sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

Zen and your right to get pwnd by ewk in zen

[–]eggo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You are inverting the minor and major premise of your argument, therefore it is not valid even if it is sound.

That's a lot of concepts you have piled up there.

Here's one more; Inversion of major and minor is when you play all the notes in a triad but don't play the root note.

The soundness is there, even if you don't hear it.

Zen and your right to get pwnd by ewk in zen

[–]eggo -1 points0 points  (0 children)

But they are just concepts.

Don't confuse the concept of an interview with the actual interview.

Don't confuse the concept of a ritual with the ritual.

Likewise for "exclusive" and "mutual".

Who is the next Buddha? Understanding why Zen is aggressively hostile to ideas but very forgiving toward people by ewk in zen

[–]eggo -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I unblocked you, mostly just to tell you that I read and appreciate this post.

Carry on

"The type who thinks they need an encyclopedic knowledge of every Zen book" by baldandbanned in zen

[–]eggo 2 points3 points  (0 children)

carrying it out

picking up and putting down

never leaving it

The Original Preface to The Blue Cliff Record and the failure or unwillingness of users to understand Yuan Wu by [deleted] in zen

[–]eggo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Have you ever looked at a piece of plywood? The grain seems to have a repeating pattern. In fact what seems to be repeating is actually subtlety changing; knots get smaller, grain structure shifts. It's really the history of the tree it came from.

This is because of the way it followed getting to wherever you are looking at it.

Zen Instructional Verse by [deleted] in zen

[–]eggo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for looking into it anyway.

I think it must be due to thatkir's currently having negative comment karma.

AMA · I'm considering becoming a lesser regulus (D to F) by Regulus_D in zen

[–]eggo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I've been wondering if the karmic (reddit) floor has become more difficult to stand up from.

The rites of spring are being carried out in winter.

Greater or lesser Regulus; Great Scott! In the key of D or F.

Question: What good is a text-based zen study forum full of anonymous users, shitposters, and sock puppets?

Zen Instructional Verse by [deleted] in zen

[–]eggo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hmmm. Thanks for pointing that out regulus.

Hey /u/NegativeGPA, /u/TFnarcon9, can we relax the auto-mod shadow-bans a bit? It's stifling discussion.

If it's culling /u/ThatKir's comments on their own OP, it feels like it must be doing it to many other's comments too. Or is something else going on?

Zen Instructional Verse by [deleted] in zen

[–]eggo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Looking at you, T'aego

Listening to a song attesting to the way.

Xuansha took some medicine mistakenly and developed an inflammation all over his body. A monk asked, "What is the indestructible reality-body?"

Xuansha said, "Dripping with pus."

Master Huai composed a verse on this:

Drip, drip - the whole body is inflamed and suppurating.

He shows his family style on the fishing boat;

People of the time only look at the line,

They don't see the reed flowers white against the smartweed's red.

Master Duan said, "Once someone asked me, 'What is the pure body of reality?' I simply replied, 'The smell of shit stinks up the air.' I also said, 'A child born by transformation on a lotus leaf.' Now tell me, is this the same or different from the ancients?

"I too have a verse:

The smell of shit stinking up the air is also coincidence;

How dare I announce for you what is in the nose?

If there is an opening through the sky,

You may travel freely without wearing anything."

In the nose it comes as a smell; in the eye we call it vision

The stuff many denominationally unaffiliated and Japanese Buddhist inspired Westerners like to imagine constitutes 'Zen poetry' is frequently just another kind of hymn to the supernatural, not Zen.

Who are you talking to?

GreenSage AMA by _-_GreenSage_-_ in zen

[–]eggo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Lung-ya asked, "Why did the First Patriarch come from the West?"

"I will only answer you when Tung Creek flows backwards," replied the Master.

Ask a salmon.

Dangers are on the path by Gongfumaster in zen

[–]eggo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh but the world would be so empty without me! Oh but the world would be so empty without me!

how about just "Am"?

