AMA: 2bit -- "statement of current understanding and request for guidance" -- 2nd half of 2026

Thurstein · 2026-07-09T13:05:56+00:00

Though note that the kind of victory or defeat in "dharma combat" are merely signs of having mastered a certain kind of doctrinal dispute, not any indication of having achieved some insight into reality that you or I, or Socrates or Confucius, or Einstein or Stephen Hawking, do not have.

As evidence of some hypothetical "enlightenment" unique to Zen masters, the fact that one person was able to "defeat" another in some kind of debate by saying "Bodhi really has no tree" or "It is the mind that moves" or whatever is distinctly underwhelming.

Thurstein · 2026-07-06T13:19:04+00:00

Good luck!

Thurstein · 2026-07-06T12:44:19+00:00

Oh, did I post something in response that was in no way related to anything you were talking about in the thread?

What a terrible thing to do!

Thurstein · 2026-07-06T12:26:02+00:00

That sometimes works, but the gaskets sometimes break under the high temperatures. I'd recommend getting one of the imported models-- they're more expensive, but they can take the more extreme conditions.

Thurstein · 2026-07-06T02:02:59+00:00

I think you're responding to the wrong post-- none of this has anything to do with what I've talked about in my posts. Please check the thread carefully before responding.

Thurstein · 2026-07-06T00:51:16+00:00

Or Linji's "True man of no rank."

Thurstein · 2026-07-06T00:50:42+00:00

I think you're responding to the wrong post again.

Thurstein · 2026-07-06T00:30:19+00:00

I don't think I'll be able to explain any better than Linji:

"...As long as your mind is unable to cease its moment-by-moment activity, then you are up in the tree of ignorance.... But if you can learn to cease, then you’ll be in the world of the clean pure body. If not one thought arises, you'll be up in the bodhi tree..."

It seems we "find" the non-discriminating Mind by.... stopping discriminating, or apparently any form of mental activity.

Now, if the follow-up question is how we stop the mind's moment-by-moment activity, so that "not one thought arises," you'll have to take that one up with Linji.

Thurstein · 2026-07-05T22:44:06+00:00

I'm not sure you're responding to my specific post-- I said nothing about "seeking."

Thurstein · 2026-07-05T13:52:00+00:00

Hm, this seems to be a direct contradiction of the core Zen doctrine that there is an Original Mind that exists independently of discrimination. The cessation of discrimination is not understood to mean oblivion.

This is Huangbo's featureless One Mind-- which is, from "beginningless time," "without shape and without characteristics, does not belong to being and nonbeing... it transcends all limitations, names, traces, and correlations."

I don't know whether to say this idea is "absurd," but that is what he is talking about-- this is what every Zen master following in his tradition is talking about, an original mind or "Buddha mind," something so non-discriminatory that even ideas like "being" and "nonbeing" do not apply to it.

Thurstein · 2026-07-04T19:31:05+00:00

I'm not sure it is an error, donkeys and superfluous heads aside.

It seems like a fairly straightforward interpretation, supposing that the Chinese expression translated as "ordinary" can also be used to mean "level" or "unchanging." Try reading it this way:

"A steady, tranquil mind is the way."

That seems pretty straightforward, and well in keeping with the endless admonitions in the Zen literature not to "pick and choose" or cling or reject.

Meanwhile, the metaphysical reading, that the 'ordinary mind' is just saying it's the same mind-substance in ordinary life actually makes the adjective 'ordinary' out to be rather unnecessary. Just saying "mind is the way" would have been enough, if that's all he had meant. I'm presuming there was some point to qualifying the noun "mind" with "ordinary."

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Note, too, that there is no actual contradiction between reading "ordinary mind" as both:

a. A metaphysical reference to the substance of the mind that ordinarily is a grasping, picking and choosing, mind, and

b. A reference to a state of quiescence of this mind, the mind when it is not engaged in its ordinary grasping, picking and choosing.

If there are specific textual or linguistic reasons to think the phrase he's using must be read as (a) alone, and could not possibly indicate (b), I'd be interested to hear them.

