Yeats’ Among school children seems to express perfectly this existence in oneness sans boundaries that is satori. ‘How can we know the dancer from the dance?’ in W.B. As judgmental constructs based on duality-subject-object, good-bad, success-failure-fall by the wayside, one flows into a state of being where the rigid persona is sloughed off. All rational judgments become irrelevant and one starts viewing reality intuitively as it actually is-nothingness that is complete in itself, much like an empty circle.’Ī single dip in the experience of satori and one is transformed forever. Wasu, who conducts workshops based on Zen, likens satori to an empty circle: ‘There comes a state when the Zen practitioner is able to view everything as a synthesis of opposites that arise from one another. I like to think of it as a peep into the soul of the universe that accompanies the dissolution of duality. It is an experience so cataclysmic that it has often been called a ‘fiery baptism’. The prospect of satori powers the quest in all spiritual practices. That is to say, when the koans are understood the master’s state of mind is understood, which is satori and without which Zen is a sealed book.’
Suzuki explains in Zen Buddhism: ‘The idea is to unfold the Zen psychology in the mind of the uninitiated, and to reproduce that state of consciousness of which the statements are an expression. Koans have been an invaluable aspect of the spontaneous master-disciple interaction in Zen. The logical mind is considered to be the greatest stumbling block on the way to satori (enlightenment in Zenspeak), as is evident from this koan: A monk was asked to discard everything. Adepts compare initiation into Zen to pouring ‘boiling oil over a blazing fire’. Zen, of which the koan exercise is a tool, is a Japanese sect of Buddhism, which in spite of having masters and monasteries believes paradoxically that nothing can be taught. But that was before we encountered the most vexatious breed of them all-the koan, a Zen riddle so puzzling yet so potent that single-minded contemplation of one may lead you to instant nirvana. Rapid-fire questions, brainteasers, tantalizing posers, circuitous conundrums-we thought we had seen them all, glued as we are night after night to all those quiz shows out to make crorepatis (millionaires) of us all.
Mount Everest… nine… depends on the health of the Scottish tourism industry… an apple… schizophrenia… don’t know but whoever it is will come up with a tell-all bestseller sooner or later… the sound of one hand is… what was that again? Which is the highest mountain in the world? How many planets are there in the solar system? Will the Loch Ness monster ever resurface? What inspired Newton? What caused Van Gogh’s prolific brilliance? Who killed Lady Diana? What is the sound of one hand clapping? Intense meditation upon these is said to lead to enlightenment For centuries, the secret doctrines of Zen learning have been transmitted from master to disciple in the form of seemingly absurd riddles called koans.
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