A strike of a staff can lead to sudden enlightenment.
Modern neuroscience explains why.
One thousand two hundred years ago,
during the Tang Dynasty,
a monk entered a Zen hall.
He respectfully asked his master,
"What is the Buddha?"
The master didn't say a word.
He picked up the wooden staff beside him
and struck the monk's shoulder.
The monk was stunned.
Then,
he became enlightened.
Do you believe it?
In 1971,
Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell
was on his way back to Earth from the Moon.
He glanced at Earth through the window.
In that instant,
this MIT PhD
and Navy test pilot
experienced what he called "Samadhi."
Oneness with all things,
and the dissolution of the self.
After returning to Earth,
he spent the rest of his life studying the nature of consciousness.
In 2006,
in a lab at Johns Hopkins University,
a group of subjects took psilocybin under strict medical supervision,
the active ingredient in certain mushrooms.
After the experiment,
over 60% of them rated the experience
among the five most meaningful events of their lives.
Follow-ups 14 months later showed
lasting positive changes in their attitudes and behavior.
A physical blow,
a glimpse of Earth,
taking a mushroom.
Three seemingly unrelated things.
Why do they all trigger profound shifts in consciousness in a split second?
In this video,
I'll tell you a conclusion that even shocked me.
They all activate
the exact same brain switch.
Hello,
everyone,
I'm Wang Lijie.
Let's start with the "Staff and Shout."
This is a unique teaching method from Chinese Zen Buddhism.
The key figures were two masters:
Deshan Xuanjian and Linji Yixuan.
Deshan was known for the staff,
while Linji was known for the shout.
History calls them "Deshan's Staff"
and "Linji's Shout."
How it works is,
a student asks about Dharma,
and instead of explaining,
the master either hits them with a staff
or lets out a thunderous roar.
Sounds like classroom violence, right?
But if you've followed our series so far,
you should already have the tools to decode it.
Remember the framework from our episode on "Intuition"?
Your brain is a prediction generator.
It constantly uses prior beliefs to predict what happens next.
When there's a huge gap between prediction and reality,
this is a "prediction error."
When this error is too large for the old model to handle,
the brain is forced to do a structural model update.
If your cognitive system is near a critical state,
this update becomes a phase transition.
That is sudden enlightenment.
Now, apply this framework to the Zen strike.
A monk enters the hall and asks, "What is Buddha?"
What is his brain doing at that moment?
His analytical mind,
the sixth consciousness,
is running at full speed.
He is expecting a conceptual answer.
Exquisite teachings,
a truth that can be understood,
memorized,
and shown off.
His prior belief is that
the master will provide a verbal answer.
Then, the master strikes with a staff.
This blow is not conveying information;
it is creating a high-precision prediction error.
You expect words,
but receive pain.
This error bypasses the conceptual mind's transit station;
it directly activates the amygdala—
the module in your brain responsible for threats and shock.
Amygdala activation bypasses all high-level cognitive filters;
it's like pulling the plug on the Discernment Mind.
At the very moment the Discernment Mind shuts down,
a window opens.
As I mentioned in the episode on savvy,
many great epiphanies aren't thought out.
Archimedes in the bath,
Kekulé dozing off,
Poincaré stepping onto a bus—
enlightenment always emerges when the Discernment Mind lets go.
Because the Discernment Mind occupies too much bandwidth,
constantly analyzing,
judging,
labeling,
and telling stories,
it fills the entire conscious system to the brim.
Only when it temporarily shuts down
can a deeper awareness—
the Primal Mind we discussed—
have a chance to surface.
The 'shout and strike' method forcibly creates this window.
But there is a crucial prerequisite:
this method doesn't work for everyone.
If you strike a random person on the street,
they will call the police,
not gain enlightenment.
For the method to work,
two conditions must be met.
First,
the student's 'cognitive sandpile' must be near a critical state.
He has practiced Zen for years,
contemplating day and night,
until the doubt in his heart pushes him to the edge of a cliff.
He's just one grain of sand away.
The strike is that last grain.
Second,
the master must have extremely precise judgment.
He must see exactly where the student stands,
which prior belief they are stuck on,
and deliver the perfect blow at the perfect moment.
Deshan didn't hit everyone he met,
and Linji didn't shout at everyone he saw.
The timing of that strike or shout
is itself the highest art of teaching.
So, 'shout and strike' is not violence;
it is cognitive surgery.
Now,
let’s cut to space.
We analyzed the 'Overview Effect' in detail before.
The moment astronauts see Earth suspended in endless darkness,
their Default Mode Network—
the module that tells the story of 'me'—
drops its activity sharply.
