Hakuin on Kensho: The Four Ways of Knowing

Kensho is the Zen experience of waking up to one’s own true nature - of understanding one’s self to be no different from the Buddha nature that pervades all existence. Zen Master Hakuin considered the experience to be of central importance - in his autobiography he says: “Anyone who would call himself a member of the Zen family must first achieve kensho - realization of the Buddha’s way. If a person who has not achieved kensho says he is a follower of Zen he is an outrageous fraud. A swindler pure and simple.” Hakuin’s short text on how to recognize kensho, “Four Ways of Knowing of an Awakened Person,” is a little-known Zen classic. The “four ways” he describes - the way of knowing of the Great Perfect Mirror, the way of knowing equality, the way of knowing by differentiation, and the way of the perfection of action - are ultimately in themselves ways of Zen practice, rather than simply being methods for “checking” for enlightenment. Albert Low has provided careful, line-by-line commentary for the text that illuminates its profound wisdom, and makes it an inspiration for spiritual practice.