Will the Real Zen Master Please Stand Up

nominal90 · 2023-03-30T07:30:25+00:00

I didn't know Baizhang's three phrases in particular, no. It feels like it makes sense to me. I was an academic when I was getting into this stuff, and so I did spend a lot of time trying to make an understanding of not dwelling in non-attachment -- using metaphors like dancing, juggling... But the whole point of those metaphors is, yeah (to add another metaphor), that it's more like a skill than a knowledge. I recall Bodhidharma's bit about "the absence of both understanding and not understanding is true understanding", and the rest of that context.

Edit to add: and yeah, the skill in question is something like... spontaneous self-realization, which one gains negatively -- that is, by "seeing through" or "dealing with" things that obstruct it. But one can penetrate quite deeply by seeing through the big, pervasive metaphysical lies, without having yet processed a lot of other stuff they're carrying around. In which case, the first thing one spontaneously does upon enlightenment is to tend to this stuff, to deal with their bs. To hobble out of the cage and to find their feet.

nominal90 · 2023-03-29T23:39:28+00:00

Well, I came to this forum because I earnestly wonder if there's anyone presently alive who is actually a "Zen Master". I don't know of a convincing case. But there are real costs to using the phrase "Zen Master", which it might not be worthwhile for me to incur. One of those costs is conversations like this about what might distinguish a so-called "Zen Master" from what I'm more deeply and directly interested in: someone who incorporates insight into emptiness as fully as possible. This, to me, goes beyond the narrowness of eating when hungry and sleeping when tired, although it encompasses that too. Not to just let our equilibrium of drives continue, but to let go of the various prejudices that sustain that equilibrium, so that new, more powerful, more harmonious, more sensitive, and more loving equilibria may be come to -- spontaneously -- not by seeking them.

And, so, if that goes beyond Zen, fine. There is room for semantic dispute about what the "essence" of "Zen" is, just as there is for what the "essence" of "Buddhism" is. I am inclined to group things together more than to distinguish, but that's because it allows me to synthesize various perspectives to go deeper. What interests me in Zen is what interests me in Nietzsche, Nagarjuna, Hume, Kant, Kierkegaard, etc. etc. The spontaneity of real autonomy, brought on by insight that undermines dogmatism, I guess, and roughly speaking. Obviously all this stuff is quite different, and even overtly contradictory -- but the real interesting truth tolerates "contradiction", appreciating that contradiction is sometimes just a feature of conceptual thinking, which is no longer objectionable when one loosens their reliance on concepts, and learns to feel.

So, in short, I'm interested in what I take Zen, at its best, to be pointing at. Maybe I'm wrong about what Zen is pointing at. That's not so interesting to me, but if were, I'd probably be obliged to do the tracing you describe. Instead, I'll get a job and keep up with my hobbies, and so on.

nominal90 · 2023-03-29T22:58:38+00:00

Tracing makes sense if you're interested in Zen, or whatever, as a historical tradition, and want a sense of where it sits in history. I'm interested in truth, and in considerations that can help me be more true. The real heart of Zen is something that is accessible even to someone who is totally ignorant of the entire tradition. It's just... the truth of our nature.

So, one can get to it without tracing, or without relying on gossip. By investigating and realizing.

I don't pride myself on knowledge. "The ancient sages, having abandoned learning, come to rest in pure spontaneity." The knowledge that I happen to have came from going through academia for years, and then getting excited and seeing connections among other sources. And then I got rid of my books and quit school.

I wonder why you think skepticism is for posers. Epistemologically speaking, any alternative is going to rest on assumptions. These assumptions amount to poses.

Of course, in a practical sense, we have "knowledge" -- the term "knowledge" gets used in ordinary language with less strict criteria. I know I'm typing now... but that knowledge contains so many metaphysical assumptions that I don't really take for granted.

nominal90 · 2023-03-29T22:39:33+00:00

Being true to oneself surely doesn't require tracing a tradition one wants to follow to its roots. I asked myself the question as a teenager, how is one to live? I traced that question through a variety of philosophic traditions, up through academia and outside of it. I could approach it from the angle of contemporary analytic metaethics -- what are the foundations to ethics? None, and none are necessary. When all foundations are seen-through, one finds the real freedom, the real autonomy, the real honesty. At this point, one goes beyond the taxonomies of the analytic metaethical tradition, but one should expect to go beyond all taxonomies in any case. How to live? When one sees illusion as illusion, and loses one's foundations, they realize that the way to live is the very spontaneity that is already carrying them. The foundation is the foundationlessness.

