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ZEN BUDDHISM
is not the whole by any means."'1 Dr. Pratt, who also studied for a while with Dr. Suzuki, says, "That there are all kinds and degrees of satori can, indeed, hardly be questioned. It is a relative term, and many a good Zen scholar is uncertain whether he has had it or not. When the experience comes in its most intense form it is, indeed, unmistakable, but this intense experience is rare in modern Japan, just as ecstasy is rare in Christendom, and samadhi in India." Dr. Pratt was an earnest student of Buddhism in Japan, and the following passage, therefore, must be taken seriously. "It is said that some have experienced satori as many as eighteen times (for it is, of course, a temporary and passing state); but most of those you question will say that they are not sure they have ever attained it, though they have approximated it two or three times.”2 In considering these modest opinions, however, it is to be hoped that the learned enquirer bore in mind the amazing self-abnegation of the Japanese, and the fact that it is often said that he who claims to have had satori has not in fact had true satori, for there is still a self to make this foolish claim. “He who knows does not speak; he who speaks does not know."
But that satori in an advanced form is quite rare seems beyond question. Dr. Bucke himself says that the better known members of the group of those whose spiritual eyes have been opened could be collected in a modern drawing-room, but he is speaking of the very top flight of illuminati. Dr. Jung says much the same thing. This is a road, he says, that has been trodden only by a few of our 1 Impressions of Mahayana Buddhism, p. 166. 2 The Pilgrimage of Buddhism, p. 641. 3 Cosmic Consciousness, p. 9.
