Question
Dear Master Barbara Kosen.
When I am in touch with my heart, with myself, through deep concentration I can feel an inner energy that gives me peace, harmony, and a feeling of love toward everything around me. What is satori?
There I was, sitting in zazen, when suddenly I became aware that I belonged to a sangha, that I was among monks, breathing, renewing myself. I became aware that the moment included all of us, managing for just an “instant” to forget myself and feel how I was “joining,” if you can put it that way, how I was “fitting together” with the dojo’s practitioners. Then it only took saying, “Oh!! Unity,” for it to disappear… What is that?
What is the difference between nirvana and satori? Is satori a state of inner peace and harmony, and nirvana the complete extinction of the spirit in the whole, in that great One???????
Thank you very much for your answers. Perhaps I am answering my own questions, but I would like to know your opinion, Master.
Much love!
Anonymous
Answer from Master Kosen
That is satori: realizing that you belong to the universe. Of course, belonging to the universe is our normal condition, but we go through life forgetting it.
Realizing it without thoughts or words is the right moment, pure and without a self. That is why, when you think, “Oh!! Unity,” it has already gone.
Nirvana is extinction, a complete swoon. Originally, this word names the satori attained by Buddha when he saw the morning star.
The state without contradiction in which a person at peace with himself encounters illusions and turns them into satori is called Living Nirvana.
Kosen