SHACK 4123 SATORI ?

Courtesy ニコニコ静画

 You know when dealing with anything Zen you are not going to hit the mark as they say, because if you can describe it or give a logical explanation out comes the 警策or Keisaku, a flat wooden stick and gives one a tap to remind one to not fall asleep or drift off in meditation. I use one at home for tapping my neck and shoulder muscles if I have been on the computer too long. I chose the image because of the mythological strange monkey like beings that were to supposed to inhabit mountain paths and were strange mind reading creatures and could be hostile however if they read in your mind Satori (enlightenment, self realisation---Ko or little satori and O Satori meaning complete or big) they ran off and left one to carry on unhindered.

Of course with a typical Koan (paradox) the Keisaku was used on me quite a bit and as I have related many times it went on until I had a Ko satori and was told by Sensei 'that now my troubles would begin and I would never see or experience the world again as others view it' I was young and he felt that if I were in Japan I would be with suitable understanding people.

 OK I never did quite understand in any way or form why that experience shifted something in my brain or me as as a whole, all I felt was a shift and free in mind and different. Later on going to work and relationships and so on that shift seemed to be there in the background as it were and it mystified me and my ego came in and lured me to get into distractions, yet the quality of that experience always 'called' me out into that pristine mind and although not meditating as such there was this background 'dim' awareness going on.

Then getting into the empty atom stuff and the illusion of reality and it brought me back to the emptiness and no mind which I liked and had a real feel for as it felt it was related to that shift. The impermanence and transitory nature of everything, nothing really to hang onto and yet a real residual entity that challenged that and then the intellectual understanding of inculcation and left me with the understanding that everything I knew I had been taught, I was a clone in many aspects and when that intellectual understanding and the insight deeply hit me I came to my quote 'I have no where to hang my hat' and the depth of that insight rocked my brain and I was in actual shock and had withdrawal symptoms as I realised that I was programmed robot, I knew this but had never realised the real depth of this and I found myself in a real quandary and dilemma.

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Here I was with an intellectual koan, the shift that I felt and the no mind experiences that took me nowhere and that empty space was it for me, there was no defining what that was except and the controlling ego entity was not happy with these interludes and trying to eliminate the control freak in me was useless and caused more opposition and trauma, I yearned for space and I realised why I like UFO stuff and wanting to float free to go through walls travel the Universe in a formless mode and instantly, that was what the shift did and felt like, only after the 'nowhere to hang my hat'.

Then when the illusion of reality hit me profoundly and the empty 28 billion, billion, billion empty atoms we are comprised of and they are 99.99% and how are we are here or are we presumably and illusion of reality hit me this was the ultimate koan; are we really here, are we, an illusion so programmed and believed down the ages and even just a dream, and an idea in a mind and what is mind stripped bear, naked of brain washed thought, someone else's ideas modified and adjusted to the era one is in and what 'tight band in the mind', a kind of elastic band that stretched so far and kept a residue of old deep impacted thought closely guarded and seemingly precious to survival and then what survived mainly of out dated patterns that served no purpose but were kept in place by a containment field of fear of demise or serious disease and accidents and a future of pain and suffering because I broke my own inculcated commandments which the ego imposed as the false god the creator of frail humans and the contempt I made at not living up to my dreams, fantasies and aspirations of success and achievements of social status so admired and lofty and would incite war and atrocities to achieve its goals. The punishment for breaking the commandments of the the self imposed god was guilt, failure and emotional pain. I actually felt a movement in my frontal lobes as the elastic band snapped or not so much a snap but a tear and then gone. As there is no explanation to this tear and came about through a  continual unconscious dwelling or contemplation of the Koan because that is what it is meant to do, not by willingly reminding oneself to contemplate it, no , it grabbed me and that was as natural as parasite and a binding activity until satori and in that satori there is no explanation just an unexplained shift and movement, as to what moved I haven't a clue, I just felt it did. 

The Koan did its thing; a sort snap and shift as I had all those years back; there is no explanation to a koan, a paradox only an attempt by the logical mind, the inculcated lust of that hungry belly anxious to be safe and control a local mind set and here was space with no definition or location a non local mind where there was something apparently coming out the void, the empty mind, the no mind or was what seemed to come out was that real and tangible and yet another illusion attempting to become a reality?

SHACK  aka    GEOFF

There is always a twist in koan's; like with mantra initiation if it is given to you by an intuitive person or Guru, it grabs you and the koan if given the same way, no matter how you try to shack it off or drown it out, it persists until it drives you to the edge of your mind, the edge of reasoning and one may go insane, go to distractions, suicidal thoughts, depression and even death. YET in the end should a KO or O arrive, in Ko there is a relief but the persistence and nagging continues in subtle ways, it is less intense but never the less still gnawing away. What is it gnawing away at? An invisible entity of inculcated thought processes over time and so deeply believed it becomes an unconscious automated way of living and one does it unconsciously and the awareness is dimmed and one reacts to life situations in prearranged strategies and agendas.

Then on realisation which is spontaneous and intuitive and nothing to do with the unconscious programming there is no answer logical or illogical in fact there is nothing there at all and one wonders what all the fuss and determination was to find there is nothing and strangely enough this is very, very, acceptable and a big OK. (SHACK)