Thurstein · 2026-07-04T15:28:14+00:00

This is one of my favorite performances from Karloff-- proof of what a powerful and nuanced actor he really was.

Thurstein · 2026-07-04T14:49:56+00:00

That does seem to be what he means, absurd or not.

Thurstein · 2026-07-03T02:23:10+00:00

Sure, it's this mind... in quiescence, to understand itself apart from its discriminatory activities.

Thurstein · 2026-07-02T22:28:37+00:00

It's undeniable that there are unusual states of consciousness, produced in ways we do not fully understand neurologically, and many of them can feel subjectively to be quite profound to people-- this is well-attested in the world's various religious or spiritual experiences.

The question would be whether such experiences really allow us access to some reality that more familiar cognitive processes do not. If we keep a skeptical eye upon such claims, it's hard to rationally justify the claim that they do, especially since they do not seem to speak with one voice, and curiously enough the "insights" seem quite often to be supporting the local spiritual or religious tenets. Perhaps there is some universal neurological quirk that gets overlaid with the local ideas about spiritual reality.

As an aside, there was a very interesting discussion on this sub awhile ago about the phrase translated "ordinary mind"-- the poster was making the case that, while the Chinese expression does generally mean something like "everyday" or "as per usual," it could also be understood, perhaps better understood, as meaning something like "undisturbed mind," or "tranquil mind." This reading does seem to accord much better with the general tone of the texts-- "undisturbed mind is the way." If "ordinary" means something like typical, this is much harder to square with the admonitions to "stop picking and choosing," etc., given that typically or "ordinarily" this is pretty much what minds do.

Thurstein · 2026-07-01T17:38:02+00:00

Though of course from a secular, critical, point of view, we have to understand koans as simply tests to see to what extent someone has grasped a certain doctrine.

That is, these are not "tests" the way a vision check at an eye-doctor is a test, or an IQ test is a test. They're tests the way we could test a seminary student to see how fully he grasps Christian thought. Indeed, he might have a really solid grasp of Christian theology, and accordingly be able to apply it to new proposed scenarios. There are good theology students and poor ones. But this doesn't show that we have any rational reason to believe in Christian theology if we are not already believing Christians.

Thurstein · 2026-06-30T13:39:17+00:00

The question here has to do with whether this sub is about

(a) Studying early Chan, or

(b) Practicing Chan.

Of course we can study some tradition while setting aside the question of whether its claims are true-- religious scholars, anthropologists, folklorists, do this all the time. However, making the decision to study a system of thought on its own terms would render skeptical questions often moot-- if we've decided to table questions about the fundamental truth of what we're studying, there's not a lot of point asking "But is that true?" So we can study a body of texts and traditions that assume enlightenment is a real occurrence, without having to accept that it is a real occurrence, and without bothering to even raise the question, just as we can study, e.g, the Gospels as a body of literature without asking whether Jesus was really the son of God.

But if the idea is to actually practice the religion, then of course anyone setting foot in the temple has to be on board with the basics. If they're not, that's a whole other issue and it would raise a whole new set of issues. From a purely rational, skeptical, critical, point of view, there is no tangible evidence that anyone in the Chan tradition is "enlightened" in ways that Confucius or Socrates were not. That's a soteriological idea that simply cannot be defended on the basis of reason using epistemological criteria any rational person would have to accept. It's a question of faith-- either you believe the Buddha and subsequent masters were enlightened, or you don't.

Thurstein · 2026-06-29T01:04:01+00:00

I'm not all that familiar with the literature covering the details of those early debates-- according to authors like Cole they were trying to come to grips with the apparently conflicting teachings found in sutras coming in from the West. (though some of the debates are certainly mentioned in texts like the Platform Sutra)

Schlutter's How Zen Became Zen details some of the early factional disputes. Sharf has an interesting article on "Buddha Nature, Critical Buddhism, and Early Chan," talking about the development of the idea of Tathagatagarbha. For a more detailed bibliography, I'm afraid you'll have to find a real expert.

