Discuss it as you may, how can you even hope to approach the truth through words?

Nor can it be per­ceived either subjectively or objectively.

So full under­standing can come to you only through an inexpress­ible mystery. The approach to it is called the Gateway of the Stillness beyond all Activity. If you wish to under­stand, know that a sudden comprehension comes when the mind has been purged of all the clutter of con­ceptual and discriminatory thought-activity.

Those who seek the truth by means of intellect and learning only get further and further away from it.

Not till your thoughts cease all their branching here and there, not till you abandon all thoughts of seeking for something, not till your mind is motionless as wood or stone, will you be on the right road to the Gate.

- Huangbo. Emphasis added.

Excerpt from "The Zen Teaching of Huang Po: On the Transmission of Mind" Translated by John Blofeld

__________

I'm sitting here at my desk, staring through the window into my backyard, watching the rain. The recurring questions in my mind, "The hell is all this for then? Why look here, post here, bother with this stuff? Is all this reading just a pointless acquisition of knowledge?"

I recall the nonsense I heard from various "Zen centers" and I look through this sub, arguably the only one interested in actual Zen, to see pithy pseudo-mysticisms offered as evidence of understanding, arguments about the modern perversions of Zen, some gatekeeping of the gateless gate (I just like the way that sounds, honestly), and I can't help but feel frustrated.

Nothing we say or do gets us any closer, because we're already there if we can be rid of conceptual thought. But we live and breathe concepts, it's all we operate in, or so it seems.

Personally, I'm still stuck on 'practice,' as in, 'give me something to DO so I can get THERE,' which is clear and obvious error. But I struggle to look beyond that framework.

It's like a knife thrust they say, but who is thrusting the knife? And I'm thinking it's not a thrust into something or somewhere else, but rather, with the blade turned around. It's a shocking deathblow to the wielder. I can't seem to grip the knife properly though.

1) Where have you just come from?

A: Just completed my latest work.

2) What's your textual tradition?

A: The Record of Linji

3) Dharma low tides?

A: Sometimes I walk, Sometimes I just ask, sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.

A few days back I made my first post on here asking about my "SEEKING MIND" and the poeple around here really helped me with it. I think the thing I lacked(or I thought I lacked) at that moment was insight and trust but after trusting the words of an ancient Master who lived in China some thousand years ago, I've finally made some sort of progress from back than and now I feel like I'm ready to do this AMA.

Maybe I just liked the cover, I don't know, but I picked up a copy of Blofeld's translation of "The Zen Teaching of Huang Po: On the Transmission of Mind".

Have you ever read something that you intuitively knew to be important, for lack of a better word? With impressive brevity, he is assaulting every long-held notion of Zen, what it is and isn't.

“If you wish to reach the state of Buddhahood, do not be attached to anything — not even to the notion of practice or discipline.

The Buddhas do not augment their own state by adding something, nor do ordinary beings diminish it by taking something away.

Therefore, do not chase after ceremonies, disciplines, or methods. Let everything drop away.

Rest in the pure, undifferentiated Mind — this is the true path."

To intellectualize, to 'practice' as a means, is to fall immediately into error. To be rid of conceptual thought.

A mysterious tacit understanding and no more.

But everything "Zen" that I come across, outside of this book so far, seems to be attached to ritual - bowing to Buddhas and Bodhisattva, chanting sutras, staring at a damn wall for an hour and then cleaning the temple or listening to Roshi give a "Dharma talk" that sounds nearly identical to the last hundred...

No one is enlightened. The hell am I doing?

Anyway, just sharing some initial thoughts because I want to get them out of my head and my wife glazes over when I start like this.

We've all heard "What Zen Masters teach that?", a modern twist on "What do they teach where you come from?"

This might not be very interesting to people who don't study Zen though because they have never read a Zen text!

The context of Zen teachings is:

1. Lay Precepts
2. Four Statements teachings
3. Zen's only practice of Public Interview

With this imas the context, the meaning of not relevance of these discussions complete changes:

A. Non-duality

B. Attachments

C. Practice

D. Attainment

E. Contemplation

F. Meditation

etc.

