddle that has no logical answer. The students will keep trying various rational solutions, all of which are refused by their teacher until a breakthrough into a moment of spontaneous thought occurs. After years of experience the roshi will know by the student's demeanor if a satori has happened, and then any answer the student gives will probably do. As a reward the student gets an even harder koan in sort of a spiritual Super Mario Brothers game, and later still more until the master judges that the student is enlightened.
The most famous koan is "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" You might think the answer to that chestnut would be well known after a thousand years of use, but there is no stock answer and there never will be. The solution IS the satori that comes with the effort a student pours into solving the koan.
Of course roshis are not bound to the classic koans, and can make up new questions for their students to solve. Such was the case with my roshi, though I suspect the question he asked me might have been one he used frequently with new students.
Dialogs with Zen masters can be as obtuse and frustrating as their koans, as shown in many Zen stories. For example:
A monk had just joined the order, and came to the Master Joshu. "I have just entered the brotherhood and am anxious to learn the first principle of Zen," the novice stated. "Will you teach me?"
Joshu inquired, "Have you eaten your supper?" When the monk answered in the affirmative, the master continued, "Now wash your bowl."
Just in case you missed the meaning here, Joshu could have been telling the young novice to clear his mind. Or he could have been saying that the first principal of Zen is just being.
So have a bowl of tea while you contemplate that.
