Some Philosophy
Satori, or Acquiring a New Viewpoint
“The object of Zen discipline consists in acquiring a new viewpoint for looking into the essence of things.”
At the core of Zen and the notion of Satori is the notion that all things can be apprehended differently depending on perspective – but within the framework of Zen, that perspective takes on a wholly unique life of its own.
The “Zen discipline” that Suzuki refers to attempts to expose, to those who follow it, the perennial illogicality of the world at large. That inherently all things are true, false, real, not real, imagined and un-imagined, etc. Within this framework we arrive at the definition of Satori, which in and of itself is redefined each and every time it is experienced.
Suzuki again:
If you have been in the habit of thinking logically according to the rules of dualism, rid yourself of it and you may come around somewhat to the viewpoint of Zen. You and I are supposedly living in the same world, but who can tell that the thing we popularly call a stone that is lying before my window is the same to both of us? You and I sip a cup of tea. That act is apparently alike to us both, but who can tell what a wide gap there is subjectively between your drinking and my drinking? In your drinking there may be no Zen, while mine is brim-full of it. Though there is in fact nothing new in the so-called new viewpoint of Zen, the term “new” is convenient to express the Zen way of viewing the world, but its use here is in condescension on the part of Zen.
This acquiring of a new viewpoint is called satori, and its verm form is satoru. Without it there is no Zen, for the life of Zen begins with the “opening of satori“. Satori may be defined as intuitive looking-into, in contradistinction to intellectual and logical understanding. Whatever the definition, satori means the unfolding of a new world hitherto un-perceived in the confusion of a dualistic mind.
Satori is in a sense the fully realized moment of witness to the Truth, the true Self’s affirmative apprehension of That Which Is. In Zen, one apprehends Satori by an opening of the mind through transcendence of “logic,” as Satori is the collapse of the dualistic illusion.
Whereas Traditional civilization was not wholly committed to that dualism but instead was interested in overcoming it, presently, dualism has become the thesis of Modernity. With the rise of the Enlightenment and the Renaissance, Man found himself equally at odds with the condition of his soul and his relationship with his creator, and he began to systematize his notion of duality so as to give it ultimate credence. Again, as so many Perenialists and non-Perenialists have pointed out, Darwinism, the rejection of Heliocentricity, the collapse of traditional Western Church institutions, the Industrial Revolution, and the Urbanization of Europe, were not so much conscious choices/creations of Modern Man but reflections of the state of his Soul. It is only natural, therefore, that the philosophical discussion of the day would be equally reflective of Man’s condition at that time. There is no individual who stands more towering in the West’s movement towards a full-fledged dualistic reality than Rene Descartes.
Descartes is responsible for defining in absolute terms the credo of Modernity, conceiving a reality in complete rejection of the Traditional World known as bifurcation, or radical dualism.
Yet Descartes was only stating that which Modern Man desperately wanted to hear: That the world around him was separate from himself and devoid of any quality. In so doing, Descartes loosed the chains on the evil in Man’s heart; Man no longer needed to view the realm in which he lived as either divine or intrinsically in cohesion with his being. As Gilbert Durand has stated, “Dualism is the great ‘schizomorphic’ structure of Western Intelligence.” We might go one step further; it is not just the structure of Western Intelligence, but as well the structure of Western Intelligencia. The institutions propelling Western intellectual reality, its universities, its economy, and its governments, are completely built upon this radical dualism. The ramification of this turn of events is the state of Modern Man’s soul, on display in his methods of war and the condition of his natural environment
D.T. Suzuki wrote the introduction to Eugene Herrigel’s Zen in the Art of Archery, in which he sumarized his view of what the relationship between Zen and the mind/body/spirit complex seems to be:
In the case of archery, the hitter and the hit are no longer two opposing objects, but are one reality. The archer ceases to be conscious of himself as the one who is engaged in hitting the bull’s-eye which confronts him. This state of unconsciousness is realized only when, completely empty and rid of the self, he becomes one with the perfecting of his technical skill… When this is attained, Man thinks yet he does not think.
Ultimately, one who has experienced or is exeriencing satori is an absolute affirmation of life itself, and she or he cherishes life. Zen is no philosophy of nihilism, but instead exemplifies satori as a seminal path to the illogical beauty of the natural world.
written by [ Will Donovan ]The Dao that can be experienced is not true;
The world that can be constructed is not true.
The Dao manifests all that happens and may happen;
The world represents all that exists and may exist.
-Dao De Jing