Meanwhile, the frontoparietal network is activated,
and the attention system enters a fully open,
immersive state.
Why?
Because that visual stimulus is so extreme.
Looking down at the entire Earth from 400 km up
isn't an option in your prior beliefs.
The prediction error between this input and your existing models
is too massive to process.
More importantly,
this stimulus is all-sensory,
immersive,
and unavoidable.
You are floating in space,
with no competition for your attention.
Precision weighting is pushed to the limit,
and the old self-model simply collapses.
"I am an American."
"I am a soldier."
"I am a father."
Faced with a visual impact on a cosmic scale,
these identity labels become absurdly small.
The entire self-narrative maintained by the Default Mode Network
is shattered in that single moment.
The oneness reported by astronauts,
the loss of boundaries,
the profound awe—
these are not literary metaphors.
This is the raw output of the consciousness system
when the DMN is temporarily offline.
Now, let's cut to the laboratory.
In 2019,
Robin Carhart-Harris of Imperial College London—
the researcher we mentioned in the meditation episode—
proposed a model called "REBUS" (the anarchic brain).
The core finding of this model is
that substances like psilocybin work
by chemically lowering the precision weighting of high-level prior beliefs,
while simultaneously increasing the brain's overall entropy.
In plain English,
the beliefs your brain once clung to as absolute truths
suddenly loosen their grip.
Raw sensory data, long suppressed by these rigid beliefs, suddenly floods in.
During this process,
the activity of the Default Mode Network drops significantly.
fMRI brain scans show
that the brain state during a psychedelic experience
is structurally very similar
to that of experienced meditators.
Do you see the common thread?
The Zen "Slap":
Physically interrupting the DMN.
A strike or a shout
uses extreme physical stimuli
to bypass conceptual thinking
and directly halt the discursive mind.
The Overview Effect:
Perceptually interrupting the DMN.
An extreme visual input
that the old model cannot digest
impacts the self-narrative system until it can no longer function.
Psychedelics:
Chemically interrupting the DMN.
By altering neurotransmitter activity,
they lower the precision weighting of prior beliefs from within.
Three completely different paths,
three completely different interventions,
all doing the exact same thing:
Telling the narrative generator in your brain—
the one constantly asking "Who am I? Where am I?
What do I want?"—
to shut up for a moment.
The moment that machine stops,
you might see for the first time
what a world without those stories
actually looks like.
Does this mean we have to fly to space,
or eat mushrooms,
or find a Zen master to hit us?
No.
Because life itself is hitting you.
Think back to the turning points in your life.
When people describe their deepest growth,
they often say,
"That blow finally woke me up."
A major failure,
a sudden illness,
the collapse of a relationship,
the death of a loved one.
What do these events have in common?
They are extreme inputs your prior beliefs never expected.
Your life model didn't include the option of going bankrupt;
it didn't include the option of her leaving you.
There was no option for “he might die.”
When these events occur,
the prediction error is so massive that your entire world model can't handle it.
The old self-narratives—
“I am successful,”
“My life is under control,”
“Everything will be fine”—
collapse in an instant.
If a person happens to be near a cognitive critical state,
and if they have enough internal resources to absorb the shock rather than being destroyed,
then this collapse isn't a breakdown,
but a rebirth.
That's why many people, when recalling the most painful moments of their lives, say:
“It was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Not because there’s something inherently good about pain,
but because pain creates a prediction error large enough
to forcibly dismantle the old model,
making room for a new model to emerge.
Life’s wake-up calls and a Zen master’s blow with a staff
are neurologically the same thing.
The difference is:
The Zen master’s blow is precise,
controlled,
and delivered when you are ready.
Life’s blows are random,
brutal,
and come whether you are ready or not.
At this point,
I want to add an analogy that might surprise you.
Have you ever thought that
the spark of attraction in romance
is, in a sense, a miniature deactivation of the 'Conscious Mind'?
In psychology, there is a classic experiment called the 'Suspension Bridge Effect.'
In 1974,
psychologists Dutton and Aron conducted a study in Vancouver.
They had an attractive woman stop men on two different bridges:
one was a shaky, high-altitude suspension bridge, and the other was low and stable.
She asked them to fill out a questionnaire and left her phone number.
The result?
The men on the suspension bridge were significantly more likely
to call her later than the men on the stable bridge.
Why?
Because the suspension bridge induced fear.
Fear activated the amygdala.
Amygdala activation leads to a racing heart,
sweaty palms,
and rapid breathing.
And these physiological reactions
are almost identical to those of romantic attraction.
