KenshÅ
Kensho (Japanese见 性; beholding of one's being, nature recognize ) is a spiritual experience in the Buddhist tradition of Zen. The term refers to an initial awakening experience where the awakened realizes his own true nature or Buddha, which allows him to work from now on in daily life on the understanding of this finding. Kensho is often translated as " self - being Show," which means that one recognizes the true nature of his being and thus also of all beings. The task for the practitioner is then is to transfer this state in his daily life, that is to live according to these deeply felt knowledge.
The Kensho experience
By Kensho one sees through the illusory nature of the autonomous self. It is in the nature of the mind that any perception involving a perceived object, a perceptual process and a perceiving subject. For example, I see you. You - the perceived object; See - the process of perception; I - the perceiving subject, which seems isolated in this way from the perceived objects. The introspection about trying to understand this I a perceiving subject, then leads to the realization that I always completely dependent on the process of perception and can not be considered separately from the perceived objects. Kensho is sometimes used synonymously with Satori, but generally referred to as " small satori experience," in which the fundamental experience of enlightenment has not yet occurred.
The search for Kensho
The personal work on the goal of this visualization is mostly through a lengthy process of meditation and introspection under the guidance of a Zen master or another teacher. The underlying method is called: Who am I, because it is precisely this question that leads the search for her own true nature? . The first step on the road to Kensho is the thought that no thinking ego exists, but it is just the process of thinking, the illusion of an ego produces.
The basic question of being can also ( and is at least mostly in the Rinzai Zen) formulated in the form of koans, ie intellectually " unsolvable " tasks, but understood at a deeper level and before the Master in dokusan ( a direct encounter one on one, to be preserved over the content of silence) by a kind of " performance" to be solved. Because these tasks almost always paradoxical contents are ( the most famous example: Show me the sound of one hand clapping ), the mind confused in it, and it may happen that the student weeks, months or even years sitting at the response and again sent out by the master is to continue to work until a certain " state" the solution by itself results - usually by the question were, " drops ".
Koans are available in several collections, which are successively " processed". There are profound debate about whether this type of training based on ancient stories makes sense. In the Soto school of Zen, one starts from an imperceptible tire of the student and the spontaneous Kensho. Koans are more anecdotes in the eyes of the Soto - trailer. Who is in contact with a real master, mostly experienced various situations which are just as spontaneous, individual koans.