Zen enlightenment

[JMA]

So my question was if there is evidence that this ASC exists. I hope you will not take this sentence of mine as an insult, but after having studied much of the Catholic tradition about miracles and apparitions I have become very skeptic about religion.

There is research about that in the field of psychology of religion. Well, there is some evidence for this ASC, but are they good evidence? I don't really know... Skeptic thinks most of the time that this ASC is just like (or is just) relaxation. Others thinks it's a totally distinct ASC...

Well, I don't know who's wrong or right about that...

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Kevin_Lowe wrote:
" Just a quick contribution .. "
Firstly, the brain seizure known as "enlightenment" is not a gateway to Truth or anything like that. It's just a brain state which is different, although it's apparently fun and happy-making and comes as a great relief to people whose habits of mind make them unhappy "

So I can call falling in love as a kind of enlightenment ? It suits your description, also getting a good job and the good emotion associated to its feelings suites your description, can I call this emotion as a kind of Enlightenment ??

You can't run descriptions backwards like that. If I say that rasperries are red, you can't assume that I also meant to say that all red things are raspberries.

If you want a stereotypically western perspective on enlightenment, I think Battle for the Mind by Sargant is very good. He discusses what I am nigh certain is the same phenomenon as enlightenmnent, although he doesn't make that connection himself if I recall correctly. He saw it in shell-shocked and brainwashed soldiers, rather than monks, but the event in the brain is identical as far as I can tell.

Basically under enough stress the brain goes nutty, ditches a great deal of built-up mental patterning, and briefly becomes extremely plastic and sensitive to new experiences. This can be a very good thing or a very bad thing.

What is the difference from Satori and other " good feelings " that you have in life ??

It's a specific wacky thing the brain does under stress, self-imposed or otherwise. Buddhist monks, Indian meditators and Jesuits are all very good at inducing these events in their pupils. You can use it to help people be relaxed and happy, or to make them a lifelong kook.

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

I am now in a Zen temple in Tokyo and I have discussed about this topic with some Zen Masters, including the sensei of this temple.

I still have my doubts that an ASC called satori exists.

Good. I little piece of advice. Stop looking for it where it is not. If you do find it, or not, it is entirely up to you.

 

[sackett]

I just happen to be here

Once I was sitting at a restaurant table with my girl friend. I was telling her about Zen. As we talked, I idly flexed a pair of wooden chopsticks in my hands.

She asked, "Well, what is Zen?"

SNAP! The chopsticks broke in two. She looked startled.

So did I. The snap was a complete surprise to me, even though, obviously, the universe was so structured that the chopsticks must break at that instant.

My girl friend got angry at me immediately afterward, as she always did when discussing Zen. Many years later, she still does, even without the chopsticks.

 

[sackett]

Yo, Bodhi Darma Z!

Would you like to have a Zen experience?

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

Re: I just happen to be here

Once I was sitting at a restaurant table with my girl friend. I was telling her about Zen. As we talked, I idly flexed a pair of wooden chopsticks in my hands.

She asked, "Well, what is Zen?"

SNAP! The chopsticks broke in two. She looked startled.

So did I. The snap was a complete surprise to me, even though, obviously, the universe was so structured that the chopsticks must break at that instant.

My girl friend got angry at me immediately afterward, as she always did when discussing Zen. Many years later, she still does, even without the chopsticks.

YES YES, thats it!

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

Re: Yo, Bodhi Darma Z!

Would you like to have a Zen experience?

huh, you mean something like this?




*

 

[sackett]

Would you like to have another?

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

Matteo

I dont know if you have noted it.

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But this, rather simple, interchange of words between sackett and I, is all that is needed "to know".

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Matteo

I dont know if you have noted it.

But this, rather simple, interchange of words between sackett and I, is all that is needed "to know".

Now all you need to do is chant this over and over for days, preferably while on a restricted diet, and just maybe you'll have a brain seizure.

 

[Matteo Martini]

There is research about that in the field of psychology of religion. Well, there is some evidence for this ASC, but are they good evidence? I don't really know... Skeptic thinks most of the time that this ASC is just like (or is just) relaxation. Others thinks it's a totally distinct ASC...

Well, I don't know who's wrong or right about that...

Maybe somebody ( you, Bodhi Dharma ) could provide me with some links and/or info about scientific studies on this ASC ??

 

[Matteo Martini]

Good. I little piece of advice. Stop looking for it where it is not. If you do find it, or not, it is entirely up to you.

OK, I am already searching ( I am in Tokyo for this ).

But let me say just this: what you have just said are more or less the same words that Catholic pastors use when you tell them you have lack of faith " Just believe and you will see things in a different way " or Muslims " when you make one step torwards Allah, He will make two steps in your direction " ..

 

[Matteo Martini]

You can't run descriptions backwards like that. If I say that rasperries are red, you can't assume that I also meant to say that all red things are raspberries.

