Process of enlightenment (Buddhism)

The Southern School of Ch'an (Zen) taught that enlightenment – the constant state of satori – is achieved instantaneously as the result of direct insight, for example through spontaneous response to a koan. However, Tsung-mi, a chronicler of Ch'an, indicates that although enlightenment may be sudden, it comes after the transformation from an unenlightened to an enlightened person, which is gradual. He described the process of ten stages whereby intrinsic enlightenment is gradually overlaid by delusion and the subsequent process, in the enlightened aspect of alaya-vijnana, of ten stages in which sudden enlightenment – chieh-wu – reverses the direction of karma and one turns from the flow of birth and death, delusion is removed and enlightenment realized in the attainment of Buddhahood. In the stages of phenomenal evolution described bu Tsung-mi, each step on the process of delusion can be counteracted by a step in the process of enlightenment. The true, unchanging, uncreated and indestructible nature is always there and has simply been overlaid. Having attained Buddhahood it is seen that, rather than two independent processes there is in fact one continuum, so that one is actually at the stage of intrinsic enlightenment, one has gone full circle.

Although sudden enlightenment can be said to occur at the turning point from progress towards delusion to progress towards enlightenment, there follow nine further stages before enlightenment is complete, finishing with attainment of Buddhahood, at the completion of the cycle when one is aware of the intrinsic enlightenment existing from the first. In another metaphor, Tsung-mi refers to the wind of ignorance suddenly ceasing but the waves in consciousness generated by the wind taking time to be calmed – sudden enlightenment may be said to occur when the wind ceases, but only after considerable effort do the waters of consciousness become smooth.