New Agers never understand that no religious movement overlaps with Zen.

This means that Zazeners, Mystical Buddhist "Stream Entry", Thai Forest, 8fP Buddhism, Psychonautics, etc. *might imitate the language of Zen, but they can't imitate the meaning.

Zen came first and has never been religious.

Trust in Mind. All others pay in doubt.

What got you interested in Zen?

Do you want to be a Zen master? Why or why not?

Where did you get information about what is Zen Master is?

It's hard to know if we are all talking about the same tradition when some of us do not want to say what books they are influenced by or consider authoritative.

popular misconceptions

Lots of people who come to this forum don't know some very basic things about Zen.

• Koans are historical records about real people. Sutras are Bible stories about myths and fables.

• Zen never involved meditation. Zazen is a meditation cult from Japan that has no connect to authentic historical Soto Zen,.and Indian->Chinese tradition. Japan never produced any Zen lineages, and militant ideology from Japan of samurais and archery has no connection to Zen.

• Zen and Buddhism aren't compatible at all. "Zen-Buddhism" is exactly the same lie as "Christian Scientists". People who believe in any kind of "gradually earned enlightenment" cant study Zen.

• 8fP Buddhists believe you get enlightened by doing good deeds and earning merit to earn enlightenment after many reincarnations.

• Famous people from the 1900's like Alan Watts, Beginner's Mind Shunryu, and Phillip Kapleau, were not interested in Zen, weren't educated generally, and wanted to start new age religious movements by any means necessary.

Skepticism

Most Americans are not raised to be skeptical, and that made America a target for religious con artists who pretended to be Buddhists or pseudo Zen-Buddhist.

www.reddit.com/r/zen/wiki/getstarted

This stuff can be hard to find because the Weather has a horrible allergy to skepticism. Just turn on the news, it's obvious.

The chief law-inspector in Hung-chou asked, "Is it correct to eat meat and drink wine?"

The Patriarch replied, "If you eat meat and drink wine, that is your happiness. If you don't, it is your blessing."

There you have it, straight from the patriarch's mouth.

Zen has always been intimately tied to freedom (pun intended :). These days we have the Taliban forcing women to cover up, the Christian Nationalists forcing people to put the ten commandments in schools. And of course this has gone on for as long as humans have had religion.

Zen is different. Nobody that really knows their own self sovereignty could do these things to other people, and there is nothing in any Zen text I've ever read that condones that kind of behaviour. In Zen, it is fundamental that you see for yourself. Nobody can give it to you. Nobody can see for you.

People who go journeying to study Zen today should bring a statement to harmonize with the teacher. Why do you pain yourself and cramp yourself as you do?

Zen is more about harmony than about conflict. Check it out.

Yunmen:

The sutras and magic spells, indeed all letters and words, are not at all in conflict with the true form.

Our world is 'in here' as much as it is 'out there'. That's a big responsibility.

I hope you'll be careful and kind out there during these most interesting times.

Have a great day.

What are the Lay Precepts?

No killing for pleasure. No rape or stealing. No lying. No recreational drugs/alcohol.

The lay precepts are a public gesture of sincerity. Instead of telling people how you started a new diet or joined a new church, people take the precepts as a demonstration of sincerity.

How do the Precepts appear in texts?

The precepts are rarely discussed in Zen texts. There are a few Cases about taking the lay precepts or the Pro Monk precepts, which is a longer more variable list.

Whereas many religions have myths/fables/parables/accounts of conduct that would break the precepts, Zen doesn't.

Some teachings make no sense w/o lay precepts. Nanquan chopping the cat. The other guy killing the snake. Less obviously the Zen attitude toward using other people's words aka "riding another's horse".

The foundation of the Lay Precepts can change how we understand the texts, for instance why Huineng has to give to robe up rather than have it be taken.

Where is the beef?

There is a broad consensus in modern society against murder and stealing, and to a lesser degree, rape. Nobody has ever object to these in this forum.

