In his book, Creativity and Taoism, the scholar Chang Chung-yuan suggests that "the theory of sudden enlightenment...was a significant contribution of Taoism to Buddhist thought in China." He cites Chuang Tzu's notion of breaking into laughter before finishing a story as an example of sudden enlightenment.
Similarly, there are stories of T'ai Chi masters -- in particular Yang Pan-hou (l837-l892), the son of the founder of Yang style -- who would laugh happily or appear angry as he practiced his form. According to Chen Wei-ming. "...At his level, these emotions spontaneously appeared without intention." The fact that Chen, a famous teacher of T'ai Chi in the 20th century, commented on Yang's spontaneous display of emotions indicates that he believed there was something profound behind them, perhaps a state akin to sudden enlightenment.
Indeed it is not unusual for practitioners of T'ai Chi to lose all sense of self, time and place, when practicing the form. This can be embarrassing if one is leading the class. The duality of subject and object momentarily merges and the doer becomes the dance itself. There are times when laughter bubbles to the surface. Deep-seated emotions can suddenly appear. Sometimes, the T'ai Chi player is struck by the magic of the moment, that he or she is standing on holy ground. These kinds of experiences happen to many practitioners of T'ai Chi.
Cheng Man Ch'ing recounts another example of sudden enlightenment. He tells of a dream he had in which his two arms were broken. He awoke anxiously and moved his arms which, he realized, were in a state of "total relaxation." Here is how he describes the sensation:
The sinews of my arms were like a Raggedy Ann doll,
and the joints seemed as if connected by an elastic band
which allowed them to turn in any direction at will.
Cheng Man Ch'ing made a monumental advance in his T'ai Chi because of his dream. His subconscious mind burst to the surface and expressed itself in "reality." The duality of the dream world and the waking world was obliterated and Cheng Man Ch'ing retained his dream experience intact on waking.
This merging of the dream and waking world is reminiscent of Chuang Tzu's story of the butterfly. When Chuang Tzu awoke from a dream in which he appeared as a butterfly, he wondered whether he was a butterfly dreaming he was Chuang Tzu or Chuang Tzu dreaming that he was a butterfly. Chuang Tzu was drawing on the venerable Chinese tradition that all creatures have consciousness and have the ability to dream.
In many primitive cultures, like the Punan Dyaks of Borneo, there is the belief in two souls, a waking one and a dreaming one. The Punan Dyaks do not recognize a clear distinction between these two states of consciousness. The dreaming soul, for example, can take part in the waking world. In Carlos Castenada's books Don Juan, the Yaqui indian socerer, can also dream a 'double' who acts in what we would call the 'world of reality' or the wakeful state.
In the modern psychological language, R.D. Laing posits that reality can exist in many different "modes of experience." The loss of the ego-self, if even for a moment, allows for a "sudden" transformation in the way one experiences the world. For Cheng Man Ch'ing, the total relaxation he felt in his body suggests that his conscious mind had finally let down its guard.
The problem of tension in the body is rooted in the mind. If the mind is tense, it will induce tension in the body. Complete relaxation is achieved only when the body/mind and the various "modes of experience" interact and interpenetrate freely, not in isolation from one another, but as an integrated cosmos. Then, the conditions are ripe for an event like sudden enlightenment. By the same token, a great leap forward, like the one described by Cheng Man Ch'ing, can be accomplished only with the daily work of 'gradual enlightenment.' This is true because gradual enlightenment prepares the ground work. Beneath the soil, the seed is growing, hidden from the eye, and then suddenly it pierces the surface as a green shoot. Cheng Man Ch'ing had practiced his art for countless hours. The idea of relaxtion was firmly planted in his consciousness and only then was he able to have his dream.
The student of T'ai Chi must also prepare the ground to accomplish great things in his or her art. Without the gradual work of daily practice, it is unlikely that he or she will derive much benefit or insight from T'ai Chi.
The idea of sudden enlightenment gives us the freedom, we might even say, the permission, to transcend rigid concepts and regulations. It offers a way of seeing things fresh and new; that each morning witnesses the first dawn on the earth. Speaking from experience, it is not uncommon for T'ai Chi practitioners -- students and teachers -- to get stuck on rules and form. We often need the push or slap of sudden enlightenment to break out of our T'ai Chi ruts. That slap might come from a teacher, a dream, a song or a child. We never know from where or when. But when it happens, we experience T'ai Chi as though for the first time, thus coming around full circle to where we began. We need to practice and we need to dream.
