The term appears in one of the classic slogans which define Chan Buddhism: to see oneʼs own nature and accomplish Buddhahood (見性成佛).
[6] It is to be followed by further training which deepens this insight, allows one to learn to express it in daily life and gradually removes the remaining defilements.
[7][8][9] The Japanese term kenshō is often used interchangeably with satori, which is derived from the verb satoru,[10] and means "comprehension; understanding".
[citation needed] Sino-Xenic pronunciations of this term exist: Translating kenshō into English is semantically complex.
"[24] Kenshō is not a single experience, but refers to a whole series of realizations from a beginner's shallow glimpse of the nature of mind, up to a vision of emptiness equivalent to the 'Path of Seeing' or to Buddhahood itself.
[note 6] Wayne Proudfoot traces the roots of the notion of "religious experience" to the German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834), who argued that religion is based on a feeling of the infinite.
[50] A pure consciousness without concepts, reached by "cleaning the doors of perception"[note 9], would be an overwhelming chaos of sensory input without coherence.
[52] Ama Samy describes the notion of kensho-experience or awakening-experience as inherently dualistic and misguided: How is this [awakening] offered to us?
[7][1][9] In the Rinzai-school this post-satori training includes the study and mastering of great amounts of classical Chinese poetry, which is far from "universal" and culture-transcending.
It contains literary accounts of the patriarchs of the Soto-lineage, from Shakyamuni Buddha to Koun Ejō, in which kensho plays a central role.
They are not to be taken as literal accounts of awakening, but as stories underpinning the legitimacy of the Dogen-shu, which in its early history had seen a fierce internal conflict over the correct lineage during the Sandai sōron.
[63][64][note 12] Dōgen Zenji's awakening is recalled in the Denkoroku: Once, during late-night zazen, Rujing told the monks, "Studying Zen is the dropping off of body and mind."
"[66]Hakuin gives this description of his first kensho, when he was 21:[67] At around midnight on the seventh and final night of my practice, the boom of a bell from a distant temple reached my ears: suddenly, my body and mind dropped completely away.
It was only when he was 41 that he attained "his final great enlightenment":[67] [W]hen Shoju had asked his reason for becoming a monk, his reply – that he had done it because he was afraid of falling into hell – had brought the scornful retort: "You're a self-centered rascal, aren't you!"
Not until eighteen years later, upon attainment of his final great enlightenment at the age of forty-one, would Hakuin fully grasp the significance of Shoju's reproach and with it the true meaning of "post-satori" practice.
[web 4]More descriptions of "spontaneous kensho" can be found throughout the Zen-literature,[note 15] Houn Jiyu-Kennett, a 20th-century Soto Zen Oshō,[78] i.e. "priest" or "teacher," and the first Western female Zen priest, had a prolonged religious experience[79] in the 1970s, including a series of visions and recalling past lives, when she was severely ill. She regarded these experiences as "a profound kensho (enlightenment) experience,"[80][81] constituting a third kensho,[79] and published an account of these visions, and an elaborate scheme of stages of awakening,[81] in How to Grow a Lotus Blossom.
Yasutani's emphasis on koan training and the importance of kensho was transmitted to his American students:[44] He was especially vocal concerning the point of kenshō, seeing one's true nature.
He spoke more openly about it then anyone of his times, going so far as to have a public acknowledgement of those who had experienced kensho in a post-sesshin ceremony of bowing in gratitude to the three treasures.
[100]It is also reflected in the inclusion of a relative great amount of kensho stories in "The Three Pillars of Zen", written by Philip Kapleau, a student of Yasutani.
[1] After kensho, further practice is needed to attain a natural, effortless, down-to-earth state of being, the "ultimate liberation", "knowing without any kind of defilement".
[101] Kensho may bring insight, but not change the mental dispositions, a shortcoming experienced by both Hakuin[102] and modern teachers like Jack Kornfield[103] and Barry Magid.
This trajectory of initial insight followed by a gradual deepening and ripening is expressed by Linji Yixuan in his Three mysterious Gates, Dongshan Liangjie's (Japanese: Tōzan Ryōkan) Five Ranks, the Four Ways of Knowing of Hakuin,[107][108] and the Ten Ox-Herding Pictures[109][108] which detail the steps on the Path.
[110][note 19] According to Spiegelberg, [I]t means a return to the purely secular life, a complete submersion in work and in the changing events of the world.
Thus, for decades, many Zenists, after their awakening, went among the people, living among beggars and leading an existence of hard physical labor.
[114] According to Hakuin, the main aim of "post-satori practice"[115][116][117] (gogo no shugyo[110] or kojo, "going beyond"[118]) is to cultivate the "Mind of Enlightenment",[119][120] "benefiting others by giving them the gift of the Dharma teaching".
Finally, at long last, he realized that true enlightenment is a matter of endless practice and compassionate functioning, not something that occurs once and for all in one great moment on the cushion.
[131] Kenshō is described as appearing suddenly, upon an interaction with someone else, at hearing or reading some significant phrase, or at the perceiving of an unexpected sound or sight.
But Jiyu-Kennett, a contemporary western teacher, warns that attaining kenshō does not mean that a person is free from morality, the laws of karma, or the consequences of ones actions.
Kenshō may be attained without the aid of a teacher,[74] as in the case of mushi-dokugo[134] or (mushi-)dokkaku, a self-awakened pratyeka-buddha.
[135][136] The Theravada tradition, which is best known in the west through the modern Vipassana movement, discerns four stages of enlightenment, in which Nirvana is reached in four succeeding sudden steps of insight.