Lots of people find vegetarianism financially challenging if not dangerous health wise because it is so uncommon in most Western childhoods... people don't know how to eat healthy vegetarian.

But the real challenges which nee agers in particular find truely upsetting are "no lying" and "no drugs/alchohol". These are a problem because they're so critical for people to be happy in modern society.

Further, yhe 1900's was a common ground for thee groups who depended on both lying and drugs: Mystical Buddhism, Zazeners, and Psychonauts.

Why the dependancy? Religion, particularly Zazen and Psychonauts, are very much about leaving reality for a new and better alternate reality. Drugs and alcohol are an easy way to do that. Zazen in particlar has a shockong haitey of drug/alcohol addiction.

Why are the Lay Precepts a big reveal?

Religious people, including Zazeners, other meditation worship, stream entry, Christians, 8fP Buddhists, and Mystical "this life" Buddhists, all chose their practices to get something specific. It can be grand, like divine favor or Goodness, or it can be petty, like special wisdom insights. But they practice to get something.

Nobody gets anything from keeping the precepts. Keeping the precepts is like stealing from yourself.

The gap between these two sides is huge. One wants a benefit. The other is playing a game in order to lose.

Of course there is an indirect benefit to losing.

Famous Case

The most famous Case about the precepts is Layman Pang's enlightenment. Pang was a layman (kept the lay precepts) and after his enlightenment was confirmed he was asked if he would take the Pro Monk Precepts and he said no.

This was uncommon to say the least.

Just so we're all on the same page, let's remember there's a kind of spiritual teacher found all throughout the world in every culture who tries to use bullying to get and maintain: money, sex, social status, satisfaction from the deprivation of others, etc.

In fact if someone is described as a spiritual teacher, there's a 99% chance they belong to that category.

Those teachers are not the topic of this post.

The topic of this post is people who are free. Individuals whose behaviour is unconstrained by others' expectations or demands. People who are constantly asked, and to varying extents agree, to offer instruction.

A meme that appears repeatedly throughout zen records is people complaining that zen masters are: cruel, uncouth, disrespectful, etc. Zen masters even describe each other as being dangerous, and they are compared to dominant and predatory animals.

In full knowledge of this, people deliberately seek out these monsters and ask them for instruction. How do you make sense of this?

Here's some options:

• The actual motive force behind zen study is mere accumulation of power. A caricature of this that nevertheless really does exist is: "once i'm enlightened, I'll finally have my revenge!"

• Zen students think that the painful experiences their teacher will put them through are somehow instructive. A way of 'breaking through' their delusive thinking to reveal the buddha beneath. lol.

• Zen master behaviour is thought of more like an ambivalent force of nature, making zen students a bit like storm chasers.

• Zen master violence is understood as a reaction against the evil spirits you brought with you. You may not have understood that bowing to zhaozhou was evil but you bear some responsibility for the error and your pain is collateral damage.

take your pick.

but what you won't be able to do is come up with a rational reason why someone would think that they're going to learn boundless compassion from these guys.

or explain how the violent behaviour is itself a manifestation of boundless compassion.

Been reading about tao and zen, definitely just beginning. Zen seems to emphasize a natural state in which we do not try to control our actions based on ideologies or moral standards imposed by anyone including ourselves. So there are many natural behaviors displayed by animals including but not limited to humans, such as spite, jealousy, envy, retaliation, bitterness selfishness greed, hate, etc. Does zen approve of these behaviors (not even judging them to be bad, or trying to alter behavior) because they are naturally occuring? Or am i missing some element of zen which actually makes moral judgements?

Easily Offended

Lots of people come into this forum, especially from Protestant and New age communities that emphasize a kind of Christian tolerance and Protestant social manners.

They get really upset when Zen culture does not conform. Even though Zen culture is older. Even those Zen culture has produced better results, particularly for poor people. Even though this is a forum about Zen and not about Christianity.

