14 March 2012

Carl Jung, Foreword to Introduction to Zen Buddhism by D.T. Suzuki

p xvii: It could be objected that consciousness in itself was not changed, but only the consciousness of something, just as though one had turned over the page of a book and now saw a different picture with the same eyes.  I am afraid this conception is no more than an arbitrary interpretation, as it does not conform with the facts.  The fact is that in the text it is not merely a different picture or object that is described, but rather the experience of a transformation, often resulting from the most violent convulsions.  The erasing of one picture and its substitution by another is quite an everyday occurrence which has none of the attributes of a transformation experience.  It is not that something different is seen, but that one sees differently.  It is as though the spacial act of seeing were changed by a new dimension.