Sudden 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, indicated that although enlightenment may be sudden, it is part of 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, when sudden enlightenment reverses the downward trend and the individual commences on the upward path to Buddhahood. Tsung-mi demonstrated that, in the stages of phenomenal evolution he described, each step on the process of delusion can be counteracted by a step in the process of enlightenment. In this case, sudden enlightenment arising under the guidance of a good friend – kalyanamitra – counteracts unenlightened consciousness, the second stage of delusion. However, although this can be said to occur, as indicated above, at the turning point from progress towards delusion to progress towards enlightenment, there follow nine further stages, the last of which is attainment of Buddhahood, before 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 – full enlightenment can be said to occur not when the wind ceases but when the waters of consciousness are smooth.