The Supreme Doctrine - neo-alchemist

SEEING INTO ONE’S OWN NATURE
In short, to obtain satori, it is a question of obtaining the transformation
of these instantaneous perceptions of existing-more-or-less-than-a-momentago
into a continuous perception which will then be just perception of
existing. Man can arrive at that by training himself to have more and more of
these instantaneous perceptions. A comparison will help us to understand
what happens in the course of this work. Let us suppose that someone
projects a cinematograph-film at the speed of one image every 10 seconds,
and we see each image clearly; let us suppose next that the projection is
accelerated progressively, and for a certain length of time we still see clearly
the images in their discontinuity; but a moment will soon come when we will
no longer see them clearly in their discontinuity and when we will not yet see
the film clearly in its continuity. Finally, the speed of projection becomes
sufficient for us to see clearly the film in its continuity. Zen well describes
the intermediate stage which separates the clear and dead vision (ordinary
consciousness) from the clear and living vision (consciousness after satori);
at its height this intermediary stage is called by Zen 'Tai-i' ('Great Doubt'),
and it is described to us as a mental state of complete confusion without form
(confusion so complete and so lacking in form that it is in no respect a state
of chaos and resembles the transparent purity of an immense crystal behind
which there would still be nothing). The idea of the three successive stages of
which we are speaking is found also in this passage of Zen: 'Before a man
studies Zen, for him the mountains are mountains and the waters are waters;
when, thanks to the teaching of a good master, he has achieved a certain inner
vision of the truth of Zen, for him the mountains are no longer mountains and
the waters are no longer waters; but later, when he has really arrived at the
asylum of rest, once more the mountains are mountains and the waters are
waters.'
Let us come now to the practice of the inner work such as we envisage
it at this moment. As regards the manner of this work we can say nothing
more than what we have already said; let us merely repeat that the difficulty
of this looking inwards comes from its simplicity. When one fails in looking
as one should it is always because one is looking for difficulties where none
exist; the question is simply to see if one feels better altogether or less well
altogether, if the bottle-imp has bobbed up or dropped down.
This way of looking, let it be said, is only useful if the man who is
training himself has profoundly understood, with true intellectual evidence,
that, the attainment of satori being the only possible solution of his present
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