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CHAPTER EIGHT
SATORI
THERE can be no Zen without satori. For Zen is satori, and all the talk about Zen is only about it. As a Master said: "Satori is the measure of Zen," and it is, of course, the measure of Buddhism. For Buddhism springs from the Buddha's satori, or Enlightenment, and has no meaning without it. The koan, the mondo, the innen or “'incidents", all these are incidental to Zen and unnecessary to it. But satori is the goal, the meaning and the heart of Zen. We live in a world of discrimination; satori is the world of non-discrimination, non-differentiation, of two-ness become one-ness and yet equally seen as two. Satori is the world of perpetual now and here and this, of absolute, unimpeded flow. How, then, to build a bridge between these two apparently opposing worlds?
The intellect will go so far and no further. We may learn more and more about Zen; we may pile up simile, analogy and story mountains-high, but still we are only learning about it and about". We are not experiencing Zen. I touch or see or taste; I feel, whether joy or fear; I KNOW by the intuition--this is experience. I know that I feel, I say that I know, I think that I hear-all this is mediate, second-hand experience. I hold up a finger; this is Zen. I say that I hold up a finger; the Zen has fled. How to keep hold of this living, flowing, im-mediate experience, this sense of perpetual Now?
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