Kris,
Your post about chronology of spiritual development, etc., reminds me of the
approximate age that is sometimes mentioned in connection with people's
"enlightenment" experiences. I think I recall that the age is about 27 or 28
(strange: this is the same age as when a lot of famous rock musicians died, in
the past 45 years or so).
There are many wonderfully drawn accounts of such experiences, usually in
Christian terms, in Wm. James' VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE (1902),
especially in his two chapters on "Conversion".
These are given in the words of the experiencer himself or herself.
And Evelyn Underhill evidences and discusses such cases and case- histories in
her book MYSTICISM (1910), and quotes some of the same authorities who
collected the case-histories (especially Professor Starbuck, of Massachusetts).
But someone did a wonderful study of the experiences of many figures in
history, ranging from Buddha, to Jesus, to Wm. Blake, Walt Whitman, Socrates,
Spinoza, and some 45 others. This is Richard M. Bucke, COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS
(1901). The book became popular in the 1960s, but had been around for a long
time before.
All the cases discussed in the books above are probably spontaneous instances
of awakening, in which zazen was NOT a factor. In some cases,
"revival-meetings" spurred the people to open to a different mentality for a
time.
The depths of the awakenings differ (as in the wu, mu, kensho, or satori
experience).
I think that most of the experiences are of what a zen teacher would refer to
as One-mind, and not of no-mind (not of emptiness, or wu, or mu).
In most cases, the experience of the suddenly-changed mind-state for these
awakened people did not last long. Zen practitioners know that the reason for
this is that the person did not have a regular practice of some sort, like
zazen, which both prepares the body for awakening, and supports the awakening
afterwards. Many of the people had the practice of Bible-reading, and prayer,
but these do not function to affect the body as zazen does, and our other zen
practices such as kinhin, chanting, samu, Precepts, dokusan, sesshin, oriyoki,
etc., do.
Also, in Christianity, practitioners are not asked or encouraged to have the
experience of the founder; while, in Zen Buddhism, we are.
--Joe
> Kristopher Grey <kris@...> wrote:
>
> While generalizing on ages, I am reminded of the rarely spoken of (very
> roughly) seven year cycles of the seven chakras.*
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