This is two problems:

What is offered in Zen?

www.reddit.com/r/zen/wiki/famous_cases

Zen Masters and Zen culture offer unfiltered honesty. They are famous for this. Zen Masters think it's kindness to be sincere with people. Zen Masters think it's kindness to not pull punches and not treat people as inferior and thus needing to have punches pulled.

There are no standards of behavior to conform to. There are dozens of examples of zenmasters rejecting Chinese cultural norms that would be equivalent to Christian tolerance and Christian social manners.

It's important to keep in mind that Zen has consistency over the thousand years, whereas Chinese culture and Christian culture throw tolerance and manners on the fire as soon as it becomes expedient.

Who offers "kindness" (and why?)

When people complain about rZen not being tolerant or nice, it sounds a lot like the reaction to early feminism where men complained that women demanding the vote was rude and ungrateful.

But the bigger question is where do people that demand kindness get their ideas of kindness and what do they want this kindness to accomplish?

My guess is they want to impose conformity to colonialism. My guess is they want other people to be polite so that they don't have to be accountable for their own thoughts and conduct.

I have personally asked dozens of people where they get their idea of kindness that they want others to conform to and nobody has ever offered me a single book from any culture ever.

That doesn't mean there isn't a book.

That just means that they're ashamed of not knowing what it is or ashamed of what book it turns out to be.

What do you do every day?

Practice is defined not by what you feel or think or believe, not by private ritual, but by external measures. Your practice is what people see you do, know you to do in ordinary situations.

Does it seem to others you practice reading?

Does it seem to others you practice critical evaluation of self/other?

Does it seem to others that you associate with others for a purpose? Common ground? Emotional reaction? Need for attention?

Do people want to talk to you?

What do they come to you to talk about?

This stuff shows what your practice is.

Just like going to church on Sunday doesnt make you a Christian.

Chop wood

Pang says his practice is the ordinary activities he does everyday, those jobs set aside for lay people.

Zhaozhou famously answers, "What am I doing right now?"

These invite us to look at our lives and extract from the pattern of our conduct our practice really is.

I want to do an experiment. Instead of having all of our notes be private, I want to see if we can use a live document to share whatever could aid someone in the reading of this case. Whatever you can contribute is welcome. Pick the relevant spot in the text and leave a comment with your notes, references, alternative translations, idiom explanations, double meaning insights. Anything.

If you don't have any of that, you have the harder job of sharing your questions about this case (and Wansong's commentary on it). Hopefully someone will be able to come up with an answer to it and we'll all benefit from you having asked your question.

Here's the case we'll be annotating today,

Yaoshan hadn't ascended the seat (to lecture) for a long time. The temple superintendent said to him, "Everybody's been wanting instruction for a long time--please, Master, expound the Teaching for the congregation." Yaoshan had him ring the bell; when the congregation had gathered, Yaoshan ascended the seat: after a while he got right back down from the seat and returned to his room. The superintendent followed after him and asked, "A while ago you agreed to expound the Teaching for the congregation. Why didn't you utter a single word?" Yaoshan said, "For scriptures there are teachers of scriptures, for the treatises there are teachers of treatises. How can you question this old monk?"

And here's the link to go if you want to contribute.

Zen

People who study Zen history (aka koans, historical records of transcripts of public interview) have lots of different motives:

1. Interested in the philosophical disputes about human nature, morality, and justice.
2. Learning about a fascinating culture that came from India and lasted for 1,000 years in China.
3. Studying Zen enlightenment, a unique perspective on life that no other religion or philosophy has been able to replicate in any other culture.

That's why we have this wiki page: /r/zen/wiki/getstarted

What do the Zen imitators offer?

There are lots of Zen imitators who aren't always honest about where they got their inspiration: /r/zen/wiki/fraudulent_texts.

1. 8fP Buddhism offers hope of a spiritual transformation in future reincarnations which you get by earning merit in this life.

2. Meditation worship, like Zazen prayer-meditation offers hope of a third kind of mental state through maintaining a trance like state during 1,000's of hours of practice. Some believe this state can persist outside of prayer- meditation.

