338 Part IV: East Asian Civilization
The doctrine of emptiness swept aside almost all other doctrines (paradox-
ically, it was itself a doctrine); it removed the need for texts and creeds. Texts,
creeds, doctrines, and relics were, in fact, part of the illusory nonreality of the
world. They took special aim at the intellectual world of ideas, categories,
logic, and reason. The “wisdom of the belly” (hara) was superior to any wis-
dom of study, preaching, reciting, or rites. This wisdom was gained by “sitting
in oblivion,” that is, by meditation on emptiness. The Zen form of enlighten-
ment is known as satori. For Zen masters, it was the intellect, more than the
body (which perplexed Hindu mystics), that stood in the way of enlightenment.
Zen masters were keenly aware that breaking the hold of the structured world
of ideas and concepts, of reason itself, to get to the state of emptiness that is
satori is extraordinarily difficult. Thought keeps creeping back in. If reason is
the problem, then perhaps deliberate, befuddling un-reason was the way to
break its hold. So at the early stages of movement toward satori, when empti-
ness is still a distant goal, Zen novices are given intellectual puzzles called koan
to meditate on. These are very far from the kinds of mantras and sutras used in
meditation in other forms of Buddhism. Koan once meant an authoritative pub-
lic document (gong’an or “public case” in Chinese) but changed to mean
obscure, illogical little stories presented as “puzzles” to “solve” or interpret,
such as “the sound of one hand clapping.” D. T. Suzuki provides some exam-
ples; one is an exploration of the nature of Self:
Ki of Unryu-in monastery:
Q: “What is my Self ?”
A. “It is like you and me.”
Q: “In this case there is no duality.”
A: “Eighteen thousand miles off !”
The goal is not to solve the koan-puzzle in the way one would solve a mathe-
matical formula or a logical puzzle; its goal is to break through thought-barri-
ers to the direct existential insight of satori itself.
The nature of satori has always been a mystery, perhaps the key mystery of
Zen. It is a postulated reality that hardly anyone ever successfully attains or
maintains. By definition it is indescribable—anything capturable in words can-
not be the wordless experience of Zen. (The influence of Daoism is evident
here; “The Dao that can be spoken is not the eternal Dao” could also be said of
the elusive experience of satori.) Nevertheless, there are some descriptive
accounts to inspire seekers, such as the one below, followed by a visual expres-
sion of Zen Buddhism.
Kensho (seeing into one’s own nature), too, is something I have experi-
enced. From the twenty-seventh to the twenty-eighth day of the eighth
month of my sixty-first year, I felt completely detached from life and death
and in touch with my true nature. I danced with gratitude, feeling that
nothing existed. At that time, you could have threatened to cut off my head
and it wouldn’t have meant a thing. Yet after thirty days like this, I decided