Enlightenment is your original nature (honshin) as a "sentient" (conscious) being. In itself it is clear and brilliant awareness-knowing-ability; it is not any particular object that appears in awareness-knowing, not even "your" body, thoughts, emotions, and so on. To taste and fully experience your original enlightenment in the deeply mysterious wordless understanding that it does not get born or die no matter how many universes ever get born or die is Satori. The classic method of the Zen Masters and Patriarchs such as Huang-Po was to help their students to "drop the thinking mind" in order to experience sudden awakening.
"Riding the Ox in search of the Ox" is a classic Zen description of a person searching for Enlightenment. It's not that the Ox doesn't exist -- it's that you don't see it because you're riding on it! So if you would just stop scanning the horizon and open your nostrils wide you would smell this muddy, dung-spattered, fly-tormented, stinking ox and know with certainty that you've been riding on it from day one.
It's also like going around thinking that you've lost your eyes and asking everyone, "Have you seen my eyes?"
ReplyDeleteLooking for enlightenment outside of our own Mind is similar.