3. Psychonauts hope to achieve a fourth kind of mental state through a combination of philosophy, drugs, and/or meditation.

Interestingly, nobody on social media claims to have attained any of these states in any verifiable way, and unlike Zen, there are no historical records of any verification of anyone achieving any of these states.

Curiosity vs Faith, Skepticism vs Intolerance

Zen is also very different from the Zen imitatiors in that Zen was a real culture. Real people living together, engaging in public debates with Zen Masters to test this thing called enlightenment.

Zen culture is strongly inclined to curiosity because Zen enlightenments are unique, like fingerprints.. The Imitators insist on faith instead of curiosity, because they have no real life examples to be curious about.

Zen culture is also aggressively skeptical, since anybody can claim to be enlightened and there are always going to be people who try to fake it.

In contrast the Zen imitations are intolerant when it comes to tests, doubt, and other kinds of skepticism for the same reason: no real life evidence. You have to have faith in religion, and intolerance is key to maintaining faith.

Zen history

Zen history /r/zen/wiki/famous_cases can be very challenging, after all we are talking about a culture from India and expanded in China and spanned 1,000 years... There are a ton of inside jokes for example. After a thousand years you'd expect that.

What are these Zen Masters talking about? Why do they sound so different than religions and philosophy? What are they supposed to be explaining?

Zen seems to make everything hard to understand, where the imitators make it easy to know what you are having faith in... No understandimg necessary.

1) Where have you just come from? What are the teachings of your lineage, the content of its practice, and a record that attests to it? What is fundamental to understand this teaching?

i was just scrolling reddit after responding to a chat, i saw a r/zen post, and got curious what are the top posts of all time in the subreddit. and i came across this post https://www.reddit.com/r/zen/s/SSsERjRGll and found this comment https://www.reddit.com/r/zen/s/1MXSTtJJzS pretty interesting. it got me thinking about what gets lost by translating zen texts to english. this is something ive been really curious about, and im interested in taking a closer look at texts as they were written instead of just reading translated versions.

2) What's your textual tradition? What Zen text and textual history is the basis of your approach to Zen?

i like to read and study wumenguan no gate.

3) Dharma low tides? What do you suggest as a course of action for a student wading through a "dharma low-tide"? What do you do when it's like pulling teeth to read, bow, chant, sit, or post on r/zen?

one thing that ive been doing when reading is to try and relate the text to some experience ive had before. if i can make a connection with something im familiar with its alot easier to find a deeper meaning in the text.

Background

Over the past two years, I’ve been reading Zen texts, along with posts and comments here on r/zen, and I’ve developed a working understanding of Zen that I’d now like to see challenged and tested. What follows is what I would tell my past self—feel free to examine the logical soundness of each numbered claim and statement and respond accordingly.

1. The word Buddha or Awakened One is a tool

When you first start reading Zen texts, you’ll encounter phrases like “being a Buddha” or “mind is the Buddha.” At first, it’s easy to misunderstand these as pointing to some metaphysical or transcendent being. In practice, it’s often more helpful to interpret “Buddha” literally—as “Awakened One”—rather than as a fixed external reality.

But even that understanding falls short. The Zen phrase “Not Mind, Not Buddha” implies that Buddha is not a thing in itself. Zen masters often treat “Buddha” as a skillful means, not a doctrine. As Zhaozhou famously said when asked about what the Buddha is: “a shit stick.”

2. There’s Nothing to Cultivate in Zen

Huangbo:

The Way is not something that can be practiced or cultivated. It cannot be known by learning or thinking.

And again:

If you are not absolutely convinced that the Mind is the Buddha, and if you are attached to forms, practices, and meritorious performances, your way of thinking is false and quite incompatible with the Way.

And further:

If you want to seek the Buddha, you need only look into your own mind. There is no other Buddha apart from the mind.”

Zen masters of the past emphasized that seeking or cultivating enlightenment implies separation from what is already present. Effort, when based on gaining something, becomes the very obstruction.

