I learned last night, due to not being able to sleep and turning on a Buddha at the Gas Pump interview, that there is a modern term for that experience of the gap between thoughts, for the resting place that interrupts the usual stream to such a degree that radical change is possible: a pure consciousness event. It isn’t that words do not already exist for this, but that they all have the baggage of familiarity, of thinking we understand what those words mean, so I’m all for a term decoupled from usual religious connotations.
In the Zen Buddhist tradition, satori refers to the experience of kenshō, “seeing into one’s true nature”. Ken means “seeing,” shō means “nature” or “essence”. Satori and kenshō are commonly translated as enlightenment, a word that is also used to translate bodhi, prajna and buddhahood.
wikipedia
~ Singing Gecko 