A great way to grow psychologically and gain more insights is – strangely enough – through pain or discomfort.
When we go through a challenging experience, we are prodded into an accelerated mode of awareness, of seeing things from another perspective. We are shaken up to awaken from our slumber.
When everything runs smoothly, we tend to think that life only consists of the superficial impressions we surround ourselves with, such as glamour, wealth, fun in all its aspects and comforts.
But when life hits us with a blow, we come to our senses and we are forced to analyse our attitudes and false beliefs on what truly matters. This is known as having a kensho moment.
There are times when we go through painful episodes like losing loved ones or a job, a break-up, discovering we have some serious illness or suddenly being challenged financially. It is such painful episodes that help us to grow and mature. Such kensho moments should be cherished as they lift us up from a mediocre way of living, thinking that life is worthwhile only if all is in place.
Life is ephemeral and nothing stays the same. If we expect things to stay constant without any hiccups, we are only fooling ourselves. Besides, we may start to look down on others who do not align with our ‘abundant’ lifestyle. This breeds arrogance and lack of compassion for others who are going through some challenges.
A kensho episode gets us to realise that we are all subject to challenges in one way or another just like everyone else. It gets us to be more understanding and empathetic towards others… and become more humane, less selfish and self-centred with a false belief that one is indestructible.
Kensho is a Japanese term coming from the Zen tradition where ‘ken’ means ‘see’ and ‘sho’ means ‘nature’ or ‘quality’. Through a kensho moment, we get to see the true nature or quality of a situation. It helps us to acquire a new point of view in our dealings with life and the world.
A kensho episode gets us to realise that we are all subject to challenges in one way or another just like everyone else
James Austin, a neurologist at the University of New Mexico and a Harvard-trained scientist and Zen Buddhist, links kensho to a brain event. He says that it can’t be predicted and it’s not clear what causes it. But when it happens, it is felt as the mother of all “aha” moments, a profound, big-picture empathic shift. These moments are like “wake-up calls”. Austin calls them moments of “quantum change”.
Such a quantum change occurred when Virgil Butler, a factory floor worker in an Arkansas slaughterhouse, one day had just suddenly seen one live chicken too many coming at him down the conveyer belt. He walked out of there to devote the rest of his life to animal rights activism.
Experiencing a moment of awakening in this life is of central importance.At some point in time, we pass from imprisonment in ignorance and delusion to a true vision of realisation where our enlightenment is timeless, yet our realisation of it occurs in time – a road-to-Damascus moment.
According to this belief, experiencing a moment of awakening in this life is of central importance. It is the accumulation of little bits of understanding, which come together, giving way to a deeper intuitive knowledge; it is a glimpse of the truth.
Kensho is a state of letting go, releasing who we think we are and dwelling in our true self. Adopting meditation or enjoying quiet spells alone will help in encouraging more kensho experiences to occur and be open to it…. though such experiences do happen spontaneously and unexpectedly in whatever state of mind we are at.
Could a whole culture, even the whole developed world, experience a kensho moment, a quantum transformation − one that wakes us up to the destructiveness of indulging every consumer craving, and set alight in us the right sensibility of care for the world?