The brain can't distinguish between “I'm scared” and “I'm attracted to her.”
It only knows that the body is having a powerful reaction.
Under the shock, the 'Conscious Mind' temporarily loosens its rational analysis of the situation.
As a result, it misattributes the physiological arousal of fear
to romantic attraction.
I should clarify that
connecting the bridge effect to the deactivation of the 'Conscious Mind'
is our own extended interpretation based on our current framework.
The original theoretical framework of that experiment
is 'Misattribution of Arousal,'
and it didn't involve research on the Default Mode Network.
This explains something you might already know intuitively
but never thought about why.
Why do dating pros know to take their partners to do exciting things?
Roller coasters,
horror movies,
bungee jumping,
escape rooms.
It’s not because these activities are inherently romantic,
but because they create existential excitement,
activate the amygdala,
and temporarily disrupt the normal functioning of the Default Mode Network.
During this window,
their perception of you becomes bound to those intense physiological arousal signals.
A more classic scenario is the 'hero saving the damsel.'
A person is in danger,
the amygdala is fully activated,
and the defenses of the 'Conscious Mind' completely collapse under fear.
Then someone appears
and pulls them out of danger.
The image of that person
At the very moment when the conscious mind is most vulnerable,
that person's image is deeply etched into their emotional memory.
It's not because they are exceptional,
but because they appeared exactly during the window when the DMN was offline.
The reverse is also true.
Regardless of gender,
this mechanism is universal.
Of course,
romantic infatuation and Zen enlightenment are not the same thing.
One is a misattribution of emotion;
the other is a structural upgrade of the cognitive system.
But they share the same underlying hardware channel:
amygdala activation,
suspension of the conscious mind,
and the writing of new information during that window.
The difference lies in the content being written.
Love writes: "This person makes my heart race."
Enlightenment writes: "So, this is how the world truly is."
This analogy is fun,
but it actually points to a profound question.
If the window of conscious inactivation can be used to write love,
and can also be used to write awakening,
then the window itself is neutral.
The key isn't how the window opens,
but what you encounter in that exact second
when it is open.
The reason Zen's "stick and shout" leads to enlightenment,
rather than romance or psychological trauma,
is that before that strike,
the practitioner has already done immense preparation.
His cognitive sandpile has reached a critical state;
the pressure of his inner doubts has hit a breaking point.
In the window opened by that strike,
it's not a person's face waiting to rush in,
but the answer to a question he's meditated on for ten years.
The same logic applies to life's "shocks."
Faced with the same bankruptcy,
one person may never recover,
while another achieves total realization.
The difference isn't how hard the blow was,
but the person who was hit,
and how high their cognitive sandpile was before the impact.
So, I want to wrap up today's clues into one sentence:
Enlightenment isn't hard;
what's hard is what you have prepared
for that second when the window opens.
If you've only piled up fear and desire your whole life,
then more intense fear and desire will rush in when the window opens.
If you've piled up awareness—
an honest questioning of "Who am I?"—
then what rushes in
might just be the answer.
This also addresses a key question:
What is the difference between meditation and these extreme methods?
Meditation is you gradually lowering the weight of priors yourself.
It's safe,
controllable,
but slow.
Psychedelics chemically drop the weights all at once.
It's fast,
powerful,
but you can't control what rushes in once the window opens.
The Zen strike is a master creating a precise impact at the right moment,
provided the master can read your state correctly.
And life's blows are the most savage version.
It doesn't care if you are ready or not;
it can strike at any time.
Perhaps true practice isn't seeking that strike,
but cultivating yourself to a state where,
no matter when the blow comes,
you can handle it.
But this leads to an even deeper question.
All the moments of enlightenment we've discussed—
the Zen strike,
the Overview Effect,
psychedelic experiences—
they all share a common limitation.
They are temporary.
The astronaut returns to Earth,
and the noise of daily life slowly drowns out the Overview Effect.
The effects of psychedelics wear off in a few hours.
Even with Zen enlightenment,
history is full of accounts of regressing after awakening.
You've attained it,
then you fall back into confusion.
What about the irreversible awakening the Buddha spoke of?
Between a temporary shutdown and a permanent upgrade,
lies a chasm—
how do we actually cross it?
This is perhaps the most central question in all of spiritual practice,
and the one with the fewest satisfying answers.
If you have your own thoughts,
or if you've experienced a sudden 'wake-up' moment,
please share them in the comments.
Your story might be the final grain of sand
needed by someone on the edge of a critical state.
Also, let me know what topics you'd like to hear about next.
I am Wang Lijie.
See you next time.