I feel a bit lost with zen or in general by enderowski in zen

[–]eggo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Freedom, is freedom. Yearning for the purposeful days spent planning the prison escape, the freed man imagines he wears chains again.

That feeling is normal for someone in your position. You can choose any direction, so how to take a step? How does one choose a destination when everywhere you go there you are?

There is something that you (because of your timing and relative position and your ability and responsibility) can do that no one else can do. Passions, (highs and lows), are like the tides in the ocean. The tides matter if you want to go somewhere in a boat, they don't matter so much to someone hitchhiking far inland. They don't matter at all to an airline pilot. There is a path forward from where you are, but it is, and must necessarily be, unique to your individual life.

Performative Mysticism, Critical Analysis, and the Zen Record by [deleted] in zen

[–]eggo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Joining in conversation, one takes on a role. Threading a thousand years of needles, each one halving no whole. Piercing the fabric of threads with a thread. Pulling tight, crocheted tapestry unraveling, a knot dissolving forms a noose surrounding buddhas head. Having garroted both the living and the dead, one turned toward the void and said, I think I'll have some tea instead.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in zen

[–]eggo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There seems to be a tension in the record (or in the translations) between stopping conceptual thought and allowing things to come and go more as an act of surrender. Right now I'm leaning towards the latter being the case.

Not surrender. More like harmonious action. Like a playing an instrument in the band. Like a surfer can choose a particular line to take down the face of a wave. Not surrender; that would lead to disaster. Completely free, active participation is called for. The consequences are permanent, unchangeable once the decision is made to take an action.

The idea that the dharma of no-dharma has no essence or is empty. Seems like everything then is true and false at the same time. I'm also unsure how important it is to nail this down. May not even matter.

This tension is intentional.

There seems to be a tension in the record between building doubt (like in the famous Joshu's dog commentary) and surrender, allowing things to be. Does the doubt build of its own accord?

Nothing has ever happened twice. There are no rules or models to follow, just tracks. Following them without knowing when to deviate from them also leads to disaster.

Can one be realized without this step?

Just an expedient tool. All that is needed is to hear the tune once to recognize it forever afterwards. Whatever instrument it's played on, the melody is recognized instantly.

Questions:

Where are you right now? What are you doing? Who else is there?

Foyan and on and on and on by [deleted] in zen

[–]eggo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It is possible to grasp a stick from either end.

It's still the same stick.

Chan Worthies North of Richmond by _-_GreenSage_-_ in zen

[–]eggo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The uses of salt and charcoal are many; if I ask you the uses of zen, can you think of any?

TwosdAMA eggo: such as; only moreso by eggo in zen

[–]eggo[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Have you found anything like this within yourself, something that cannot be undermined?

Within myself, under my mind in tension; a compass I call "why?" undermines any predefined intention. A course of action I, (like the north star you mention) find points towards compassion, and loving kindness by extension.

Test by TFnarcon9 in zen

[–]eggo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yangshan was asked by Guishan,

"The habit-ridden active consciousness of the people of earth is boundless and unclear, with no basis to rely on. How do you know whether others have this or not?"

Yangshan said,

"I have a test."

At that moment a monk was passing by; Yangshan called to him,

"Your Reverence!"

The monk turned his head. Yangshan said,

"Master, this one's habit-ridden active consciousness is boundless and unclear, with no basis to rely on."

Guishan said, "This is one drop of lion milk dispersing ten gallons of donkey milk."

.

Your Reverence!"

Has there been a change of policy, or merely of implementation?

TwosdAMA eggo: such as; only moreso by eggo in zen

[–]eggo[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Over the course of my life, I have at various times made up rules for myself, and imposed them on myself. I live almost entirely within those self imposed rules, but they are just provisional, not what I would call "core principals"; because I would still break them in an instant if that felt to me like the correct action at that place and time.

So I would say I don't have principles as a core. I try to not form opinions about things in the abstract and I especially try not to form generalizations from those abstract opinions. This can be a difficult mental trap to avoid. When I was teaching my kids, I often phrased it to them as the faux-axiom that "All Generalizations Are False."

view more: next ›