Understanding and Realizing

Sesshin ended today. In dokusan the difference between understanding and realizing came up again. It’s a difficult thing to learn (and “teach”) because most of us are only familiar with understanding and are impatient. Realization takes as long as it takes.

What’s the difference?

Take the koan I offered in the last post:

…When Kishizawa Ian, Suzuki Roshi’s second teacher, was a young monk, he was sitting in meditation on a rainy day and heard the sound of a distant waterfall. Then the wooden han was struck. He went to his teacher (maybe Oka Sotan) and asked, “What is the place where the sound of the rain, the waterfall, and the han meet?”
His teacher replied, “True eternity still flows.”
And then he asked, “What is this true eternity that still flows?”
“It is like a bright mirror, permanently smooth,” said his teacher.
“Is there anything beyond this?” asked the young monk.
“Yes,” responded his teacher.
“What is beyond this?” inquired the young monk.
And his teacher replied, “Break the mirror. Come, and I’ll meet you.”

A lot could be said about the spunk and freshness of the young monk; the psychology of the ear organ, the ear consciousness, and the ear objects coming together (waterfull, rain, han); the references in the teacher’s answers to the Jewel Mirror Samadhi; and how teacher and student meet. All that would be to understand the koan.

To realize is to actualize eternity, the mirror, breaking, and meeting. Realizing is probably not like anything you’ve known before. If you’ve real-ized breaking of the mirror, for example, you can say what color it is just as easy as it is to identify your own face in the mirror.