Satori

“Enlightenment doesn’t occur all at once.” says Zen Master Rama. “There isn’t one day when suddenly you achieve full enlightenment. Enlightenment has occurred over a period of time. In Zen we talk about satori and experiencing satori. Satori is salvikalpa or nirvikalpa samadhi. The idea is that after many years of meditation, one day you have a flash of intuition, you see life in its true essence, you go into salvikalpa samadhi. Just one experience in salvikalpa samadhi will change your life. You’ll never be the same. The old self will dissolve and you’ll experience a rebirth. In this life, you’ll be reborn and transformed.

“Enlightenment is difficult to discuss, of course, because there are different types of enlightenment, we could say. There are the enlightenments that occur every day when we meditate. That’s a type of enlightenment. When we just perceive something in a new way, that’s a type of enlightenment. There are satori illuminations when we have a very high meditation. And classically, when you have a satori illumination, for about 40 days afterwards you will be in a very high state of awareness. You experience satori, you go into a type of enlightened state. But then, after that time has passed, gradually your consciousness will return to the world.

“Enlightenment, from my point of view, does not involve going into samadhi a few times or having a few satori experiences. Over a period of years of going into samadhi day after day, night after night, for hundreds and thousands of hours, enlightenment takes place. The way I define it is self-realization. That is to say, enlightenment doesn’t simply mean that you’ve gone up a few times and seen the white light of eternity and merged with the all. I would say that’s a basic level of samadhi. Enlightenment has to do with the erasure of the samskaras, the past life tendencies, after you’ve gone into samadhi for hundreds and thousands of hours, many, many times over a period of years.”