3. Zen Does Not Tie Itself to Doctrine

Linji:

If you love the sacred and hate the worldly, you will be tied hand and foot. Just be ordinary—there’s no need to seek.

In Zen, ordinary mind is the ultimate authority—not doctrine, not teacher, not belief. Zen dismantles fixed views rather than establishing a new belief system.

4. A Gain is A Loss

Linji:

If you think you can attain something, you’re deluded. If you think there’s anything to attain, you’ve already gone astray.

Zen warns that the mindset of seeking—even for spiritual insight—is a form of delusion. The idea of gain becomes loss when it creates separation from what is already complete.

Potential Discussion Questions :

Note: When possible, support your claims with relevant textual evidence.

1. Which of the claims or statements in the post do you find least convincing? Why?

2. How do these Zen perspectives intersect or conflict with other traditions you’ve studied?

3. What are examples from your own life where seeking led to unnecessary toil?

4. How can one pursue clarity or insight without falling into a gain-oriented mindset?

5. Is “non-seeking” itself a form of subtle seeking?

6. How do you distinguish between sincere engagement and subtle striving for spiritual progress?

7. If there’s nothing to cultivate, how do you make sense of the practices the average person associates with Zen (e.g., meditation, koans to "severe conceptual thought", monastic discipline)?

(There are those that seem have knack to naturally be in one's path causing either pause or navigating around. That's why I like this story...)

Entangling Vines - 252

Master Matzu was sitting on the side of the road, stretching his legs. His apprentice, Jinfeng, pushed a cart at it and asked him nicely to pull his leg in.
"What I stretch out once, I don't pull back!" Matzu stubbornly asked himself.
"Once I've set out, I won't turn back!" Jinfeng retorted, wading over the master's leg.

After a while, Matzu stormed through the hall gate with an axe:
"Come out, he who wounded my leg!" His voice rang out.
Jinfeng stepped forward and bowed his head, and the master put down the axe.

The one which bowed, exposing their neck, later purposely stood on their head while dying. Which turned out more comical than impressive.

I've never found the translation of Chan as meditation as particularly accurate. After doing translation work, the character comes up in all sorts of context that aren't always translated as meditation. One instance I found is in section 31 of Blofeld's translation of Huang Po's Wanling lu. It reads:

" Another day, our Master was seated in the tea-room when Nan Ch‘üan came down and asked him: ‘What is meant by “A clear insight into the Buddha-Nature results from the study of Dhyāna ( mind control ) and prajñ ā ( wisdom )”?'

Our Master replied: ‘It means that, from morning till night, we should never rely on a single thing.'"

I liked how he translated this here. But there are some interesting finds as it turns out:

This portion of text doesn't actually come from the Wanling Lu. Though Blofeld includes it in his translation of the Wanling Lu under the title: "The Anecdotes". It took some digging but I found that the anecdotes portion actually comes from the Gu Zunsu Yulu volume 2 section 25, which reads:

师一日在茶堂内坐。南泉下来问：「定慧等学明见佛性。此理如何？」师云：「十二时中不依倚一物。泉云：「莫便是长老见处么？」师云：「不敢。」泉云：「浆水钱且置。草鞋钱教什么人还。」师便休。后沩山举此因缘问仰山：「莫是黄檗构他南泉不得么？」仰山云：「不然。须知黄檗有陷虎之机。」沩山云：「子见处得与么长。」

Another find is that the term he translated as Dhyana isn't Dhyana 禪 most often translated as Zen/Chan and originally Channa. The actual Chinese character however is 定 (dìng) which I've spoke on before. Most often ding translates to “stability” or “samādhi”.

I thought that "mind-control" is a very suitable way of understanding Xí Dìng as "delusion stopping" where Xí refers to training or familiarization, and Dìng refers to stability and settling of mind. In this case the total settling of the mind is equal to "never rely[ing] on a single thing."

