There is something, we must admit, in Zen that defies explanation, and to which no master however ingenious can lead his disciples through intellectual analysis. Kyōgen or Tokusan had enough knowledge of the canonical teachings or of the master’s expository discourses; but when the real thing was demanded of them, they significantly failed to produce it either to their inner satisfaction or for the master’s approval. The satori is not a thing after all to be gained through the understanding. But once the key is within one’s grasp, everything seems to be laid bare before him; the entire world assumes then a different aspect. By those who know, this inner change is recognised. The Dōken before he started on his mission and the Dōken after the realisation were apparently the same person; but as soon as Daiye saw him, he knew what had taken place in him even when he uttered not a word. Baso twisted Hyakujo’s nose, and the latter turned into such a wild soul as to have the audacity to roll up the matting before his master’s discourse had hardly begun (see below). The experience they have gone through with within themselves is not a very elaborate, complicated, and intellectually demonstrable thing; for none of them ever try to expound it by a series of learned discourses, they do just this thing or that, or utter a single phrase unintelligible to outsiders, and the whole affair proves most satisfactory both to the master and to the disciple. The satori cannot be a phantasm, empty and contentless, and lacking in real value, while it must be the simplest possible experience perhaps because it is the very foundation of all experiences. As to the opening of satori, all that Zen can do is to indicate the way and leave the rest all to one’s own experience; that is to say, following up the indication and arriving at the goal—this is to be done by oneself and without another’s help. With all that the master can do, he is helpless to make the disciple take hold of the thing, unless the latter is inwardly fully prepared for it. Just as we cannot make a horse drink against his will, the taking hold of the ultimate reality is to be done by oneself, just as the flower blooms out of its inner necessity, the looking into one’s own nature must be the outcome of one’s own inner overflowing. This is where Zen is so personal and subjective, in the sense of being inner and creative. In the Āgama or Nikāya literature we encounter so frequently with such phrases as “Atta-dīpā viharatha attā saraṇā anañña-saraṇā,” or “sayaṁ abhiññā,” or “Diṭṭha-dhammo patta-dhammo vidita-dhammo pariyogāḷha-dhammo aparappaccayo satthu sāsane”; they show that Enlightenment is the awakening, within oneself and not depending on others, of an inner sense in one’s consciousness, enabling one to create a world of eternal harmony and beauty—the home of Nirvana.