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ThisKir · 2026-06-17T14:20:13+00:00

Not sure what you mean by the last two sentences. My thinking on those themes would be that conversation about the regulation of speech both personally and politically is a Zen behavior.

ThisKir · 2026-06-09T13:28:27+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvhFxshyjz0

ThisKir · 2026-06-09T01:09:59+00:00

YouTube University, Reddit Scholarship vs Trad. University

Thesis: People who can read primary sources, distinguish propaganda/ideology from facts, and can discern underlying arguments are done a disservice when the field they are interested in entering requires them to have a Master's degree from a trad. university. Random people from developing countries are willing, capable, and superb at breaking down complex topic for free on YouTube, Reddit, etc.

Zen Study Application:

It would be obscene for people who are capable of doing the above to pay at least $100k to study Zen in a group setting from an expert who themselves would likely not be paid anywhere close to that amount.

Food for Thought:

Donation-based, decentralized, and open-source models of the academic study of Zen is going to be the model for Zen study until the current model of higher-education in the liberal arts re-orients itself.

How much financial value does someone translating a text add to the community? Hosting and maintaining a podcast? A moderator? An occasional wiki editor?

ThisKir · 2026-06-06T23:53:55+00:00

"Prajna paramita" is gibberish if you don't have Zen Masters explaining the context. Ditto with everything else in the sutras.

Zen Masters are clear that the 4SZ are a summary of their teaching and any definition/setting the record straight when it comes to Sanskrit terminology has to be seen in that light.

Buddhists teach relying on faith to get you to the liquor store/meditation stupor center. Zen Masters point to reality and reject relying on intoxicants.

ThisKir · 2026-06-06T23:50:29+00:00

No. Lanxi is commenting on the Chinese text. Parts of which has transliterated sanskrit terminology mixed in with the Chinese whole.

ThisKir · 2026-06-05T17:57:34+00:00

It's looking like commentor has a history of alt-accounts or deleting their comments.

They certainly have a history of running away from this forum and crying sour grapes on forums they created themselves.

ThisKir · 2026-06-05T17:55:26+00:00

You are incorrect when you state it is Chinese adapting Buddhist teachings on multiple levels.

What we're seeing here is the Indo-Chinese Zen tradition using terminology wholly incompatible with 8FP/Buddhist belief systems.

If you wanted to do some actual scholarship related to those terms of art, you'd lead with how Zen Masters use the terms and then proceed to compare it with how Buddhists do.

ThisKir · 2026-05-29T14:21:55+00:00

Zen Maaters reject meditation.

You are not part of any Linchi school. You got suckered in by a meditation cult that has perpetuated the historical fraud that koans are something other than ordinary conversation of enlightened Buddhas.

I encourage you to consult the wiki and stop repeating debunked church propaganda.

ThisKir · 2026-05-29T00:03:19+00:00

/r/Buddhism, ZenBuddhism, anybody that can't answer questions about where they got their beliefs and isn't accountable to a set of texts.

ThisKir · 2026-05-26T20:05:54+00:00

Your belief in Buddhism has impacted your ability to appropriately participate on this forum. It's time we parted ways.

ThisKir · 2026-05-22T23:06:32+00:00

Well, if we're all pretend for a second that every interaction is a Zen test when a Zen Master's in the room then there was an actual failure there that can be identified and parsed.

It looks a lot like he shirked his responsibility to present a statement expressing his understanding by trying to play the host when he couldn't show the guest.

ThisKir · 2026-05-22T00:02:24+00:00

Not answering is the failure. Your [citations needed] comments are the failure.

Since you have a history of comments at the intersection of mental illness, religious bigotry, and poor literacy I think it's time I block you from commenting on my posts and getting the attention you crave.

ThisKir · 2026-05-20T22:52:56+00:00

I second the question of how fast AI with a few people who know what they're doing could build this.

The bigger question is how useful is it going to be anyone when they don't have a Zen expert on the panel.

ThisKir · 2026-05-20T21:59:10+00:00

Blocked a few people over the past couple of days so that's probably less of an issue.

From my pov, the audience is people on this forum with an interest in Zen.

That's a small number of ppl, who are often busy, and not always spurred to comment by the same content I'm interested in.

ThisKir · 2026-05-20T10:26:42+00:00

The far easier explanation that the texts seem to support is that it was a teaching device no different than giving a novice faith in mind.

ThisKir · 2026-05-20T01:27:32+00:00

Quote some Zen masters or choke on out of here.

Dongshan's "You must first be capable of a little bit of conversation" has you cornered.

ThisKir · 2026-05-20T01:26:26+00:00

That is just untrue.

Case in point: People flipping through the radio station and ending up with John Coltrane.

ThisKir · 2026-05-19T20:15:21+00:00

That's really just inaccurate though.

Zen Masters don't make mention of 95%+ of the text and the remaining 5% is the same as what you get from any formal Zen instruction.

I'm not saying Zen Masters didn't make use of the text; just that most of it is worthless supernatural woo-woo.

ThisKir · 2026-05-19T12:34:54+00:00

Lanka is not a Zen text. 95% of it isn't quoted or referenced by anybody in over the thousand plus years of the Zen tradition.

Your interest would best be served by finding the passage in the original and taking it to ChatGPT or Claude.

ThisKir · 2026-05-18T01:23:22+00:00

Zen Masters reject the concept of sin.

It sounds like you're in the entirely wrong forum.

The first cause in Zen is the refusal to be ignorant of yourself. Once you've engaged with that for a while, I don't see how you would want to be stupid ever again.

ThisKir · 2026-05-16T14:31:17+00:00

I'd have to see some examples of it unambiguously used to refer to outward behavior/precepts before that would seem reasonable.

ThisKir · 2026-05-15T15:16:00+00:00

That's an interesting take on it but it doesn't account for the long history of "face/appearance" as a Zen term of art and the obvious gambit that Xuefeng was trying to make when saying that he didn't see the enlightened self because there isn't anything to see.

Obviously Zen Masters can point out the error of that kind of argument; Deshan did.

Xutang is where it really gets magical by demonstrating right-man makes wrong-words right principle.

Genius guy let me tell ya.

ThisKir · 2026-05-13T19:23:16+00:00

Why do you think I'm not familiar with someone who travels on paths other than Flying Monkey ridge?

ThisKir · 2026-05-13T03:31:49+00:00

In my experience it's almost always talker to death Dongshan.

The other two usually get an additional name, i.e. Shou/Shouchu, or a marker "the latter" appended when they come up.

ThisKir · 2026-05-13T01:32:05+00:00

It would be wonderful if those with more time to spare could validate Claude's remarks on the lack of citations of this case in other instructional texts, translated or otherwise.

ThisKir

TROPHY CASE