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40 / YASUTANI ' s INTRODUCTORY LECTURESIn the Zazen Yojinki we fmd the following about makyo: "Thebody may feel hot or cold or glasslike or hard or heavy or light.This happens because the breath is not well harmonized [with themind] and needs to be carefully regulated." It then goes on to say:"One may experience the sensation of sinking or floating, or mayalternately feel hazy and sharply alert. The disciple may developthe faculty of seeing through solid objects as though they were transparent,or he may experience his own body as a translucent substance.He may see Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Penetrating insights may suddenlycome to him, or passages of sutras which were particularlydifficult to understand may suddenly become luminously clear to him.All these abnormal visions and sensations are merely the symptoms ofan impairment arising from a maladjustment of the mind with thebreath."Other religions and sects place great store by experiences which involvevisions of God or hearing heavenly voices, performing miracles,receiving divine messages, or becoming purified through variousrites. In the Nichiren sect, for example, the devotee loudly and repeatedlyinvokes the name of the Lotus sutra, to the accompanimentof vigorous body movements, and feels he has thereby purged himselfof his defilements. In varying degree these practices induce afeeling of well-being, yet from the Zen point of view all are morbidstates devoid of true religious significance and hence only makyo.What is the essential nature of these disturbing phenomena wecall makyo ? They are temporary mental states which arise duringzazen when our ability to concentrate has developed to a certain pointand our practice is beginning to ripen. When the thought-waveswhich wax and wane on the surface of the sixth class of consciousnessare partially calmed, residual elements of past experiences '1odged"in the seventh and eighth classes of consciousness bob up sporadicallyto the surface of the mind, conveying the feeling of a greater or expandedreality. Makyo, accordingly, are a mixture of the real andthe unreal, not unlike ordinary dreams. Just as dreams do not appearto a person in deep sleep but only when he is half-asleep and halfawake,so makyo do not come to those in deep concentration orsamadhi. Never be tempted into thinking that these phenomena arereal or that the visions themselves have any meaning. To see a beautifulvision of a Bodhisattva does not mean that you are any nearer