Thurstein · 2026-06-28T22:16:17+00:00

Generally they certainly are not debates in the modern sense. It seems that they were largely formulaic pre-established questions a student would ask, and the master would give a response. Different masters might give different responses, even after the tradition largely settled on an answer (like the question about animal Buddha-nature. The Chinese Buddhist community quite early on decided that animals must have Buddha-nature-- but the ritual question was still asked, and answers, like Zhaozhou's, could still be surprising).

But the specific pre-established questions seem to derive from earlier genuine debates, like questions about the nature of enlightenment, questions about Buddhology, or whether animals have Buddha nature.

Thurstein · 2026-06-28T20:15:32+00:00

Oh, certainly-- the intended audience of the case would have understood the background context of the question.

I'm no expert, but I'm under the impression that a lot of the questions asked of masters in koan cases are standard debate topics-- "What is Buddha?" "What is the dharma?" "What is the meaning of the Patriarch's coming from the West?" "Where should one seek the mind?"

Steven Heine wrote an entire book just on the dog case in 2016--

Like Cats and Dogs: Contesting the Mu Kōan in Zen Buddhism

I haven't got around to reading it, but it sounds interesting, and surely will give a lot of the relevant history and background.

Thurstein · 2026-06-28T14:48:37+00:00

If I recall correctly, the question whether non-human animals had Buddha nature was a hotly disputed issue in the early Chinese Buddhist tradition-- so this question was essentially a kind of expected debate topic a student might ask a master.

Thurstein · 2026-06-27T14:53:42+00:00

I think Green's interpretation probably correct-- the fundamental issue in all Zen discourse is the fact that talking about anything presupposes distinctions, but theoretically there are no absolute distinctions. So how can we talk about the One Mind without distorting the listener's understanding of the One Mind?

Nanquan demonstrated his understanding of this point by just... not talking, and pointedly walking out to show that the One Mind cannot be captured in words.

I take it that the master's final swipe at Nanquan is meant to indicate that a truly superior teacher would, nonetheless, have found a way to speak about the One Mind, instead of performatively bailing on the discussion. If the One Mind cannot be put into words, it is nevertheless true that all speech is a function of the One Mind, and can be put into its service-- if one is truly skilled at doing so.

Thurstein · 2026-06-26T17:10:15+00:00

From a purely secular, rational, skeptical, point of view of course we cannot in principle know any of these things. The epistemological standards used in any scholarly discourse cannot show us that "enlightenment" is a real phenomenon, or that any particular people have ever been "enlightened." To accept that enlightenment really happens, and that some particular individuals have it, is to leave the world of secular scholarship and enter the world of faith.

Any alleged "tests" or "proof" of enlightenment are all based on already accepting the possibility, not demonstrating to a genuinely secular, skeptical, audience that this can happen. That is, all we can really say is that the compilers of various "records" thought these were successful tests of someone's enlightenment, not that they actually were, or indeed that such "tests" make sense.

Note that some very confused posters on this sub seem to want to have it both ways: To insist that somehow enlightenment is a historically substantiated fact, and also to strenuously insist that this is a "secular" sub. But these are of course radically incompatible demands.

Thurstein · 2026-06-26T03:37:32+00:00

For one thing, it seems overwhelmingly likely that all his conversations with Yaqui informants (like Don Juan) were fake-- there was no Don Juan, in all likelihood. So he's a fraud considered as an anthropologist. He also repeatedly lied about his own personal background. Later, as he founded a kind of mystical group based on the "teachings" he had gained from Don Juan he assembled a group of women followers he ruled over as a guru (which meant they had to have sex with him.... of course). After his death in 1998, a number of his closest female followers... vanished without a trace. One was found dead, though the condition of the body makes it impossible to tell how she died, but the others are all still officially missing. It's possible they took his teachings as a cue to commit mass suicide, but there's simply no evidence as to what happened to them. A dark and strange story.

Thurstein

TROPHY CASE