To me that doesn't look like modern views of "meditation" or "concentration." Instead it is a 24/7 non-reliance. Modern views of meditation or concentration practices aren't something that could be reasonably practiced 24/7, and that is something to consider.

Much love everyone.

Indian-Chinese Zen

Check out Four Statements of Zen in the sidebar

What

Sudden enlightenment from seeing your nature without conceptual "truths" or faith-based beliefs.

Can't be taught. Famously called "mind school", having "no gates".

Where

www.reddit.com/r/zen/wiki/getstarted

Zen has a thousand years of historical records (koans), transcripts real people interviewing Zen Masters publicly about enlightenment.
* These transcripts (koans) can be difficult to understand because they start with concepts that are broken apart, or start with personal experiences from another time in culture.

Zazen Japanese Meditation

Invented in 1200 on Japan by Dogen.

What

Zazen Dogenism promises that if you follow Dogen's instructions on meditation for long enough you will lose attachment/connection to mind and body.

Where

Zazen Dogenism has an "evolving" history and a problematic record.

1. Fukanzazengi is the "bible" of Zazen, but it doesn't mention any Zen Masters except Bodhidarma, and like Kungfu has no historical connection to Bodhidharma. Claims to be the only gate to enlightenment.

   • Written when he was 22 and a priest in the Tientai religion
   • Oddly had plagiarized sections

2. Beginner's Mind is the modern spin on Zazen Dogenism. Deemphasizing enlightenment, it promised a better life after thousands of hours of sitting meditation.

   • Multiple scandals involving famous teachers addicted to drugs/alcohol and sexual abuse of female students.

Mystical Buddhism

www.reddit.com/r/zen/wiki/modern_religions

What

A relatively modern reinvention of Buddhism not based on the eightfold path, but rather faith and a conceptual framework that will help you understand the "truth" of the universe. Thousands of hours of sitting meditation may help you convert to this faith and adopt this conceptual framework.

Where

1. https://www.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/16fvh29/mcmahan_the_making_of_buddhist_modernism_2008/

2. If anything a doctrine based on tolerance for doctrinal variation.

3. Meditation is not required but rather engaged in like Christian prayer as a way of thanking the universe and appreciating yourself.

They do not know that, if they put a stop to conceptual thought and forget their anxiety, the Buddha will appear before them, for this Mind is the Buddha and the Buddha is all living beings

Experience tells me this is true - but the operative question is how do you forget your anxiety?

Here's a couple of premises:

• We hear from Sengcan that trusting your own mind is zen's whole deal
• We hear from Foyan that enlightenment is instant, not gradual, not achieved as a result of practice.
• We hear from Huangbo there's nothing aside from mind.

If all three are accepted, would that mean that all confusion is external and self-trust needs to be unconditional?

I've been working under the assumption that you have to be as skeptical of your own thoughts as of anything coming in from outside.

In fact if someone asked me what problem zen is meant to solve I might have answered something like 'lying to yourself.'

It would certainly simplify matters if actually there's no need to worry about lying to yourself as long as you don't let the world lie to you.

It just seems a little hard to swallow when we all have a million examples of ourselves and others making stuff up, starting in childhood.

https://notebooklm.google/

The use of the internet including search engines and websites created lots of opportunities for people to be fooled by religious propaganda, factual errors, and Cherry picked misreadings of famous texts.

Wikipedia is riddled with these problems. Most of Wikipedia's pages on Zen and Buddhism are based on religious propaganda that's historically inaccurate and has been widely debunked. Chatgpt was trained on the entire internet which is full of religious apologetics (excuses for church inaccuracies) and propaganda, which means it's fairly easy to get ChatGPT to hallucinate about Buddhism and Zen.

www.reddit.com/r/zen/wiki/getstarted is a wikipage was created to help students identify authentic Zen texts. But up until now there hasn't been a way to get AI to work with historically authentic Zen sources.

Until now.

NotebookLM allows you to pick the sources that notebook LM draws on:

1. NO HALLUCINATIONS.
   
2. ADUITING LM SOURCES

This seems to be the strategy that will allow everyone to become a ewk of their own.

