How Does Inspiration Arise?

Research has found that when facing sudden life-threatening dangers, the fear circuit instantly takes control of the brain, causing many mammals (including humans) to freeze in place—this is known as the freezing response. During freezing, energy within the body concentrates, enabling the comprehensive reception of all present information (pupils dilate, eyes widen, etc.). Consequently, when describing the event afterward, individuals retain exceptionally clear and detailed memories of the moment when the fear struck. However, memories immediately following this moment may become blurred or even entirely forgotten.

Questions:

1. Who controls these bodily phenomena?

2. Is the freezing response the same as meditative concentration (ding)?

3. Why are events occurring during the freezing response remembered so vividly, while subsequent events become blurred and hard to recall?

Answers:

1. The mental faculty (manas, or yigen) continuously perceives the state of the physical body through the Tathagatagarbha (Rulaizang), then regulates it accordingly. It also utilizes the physical body to express psychological emotions. This series of habitual behaviors controlled by the mental faculty is known as innate instinct.

2. The freezing response is a brief moment of meditative concentration (ding), involving highly focused attention, also called "fixation" (dingzhu). The body remains still, conscious thoughts cease, yet the mental faculty becomes intensely concentrated, seeking strategies and opportunities to escape danger. This often allows wisdom to emerge in urgency (jizhongshengzhi). This precisely reflects the characteristics and outcome of meditative concentration: concentration (ding) gives rise to wisdom (hui). During concentration, the mental faculty becomes highly sensitive and agile in thinking, often enabling one to turn danger into safety.

3. During the freezing response, the mental faculty achieves highly concentrated attention, allowing for finer observation and enhanced observational capacity. Consequently, memory becomes better and more robust, leading to deeply etched memories of the scene during freezing. Once the freezing stage passes, concentration dissipates, the mind becomes scattered, and memory weakens, making subsequent events difficult to recall clearly.

In the past, many Chan masters attained enlightenment when their intense doubt coincided with a sudden event, triggering an inspired insight (linggan) that led to realization. When practitioners engaged in Chan meditation harbor intense doubt, if the master suddenly shouts or employs another method, enlightenment may occur. In the past, during breaks in the meditation hall, practitioners would walk or jog around the hall. If the master suddenly called for them to stop, enlightenment might occur at the abrupt moment of halting. Inspiration tends to arise when one is caught off guard. Such enlightenment is the genuine result of diligent practice; it is directly realized by the mental faculty, directly experienced, known as personal realization (qinzheng), not merely intellectual understanding by the conscious mind. It does not allow for deliberation; enlightenment occurs directly, without thinking or mental grasping—it is the mental faculty that awakens.