Mosshoseki (Zen, Japanese)

In true or profound enlightenment - [satori]

- when the person lives in a state of enlightenment so naturally that he is unaware of it and gives no outward appearance of the fact, then his living leaves no trace behind any more than a bird leaves a trace in the sky or a fish in the sea. It is a state of total and unchanging innocence, likened to the original innocence experienced as a child but lost through ignorance and delusion. Unlike this "first naturalness", however, [mosshoseki]

will never be lost. It is an awareness of the naturalness that has existed for all time, the primordial naturalness that preceded even the "first naturalness" of the child but of which the person was previously unaware. Then his face shows [honrai-no-memmoku]

, the original countenance. [Mosshoseki]

is contrasted with [goseki]

, the state of the person who, having experienced some measure of enlightenment, is so affected by the experience that his manner shows the trace of the experience.