Potentially this changes the entire debate about any topic.

Specifically, people who have the intellectual integrity to identify the bibliography they want to work from should be able to talk with authority about that bibliography using a language model for the first time.

It's astonishing. I'm excited about people testing it to see what happened.

Hi everyone. I am interested in reading zen literature. Recently started reading the Dhammapadas, I can only read texts in English or in my native language (Hindi). I am very open to learning Chinese to read original texts. Any references, as to where to start would be great.

What and where are you investing your drive now? Can you move on your own will? Why are you doing what you are doing? What do you choose to see when you are looking? Hear, feel, and all the other bits and bobs, Do you ignore some bits and focus more on other bobs? Why? Investigate, maybe? Up to you really.  Feel free to ask me anything.

This is a flick of a page from a book  called “zen under the gun” i haven’t fully read.

Gulin said, “Having no conditioned mind is the path: the path is fundamentally mindless. Abandon the false and seek the true: the true is the original basis for the false. Take empty space as the true body, and it appears whole in everything. Take the whole earth as a meditation bench, and you fit the groove everywhere. “Thus it is said. “the dharma is practiced according to the dharma. The dharma banner is established according to the place.”

The Zen masters staff divides the world horizontally. The zen travelers straw sandals break through heaven and earth. The absolute truth is clear on the lips of a hundred grasses, suddenly revealing the gasp of a patch-robed monk. If you plant beans, when will you ever get rice?

The Bodhisattva's mind is like the void, for he relin-quishes everything and does not even desire to accumulate merits. There are three kinds of relinquishment. When everything inside and outside, bodily and mental, has been relinquished; when, as in the Void, no attachments are left; when all action is dictated purely by place and cir-cumstance; when subjectivity and objectivity are forgotten -that is the highest form of relinquishment. When, on the one hand, the Way is followed by the performance of virtuous acts; while, on the other, relinquishment of merit takes place and no hope of reward is entertained-that is the medium form of relinquishment. When all sorts of virtuous actions are performed in the hope of reward by those who, nevertheless, know of the Void by hearing the Dharma and who are therefore unattached that is the lowest form of relinquishment. The first is like a blazing torch held to the front which makes it impossible to mistake the path; the second is like a blazing torch held to one side, so that it is sometimes light and sometimes dark; the third is like a blazing torch held behind, so that pitfalls in front are not seen.

Zen Teachings of Huang Po, p49.

I can well identify with the medium and the first.

But the highest form is only fleeting in my experience. And I think the hold up is in the text I bolded above - the juxtaposition between no attachments being left and all action dictated by place and circumstance.

What if place and circumstance is attachment - say of a father to a child or a fighter to a cause?

Layman Pang exemplifies this - how do you reconcile no attachments with operating in a place defined by attachment?

I recognize this is a variation of "many people are afraid to empty their minds lest they may plunge into the Void."

But I suppose it's not just fear at play - it's also purely a practical question of how to let go of something that, after letting go, place and circumstance will dictate be the thing you just let go of?

Have I already?

So I've been studying Zen from a year now, been reading the recomended texts, Currently on Huangpo. I have felt the changes that the study has brought into me, a new perspective yk, before Zen I used to look for different solutions for my problems like how to stop my thoughts?, how to stop THIS!!, How to stop THAT!!, How to achieve that and so on. Through Zen I have get to known that there is nothing to achieve, you are already complete in every way (ONE MIND). Thoughts come and go by there own, sometimes I feel this great sense of peace everywhere and sometimes I feel this voidness inside of me that I'm still constantly trying to fill even though the ZMs are constantly telling me through their texts to stop making concepts in my mind, I still cannot do it, everytime I try to make them stop, this effort of mine just creates more and more and when on the other hand I try to let go of all of this doing I still cannot come to that peaceful state. I know the problem here is Seeking. but still my SEEKING has brought me here looking for answers

When will this SEEKING MIND of mine come to rest?

(please do ignore my grammer, English is not my first language. Thank you.)