Justin Stone Defines His Terms

The following excerpts are a taste of what you will find, each a nugget of Justin’s thinking and experience. What Justin chose to emphasize from one book to another changed a bit over time or because of the context of a particular book. What are your definitions?

KOAN — Comes from the Chinese words kung an. Without going into the semantic derivation (about “case”), it is used today to describe the problem given to Rinzai Zen students to concentrate on. This problem is usually taken from a famous encounter or dialogue, such as the one where a monk asked Master Joshu if a dog has Buddha Nature. Joshu answered “Mu,” a Chinese word with many meanings (usually negation). This mu has become a koan on which many generations of Zen aspirants have pondered. In sanzen, a private meeting with the master, they try to express their understanding of the koan, really to manifest the answer. Such answer must be approved by the master before the student goes on to another koan, and this sometimes takes years to accomplish.

MANTRA — A mantra is a name of God or a syllable that has great power (chaitanya in Sanskrit). Supposedly a great rishi (sage) discovered the mantra after years of austerity and gave it to the world. Usually, an aspirant receives their mantra from their teacher and uses it for meditation and for endless repetition (japa). In India it is said that repetition of the Lord’s name or names is the one way to God realization in this decadent period (Kali Yuga). It is not true that a mantra is a magic sound. But the constant repetition of the Lord’s name is sweet to the mind and gradually makes grooves in the brain until the mind becomes one-pointed in this lofty sound.

PRAJNA — Means wisdom, pointing at the innate wisdom that is within each of us and does not have to be acquired. It does not refer to acquisition of book knowledge. Modern Zen since Hui Neng’s time has stressed spontaneous manifestation of this innate wisdom.

SAMADHI — The so-called “superconscious state,” resulting from deepest meditation, and the last step in Raja yoga. Here there is no world, no sense stimuli, no sense of “I-ness.” Great yogis say there are two kinds of samadhi: savikalpaka (the lesser of the two, in which the mind still retains impressions), and nirvikalpaka (the ultimate, where all distinctions have faded and only consciousness itself is perceived or realized).

SATORI — A Japanese term deriving from the verb satoru, meaning “to realize.” This experience (Wu in Chinese) is the sudden, overpowering realization of truth, often accompanied by a breaking out of perspiration and other physical manifestations. It is said to be the greatest joy. It is not true that one satori is final, however. Hakuin Zenji and other masters speak of major and minor satori experiences. These eventually result in kensho, the state of complete enlightenment. Some Zen masters speak of two kinds of satori: daigo (the state of oneness, of complete merging and non-differentiation) and shogo (coming back to the everyday world and observing one’s own satori so one can become a social human being again).

T’AI CHI CH’UAN — A Chinese yoga, often called a moving meditation with 108 movements. Balancing the yin and yang (negative and positive forces), this form is said to bring health, serenity, and longevity. Many people in China practice this cosmic dance, and it is becoming very popular in the West. Many of the so-called martial arts derive from it.

TEH — “Power of inner sincerity” might perhaps fit this difficult word. Mencius, the great Confucian of China, said, “What is whispered in the ear is heard 1000 miles away.” So saying, he was pointing at this power. Confucius felt the superior man must have both human-heartedness and the power of inner sincerity.

ZEN — The Ch’an School of Buddhism in China, derived from the teaching of dhyana (meditation) in India, supposedly coming to China in the person of Bodhidharma, the First Chinese Patriarch. (Actually, he was Indian.) The word Zen is simply the Japanese reading of the Chinese character for Ch’an. Zen is a sect of Buddhism, usually thought of as the meditation sect or the mind sect. It feels it is perpetuating the true Buddhism, without regard for scriptures and other written word through “Transmission of Mind.”

KOAN — Many scholars who have had no experience with koans believe they are nonsensical problems that cannot be solved. (“Where does the wind come from?”) Nothing could be further from the truth. Koan is the Japanese word for the Chinese kung-an, and kung-an means “a case” in much the same way that we have legal cases that set precedents and are studied. The monks who used koans knew the case from which the koan came. Usually there had been a mondo, an exchange between a master and a monk, and from this well-known dialogue a word or phrase had been extracted to serve as a topic for meditation, though not meditation in the sense of agonizing over something. For instance, the great teacher Zhaozhou (Joshu in Japanese) was asked whether a dog had Buddha Nature. Everyone knew that even the grasses and rocks had Buddha Nature, yet Zhaozhou’s answer was “Wu” (in Chinese). This answer can be taken as the negative, but not necessarily so. Some experts feel that Wu, at a particular tone level, means Void or Emptiness, meaning “What difference did it make, since it, too, was essentially empty?” To translate Wu as “No” is to show ignorance of ancient Chinese. Other experts say it is just a sound, throwing the monk back on his own resources. At any rate, all monks knew the proposition that all things had Buddha Nature, and countless numbers of them in Rinzai Zen practice have had to ponder the meaning (if any) of Zhaozhou’s contradictory answer. And so it is with all kung-ans; a word or phrase being extracted, it was still part of the whole picture, not an empty sound.

MANTRA — A word or series of words supposedly revealed to a great sage, divinely inspired. This saying of great power is a name of God or an aspect of God – someone does not make it up. Some mantras are strongly associated with a country, such as the Om Mani Padme Hum of Tibet. Some feel the sound, or sounds, have magical properties. Mantras are usually given to chelas (spiritual aspirants and disciples) by their gurus at initiation.

PRAJNA — Not to be confused with prana. Prajna is the deepest, inherent wisdom that comes from the original source and is not to be confused with acquired knowledge. There are many ways to translate the Prajnaparamita of Buddhism, but it can be thought of as the Perfection of Wisdom.

SAMADHI — This is often referred to as the superconscious state, the highest level of yoga. Buddhism often speaks of one living in a state of samadhi all the time, and Zen refers to many different samadhis in a slightly different sense. While it is the final goal of yoga, it is only the middle of three steps in Buddhism, prajna being the last and ultimate. Complete immersion, the deepest meditative state where the world has been shut out, is referred to as samadhi. My Indian master always entered this state for a week at Christmas time, with all functions shut off during that time – including the beating of the heart.

SATORI — From the Japanese verb satoru, meaning to realize. In Zen, when one has a sudden enlightenment experience, this is known as a satori, a word that is often confused with kensho, meaning “to see into your true Buddha Nature.” Monks and masters have reported minor satori experiences, and usually only one or, at most, several great satori experiences. The majority of monks and devotees never reach this level. Satori is a decidedly unusual event and one of great joy.

T’AI CHI CH’UAN — Possibly the oldest of the martial arts, said to have started with Bodhidharma, who brought Buddhism to China in the sixth century. There are two main schools, Wu for self-defense and the more popular Yang, as well as innumerable variations. T’ai Chi Ch’uan usually has 108 movements, but some teachers today are teaching short forms, some with as few as 37 movements. To this author, who taught T’ai Chi Ch’uan, the short forms would be like a three-and-a-half-inning baseball game. It’s a wonderful but difficult discipline; usually practitioners do not get the benefits of the flowing Chi until they master the form, which may take years.

ZEN — Zen is not a separate religion; it is one of the sects of Buddhism. While there are legends of Zen patriarchs in India, it is generally thought that Zen originated in China with the coming of Bodhidharma, who pointed out that it is a way without scripture, indicating the Buddha Nature of all life. Though the numbers of Zen adherents have always been small in Japan, the influence of Zen has been huge, much of Japan’s culture deriving from it.