Towards completion of Heart Chakra age range, another other common age
being toward end of Crown. Realization being timeless, we are left with
only stories, and maybe only these sorts are moved to tell them.
Awakening earlier, might not seem anything but obvious. Later, less
energy for sharing.
Just rambling nonesense...
The matter of lesser and greater satori - speaks to something else.
Glimpses/peak experiences may precede/accompany/follow, but are not
satori. With satori, all moments are realized to be of the same nature
as such glimpses. No need to maintain or reject any form of
experiencing. Seeing any as other than suchness is not possible.
Suffering thus ended, pleasure is pleasure, pain is pain, and neither
helps nor hinders this.
Shit need not become rainbow hued and floral scented to be passed.
K
On 7/2/2012 2:04 PM, Joe wrote:
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.*
