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From: adobe!!asanders@decwrl.dec.com
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: Re: Are you in satori when you watch accidents?
Message-ID: <12551@adobe.UUCP>
Date: 15 Mar 91 00:59:21 GMT
Sender: mayne@mailer.cc.fsu.edu (Bill Mayne)
Organization: Florida State University
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| When your'e observing something terrible like a car accident...
| it feels like the things you see go straight into your conciousness, 
| without reflecting....Is that sudden feeling a state of satori?

						-Isak Swahn

Sudden shocks momentarily produce a higher state of consciousness,
but we do not necessarily bring anything back with us from such
occurrences except the memory of the experience. Satori, as I
understand the term, refers to an experience which confers upon
the experiencer a fundamental "enlightenment" about the nature
of Reality.

Accidental shocks may temporarily heighten our awareness. The
question is how to produce consciousness-inducing shocks ourselves,
without relying on chance or resorting to violence.
				                     -Alan