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CHAPTER NINE
THE RESULTS OF SATORI
THE effect of Zen on the arts and culture of China and Japan has already been described; we have now to consider the effects on the man. The effects are, of course, proportionate to the strength of the cause, that is, the degree of satori achieved, for the law of Karma, causeeffect, operates unceasingly.
Some who achieve satori express their experience in a ge (gatha), a poem whose content varies as widely as the "experience" of the poet. It must be remembered that poetry to the Japanese, and to the Chinese before them, is a far more common and far more reverenced mode of expression than with any race in the West. And just as the Abbot of the great Shokoku-ji in Kyoto was able to paint for me a picture of Bodhidharma almost out of hand, so many a student of Zen, on attaining a glimpse of satori, was able to express himself in excellent verse.
A monk called Yenju heard a bundle of fuel drop, and attained satori. At once he composed, "Something dropped! It is no other thing; Right and left there is nothing earthy. Rivers and mountains and the great earth, Revealed in them all is the Body of the Dharmaraja.”l This at least makes sense, but the following is entirely
"Zen";
1 Lit.: King of the Dharma, the Buddha.
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