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To finish off this series of blogs on Buddhism and spiritual intelligence, this is what Christmas Humphries had to say on:
The Effects of Satori.
Satori is seeing into one’s own nature, and seeing that Nature is not one’s own. The vision (or the experience of satori) may come quite suddenly or slowly arise. It is in no way to be confused with a psychic trance or the phantasy of the schizophrenic. Nor is it concerned with morality or any man-made code. It is a foretaste of the Absolute Moment, of Cosmic Consciousness, of the condition in which I and my Father are one.
The effects of Zen (and Zen means Satori) are proportionate to the degree of Satori attained. Sometimes the happy man would burst into a song or an improvised poem; sometimes he merely laughed, and it is to be noted that no other religion or philosophy has used, as Zen deliberately uses, laughter as a means to a spiritual end. Roars of laughter, cleansing, healthy, ferocious laughter, are part of the Zen monk’s daily life and of those who practice Zen.
Others who have tried to describe the reward of their years of tremendous effort speak of a sense of certainty, of serenity, of clarity, and of unity with nature and the universe around.
Hui-neng described the serenity:
Imperturbable and serene the ideal man practices no virtue;
Self-possessed and dispassionate he commits no sin;
Calm and silent he gives up seeing and hearing;
Even and upright his mind abides nowhere.
With clarity of mind, whence emotion and passion have ebbed away, comes an inner certainty of purpose and the right way to achieve it. And the certainty is quite impersonal.
But the mind, though aloof from the senses’ attraction, is never in the clouds of an ideal world. There is a vital sense of here and this and now. The student achieves a sense of the Absolute Moment, and knows that all things are equally important, equally real and unreal, equally part of himself. The flower in the crannied wall is indeed the universe, and nothing exists beyond this life that is not contained within it.
These new possessions of the mind, however, are not of immediate growth; they develop anew with each experience. For a while occasional vision may have no effect on character, for the momentum of old habits of thought and thought-reaction is immensely strong.
Yet slowly a new sense of values supersedes the old; truly a new man is born, and the sustained and tremendous effort to reach the new stage on the path of development was found to be worthwhile.
The Self has taken over, and the appetites of a pack of ill-trained animals which yelp and growl and bite at each other, have at least been recognised as such. If they do slip off the lead sometimes, it is at least with the master’s knowledge, if not with his consent. And that is a long stage on the way to Enlightenment.
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The Dalai Lama
It’s interesting how, after decades of hearing nothing but positive things said about the Dalai Lama, insofar as one heard anything at all, the news media now regularly report on China’s condemnation of this unique figure, and it’s interesting the way in which China does it without actually referring to him in person, preferring to say “The Dalai Clique” does this or that or the other. They deliberately make it sound as though he’s the leader of some sort of minor would-be revolutionary gang, agitating for the liberation of his homeland, Tibet, from what he sees as the clutches of the communist imperialists.
All the Dalai Lama can then do is insist that he accepts the fact of Tibet being part of China, but protests about the oppression of native Tibetans and the suppression of their Buddhist faith. He wants to see more autonomy and more religious freedom for Tibet, whilst it remains politically within China’s control.
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Here’s what he says in Ancient Wisdom, Modern World - Ethics for the New Millenium.
We all desire to be happy and avoid suffering, and are sustained in this quest by hope.
People in the wealthier countries seem to be more prone to mental and emotional suffering. There is a disturbing prevalence among these people of anxiety, discontent, frustration, uncertainty and depression. They also suffer a growing confusion as to what constitutes morality and what its foundations are.
People feel uneasy and dissatisfied with their lives. They experience feelings of isolation, and often depression. Psychological and emotional suffering is often found amongst great material wealth throughout the west.
On the one hand their wealth allows them to have increasing levels of autonomy and private ownership of expensive homes and goods, and on the other hand they have little interdependence and tend not to see that their personal happiness has any connection with the happiness and wellbeing of others.
In effect they create societies in which people find it harder and harder to show one another basic affection. [And neither do they feel a need to do so.] In place of a sense of community and belonging we find a high degree of loneliness and alienation.
The contemporary rhetoric of growth and economic development greatly reinforces people’s tendency toward competitiveness and envy. No wonder so many people are afflicted by stress-related disease. Such disproportionate emphasis on external progress and material wealth is bound to result in unhappiness, anxiety and lack of contentment.
Scientific knowledge alone cannot provide the happiness that springs from inner development, the happiness that is not reliant on external factors. Indeed, though our very detailed and specific knowledge of external phenomena is an immense achievement, far from bringing us happiness it can actually be dangerous. It can cause us to lose touch with the wider reality of human experience and, in particular, to overlook our dependence on others.
Consciousness belongs to that category of phenomena without form, substance or colour. [It is metaphysical] It is not susceptible to investigation by external means.
The challenge we face is to find some means of enjoying the same degree of harmony and tranquillity of traditional communities while benefitting fully from the material developments of the world as we find it at the dawn of a new millennium.
There is an abundance of severely negative trends within modern society. There is no reason to doubt the escalation in murder, violence and rape cases year by year. We hear constantly of abusive and exploitative relationships both in the home and within the wider community, of growing numbers of young people addicted to drugs and alcohol.
None of these problems are by nature inevitable. They are all ethical problems. They each reflect our understanding of what is right and wrong, of what is positive and what is negative, of what is appropriate and what is inappropriate. But beyond this is something more fundamental: a neglect of what I call our inner dimension.
It’s obvious that our needs transcend the material and merely sensual. The prevalence of anxiety, stress, confusion, uncertainty and depression among those whose basic needs have been met is a clear indication of this.
Our problems, both those we experience externally such as wars crime and violence, and those we experience internally - our emotional and psychological sufferings - cannot be solved until we address this underlying neglect.
That is why the great movements of the last hundred years and more - democracy, liberalism, socialism [toryism, neo-conservatism] - have all failed to deliver the universal benefits they were supposed to provide, despite many wonderful ideas.
A revolution is called for, certainly. But not a political, an economic, or even a technical revolution. We have had enough experience of these during the last century to know that a purely external approach will not suffice. What I propose is a spiritual revolution.
