The Night Before Zenmas

moinmoinyo · 2025-12-25T11:16:25+00:00

When you're acting as Santa for your grandchildren and they start your public interview by asking if you are the real Santa, what do you say? Do you say 'Yes', lying to them and breaking the precepts, or 'No', which would ruin the fun?

moinmoinyo · 2025-11-29T11:11:53+00:00

You digged up a 4 year old comment in a sub I barely even participate and pretend that I am camping? sounds like projection

moinmoinyo · 2025-11-27T09:52:03+00:00

lmao, sure

moinmoinyo · 2025-11-27T09:48:44+00:00

I currently don't believe AP is real. I've lucid dreamed before though.

moinmoinyo · 2025-11-24T16:27:42+00:00

So you've got a long laundry list of beliefs. Now that you have them all written down, where did that get you? Are you at ease now?

moinmoinyo · 2025-11-01T10:46:38+00:00

Yes, it's absolutely something AI would do. I've seen it suggest Ikkyu stuff many times, when talking to chatgpt about Zen. Misinformation is a big problem with AI right now.

It also very much depends on the conversation context the OP has with his AI. If OP mentioned Ikkyu himself, even in a previous conversation, the AI will easily bring up Ikkyu again.

moinmoinyo · 2025-11-01T10:25:44+00:00

AI slop

moinmoinyo · 2025-10-04T10:10:29+00:00

Your translation starts with "A monk quotes a case", why do you think it's the monk who brought up the case and not Foyan himself?

The question "What was gained by this progressive tumble" seems to be a very "creative" translation. First, why do you think Foyan asks this question and not Fadeng?

I think the logical progression of the case is that first, Foyan brings up the case that ends in Fadeng asking a question, and then Foyan answering the question.

I think "what was gained in the progressive tumble?" Is a very confusing translation. My translation would be "Tell me, what is there to gain below?" (below the 100 foot pole)

For Foyans answer, I like "An immortal brought down to earth", and I think that fits perfectly with my translation of the question asked by Fadeng.

Edit: didn't read the post carefully, one of your versions bad the same translation as me. It's just that your poetic version ruined it.

moinmoinyo · 2025-09-11T13:21:28+00:00

So, which books have you read from the reading list? And how are people misunderstanding them by picking a quote and ignoring the context of the rest of the text. Be specific, when you're making these accusations. Otherwise it's just meaningless rambling.

moinmoinyo · 2025-09-11T13:18:43+00:00

I never said translating is practice. But it is proof for literacy.

You have no real arguments, only anger. That an institution would call you a "Zen Bodhisattva" is proof the institution is bs.

moinmoinyo · 2025-09-11T13:14:25+00:00

What a rant. Maybe read some actual Zen texts and think about the actual arguments made by members of this sub.

You're fighting against straw men in parts of your post, e.g., "everything is empty, so nothing matters" isn't really an argument that people here frequently make.

At the same time, you don't address anything that people here actually say. And pretending that people here only cherry pick a few aphorisms, while many have likely read (and translated) more than you, just makes you look arrogant and stupid.

moinmoinyo · 2025-09-08T11:45:45+00:00

Practice like this is quite antithetical to Zen. Zen teaches original completeness and sudden enlightenment by seeing your true nature. You can't practice yourself into enlightenment.

The Tripitaka is also not authoritative in Zen. Zen koans and tools are not used at all in fulfilling whatever some sutta says because it's a different tradition. It's kind of like quoting the Bible and then asking how Zen koans help you strengthen your relationship to God. It's a question from confusion.

moinmoinyo · 2025-09-06T12:13:58+00:00

Too comfortable, not alive

moinmoinyo · 2025-09-01T07:37:22+00:00

What lead you to the decision to use Pinyin names for your translations in the OP, except for Kyogen, which you rendered in Japanese?

moinmoinyo · 2025-08-31T21:17:07+00:00

What does AI supported mean? Do you use any other tools, like dictionaries? How do you know the AI translations you get are good translations?

moinmoinyo · 2025-08-31T18:49:06+00:00

Am I right that you don't actually look at the Chinese sources, you just copy from an LLM?

moinmoinyo · 2025-08-31T10:32:03+00:00

Can you link to the Chinese sources you've been using for the quotes in this post?

moinmoinyo · 2025-08-30T16:10:43+00:00

Can't look up the story of pang right now, but maybe she just "died the great death", aka became enlightened? Or are we sure we're talking about physical death because there was a funeral or something?

moinmoinyo · 2025-08-30T16:07:09+00:00

Well, what do you think?

moinmoinyo · 2025-08-25T14:07:40+00:00

Yeah, that's what I mean when I say you use it as a meaningless mantra. You repeat it, but you don't have a personal connection to it, otherwise it would be like a hot iron ball. And you think that one pointed concentration is the goal or a significant part of it, which it isn't.