If you want a stereotypically western perspective on enlightenment, I think Battle for the Mind by Sargant is very good. He discusses what I am nigh certain is the same phenomenon as enlightenmnent, although he doesn't make that connection himself if I recall correctly. He saw it in shell-shocked and brainwashed soldiers, rather than monks, but the event in the brain is identical as far as I can tell.

Basically under enough stress the brain goes nutty, ditches a great deal of built-up mental patterning, and briefly becomes extremely plastic and sensitive to new experiences. This can be a very good thing or a very bad thing.

It's a specific wacky thing the brain does under stress, self-imposed or otherwise. Buddhist monks, Indian meditators and Jesuits are all very good at inducing these events in their pupils. You can use it to help people be relaxed and happy, or to make them a lifelong kook.

Still, you do not provide any useful disctinction between the " satori " and other feelings which are just " good feelings ".

Jesuits are " very good at inducing there events in their pupils " ??
Are we talking about the same thing here ??
I thought " satori " had little to do with Jesus

 

[Matteo Martini]

Re: I just happen to be here

Once I was sitting at a restaurant table with my girl friend. I was telling her about Zen. As we talked, I idly flexed a pair of wooden chopsticks in my hands.

She asked, "Well, what is Zen?"

SNAP! The chopsticks broke in two. She looked startled.

So did I. The snap was a complete surprise to me, even though, obviously, the universe was so structured that the chopsticks must break at that instant.

My girl friend got angry at me immediately afterward, as she always did when discussing Zen. Many years later, she still does, even without the chopsticks.

Mmm..

If this is all Zen is about maybe I should quit this post here.

May I give you an explanation about teh chopstick fact ??

When you discussed with your girlfriend you were a little bit angry because she was not interested in what you aer interested, so, maybe unconsciously, you broke the chopsticks.

Very rational and very effective explanation I think.

No need to talk about Zen to explain this..

 

[Francois Tremblay]

So, you did experience an enlightenment ??

No. Enlightenment is nonsense, no one has ever experienced it. Buddhism is a fraud.

 

[Matteo Martini]

No. Enlightenment is nonsense, no one has ever experienced it. Buddhism is a fraud.

Maybe somebody in this forum will rule out this possibility.
Otherwise, some months of Zen training for nothing ..

 

[sackett]

Zen! went the strings of my heart!

There's a school of thought among Zen "practitioners" (and let's remember that Zen is an esoteric form of Buddhism, so the quote marks are appropriate) that holds that the distinction between the enlightened and unenlightened states is just another illusion, and that people are already enlightened, and can go about their lives just as they do. I feel that this stance takes the fun out of Zen -- not that I don't love playing kick-Zen, of course.

No, I wasn't angry with my girl friend that time in the restaurant. She was curious as all get-out about Zen. I just use the episode as an illustration of one of the things Zen is:

SNAP!

 

[sackett]

Zen anecdotes

One time I started a thread on "the most irritating Zen anecdote you know." But it petered out fairly soon, largely because people confused the Zen anecdote with the koan.

R. H. Blyth is full of authentic Zen anecdotes, the majority of them flat, pointless things with no snappers. "The monk remained silent" is how most of them end. Exasperating, irritating, even infuriating things -- exactly what you need to drive you a billion kilometers from Buddha.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Still, you do not provide any useful disctinction between the " satori " and other feelings which are just " good feelings ".

Sorry, I didn't get what you were driving at.

Apparently it's quite distinctive. You feel a coolness, often a sense of euphoria or a belief that you have somehow become one with the universe, you lose a lot of your mental habits, and the high lasts for some time. I haven't felt it myself, but I'm a very old friend of someone who has. Apparently if you need to ask whether it has happened, it hasn't.

Jesuits are " very good at inducing there events in their pupils " ??
Are we talking about the same thing here ??
I thought " satori " had little to do with Jesus

Different religious traditions give different names to what happens when your brain wigs out after you spend too long chanting rubbish, and the brain doesn't know the difference between an Eastern mantra and a Christian prayer. Christians would call it "a religious experience" or "being stricken with the holy spirit" or something like that, and other people call it satori.

My belief is that the descriptions of what happens, and how you induce the event, are so damn similar between traditions that it's very likely indeed that exactly the same phenomenon has occurred in each case.

As I said (and others agreed) earlier enlightenment is a distinctive, physical event in a squishy, meaty brain. It's not a gateway to Truth, nor does any religious tradition have a monopoly on it.

 

[sackett]

Good going, Kevin!

". . .enlightenment is a distinctive, physical event in a squishy, meaty brain."

Love it! If Zen isn't 100% materialistic, then it isn't anything!

BTW, Zen practice, so far as I know (something tells me I'd better lay on the qualifiers here), doesn't entail lengthy chanting or repetition of mantras. Mostly you sit on your ass doing nothing -- a miserably difficult discipline, but hey, whatever floats your no-boat.