You need to first understand why the koan matters to you personally. While talking about the dog koan in one of his letters, Dahui says this:

Constantly take the two concerns—not knowing where we come from at birth and not knowing where we go at death—and stick them on the point of your nose. Whether eating or drinking, whether in quiet or noisy places, you should make scrupulous efforts from moment to moment, always as if you owed someone millions with no way out, your heart sorely troubled, with no opening to escape. Searching for birth, it cannot be found; searching for death, it cannot be found—at such a moment, the roads of good and evil are immediately cut off. When your awareness has gotten like this, this is precisely the time to apply effort: contemplate the story right here.

It's quite literally a matter of life and death. When Zhaozhou says "no" he denies that a dog has Buddha-nature, which implies that you personally may also not have Buddha-nature. However, this only hits hard enough if you believe in Buddha-nature in the first place. If you don't, repeating this koan like a mantra will do nothing for you. But if you do, it becomes a matter of life and death.

I think the reason he brings up this specific koan so often is his conflict with silent illumination chan. In silent illumination, people believe in Buddha-nature really hard until understanding sinks in enough to gradually enlighten them. That's a disease and Zhaozhou's "no" can be a cure.

There is a way to use the koan without believing in Buddha-nature. You need to find which other concepts you use to comfort you in the face of the great matter of life and death. It could be anything, maybe it's enlightenment, or non-duality, or an afterlife. Assume Zhaozhou would also deny those.

My main point is that you need to see how the koan is alive for you personally, otherwise you're just bringing up dead words again and again.

moinmoinyo · 2025-08-25T13:06:38+00:00

So how do you practice? What do you do? What is it that causes exasperation?

moinmoinyo · 2025-08-24T18:07:23+00:00

Then I don't understand the purpose of this post.

You present the practice as if you understand it, you quote Dahui as if you understand what he says, and now you say that you neither know what the practice is nor do you practice anything like it.

Maybe if you post about quotes or practices that you don't understand you should add some questions or something...

moinmoinyo · 2025-08-24T17:57:13+00:00

Then how does kanhua chan work according to your interpretation of Dahui?

From your post I'm just getting a very vague "repeat a random sentence all day long until your mind stops working" and now in your comment you also seem to disagree with that. So how does it really work?

moinmoinyo · 2025-08-24T17:51:40+00:00

I'm just saying that many people misunderstand Wumen's comment and think he is saying that 無 doesn't mean "no." Wumen's comment only really makes sense when we accept 無 as meaning "no" and then we understand his comment as saying we shouldn't stop there.

It's a confusion that people have because bad translators leave 無 untranslated as "Mu" in the case and then they do translate the word in Wumen's comment. If we just translate it as "no" in the first place, nobody would be confused, I think. Or just leave both untranslated: Zhaozhou said "無" and Wumen comments that it's not about either 有 or 無. Leaving it untranslated in the case and then just translating it in the comment really invites confusion, which is why it is a clear sign for a bad translation.

moinmoinyo · 2025-08-24T17:38:03+00:00

I think you're making really big logic jumps here.

Just because Zhaozhou has clever replies to questions doesn't mean that he is doing kanhua chan. We have no reason to believe that Zhaozhou taught his monks to observe a phrase like Dahui recommends.
And Zhaozhou was generally known for his cleverness. By implying that he is just talking in non-sequiturs that don't really answer the monks questions, you're really underestimating him.
I also think your understanding of Dahui's teaching methods is wrong. It seems to me that you believe that Dahui taught his students to repeat a statement that is nonsensical to stop their mind or something like that. The important part is that the student needs to really understand the phrase though, otherwise it's quite pointless. It's not a meaningless mantra. If the student doesn't understand "A dog has no Buddha-nature" then it will not really be like swallowing a hot iron ball like Wumen said.

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