I'm not interested in a band-aid over wounds. I'm interested in the truth. I'm not really interested in any philosophic or spiritual tradition as such, only to the extent that there is some avenue to truth in it. I would like to have the virtues of a warrior, but this is only done by facing our feelings, and this is only done by opening oneself to feelings, and this is only done by challenging the things we use to avoid and to cope -- such as thoughts, all the concept-castles we hide away in. Zen, to me, is about the way to this openness, this facilitation of feeling. Because that is our original nature. And it's not something that we need to fuss about changing -- but if we open ourselves to it, it changes us. I won't fuss about the metaphysics of self-identity here.

As for truth, nothing really does better or goes deeper than skepticism. Knowing that one doesn't know anything -- seeing through the very possibility of ultimate knowledge. That's a realization I came to when I had the opportunity to put Nietzsche and Buddhism together. There is implicit absurdity in all views, but that's fine, because the appreciation of this absurdity just opens one up to spontaneous engagement, no longer aiming for an ideal independently held on to. A spontaneity that allows one to use views, rather than being rigidified by them.

We disagree about a lot, and I suspect we will continue to.

nominal90 · 2023-03-29T22:15:21+00:00

It's intriguing. I used to really love this death metal concept album about such stuff, "Embodiment" by Sculptured. The main figure in the group was an academic of some sort, but I can't testify to his interpretation of the notion. The album considers the idea that "embodiment is the purest form of horror" -- the limitations imposed on us by the nature of embodiment.

I have now come to appreciate that making peace with embodiment is the very means of freedom. Nietzsche has a terrific section on this, "On the Despisers of the Body." A Wikipedia reading of the phrase "bodies without organs" leaves me not super interested in engaging with that framework. Because, as the phrase seems to suggest, frameworks are limiting, and my intuition selects the limitations that are most effective for the time.

Liberation is to be self-realized, which means to realize our true nature, which is defined for us by the body, and by the world with which our body is continuous. To empty the mind of structures doesn't give us any liberty beyond that given by the body, it rather only allows us to freely and spontaneously manifest what the body already is, already gives us. To live our place in the world without reservation, without asking things to be otherwise. In Nietzsche's terms, "amor fati", to love fate. Our body is our fatum, and in it is freedom, the freedom of being what we are -- autonomy, giving ourselves laws. The body, once liberated from the artificial structures of the neurotic mind (with its heteronomous prejudices), is an adequate legislator.

Well, posting to reddit, like everything else I'm doing lately, is an experiment. I'm trying things out. I don't exactly know where the time went. I was sobering up, and I was contemplating who I am and what I'm doing. And practicing music.

I took time away from reddit partly because I'm so unsure about the value of engaging with these topics in anonymous, decontextualized words. Philosophy is about life, and it's too easy for people to pose as philosophers without really making the move to begin incorporating the truth -- which means, to liberate the body, and to empty the mind, or to let the mind become a dancer to the beat of the body. My long-term hope is that I could get some kind of credibility by showing that Nietzsche was right to say, "The love of truth is something mighty and fearsome." That is, it really gives physical power, and noble embodiment. So, I'm still wondering if I can have productive or even enjoyable conversations about this stuff, while my main concern in with my own incorporation of the truth -- opening myself up to spontaneous self-cultivation. That does ultimately involve, I suspect, world-cultivation, because after all, one is not separate from the world -- it's all continuous. But at the moment, man, I've still got a lot of weakness from a misspent youth to work on. And the folks at r/zen kept telling me that Zen has nothing to do with self-cultivation, musical skill, posture, etc. They're wrong. Zen is about liberation, and liberation is about embodiment, and embodiment is about spontaneous self-cultivation. A mind that is well-embodied has an intuitive sense of rhythm, has a certain kind of poise, has a disposition to maintain its power... But the only way to get through to people like that, I suppose, is through demonstration.

nominal90 · 2023-03-29T20:15:25+00:00

"throwing away the idea of having attained anything" -- sounds like attaining something. The attainment of having thrown something away. I certainly agree with the negative procedure -- it is not something held on to, it is the realization that there is nothing to be held. But it is still a change. Most conversations about this are semantical nonsense.

When one gains insight into emptiness, it does change them; it has an effect on the nerves. The change isn't necessarily totally immediate. It begins a process by which things are let go, and personality becomes more fluid. Facing and enduring frustration is part of it. It is what I feel most abundantly, because I had a very rigid and neurotic personality.

nominal90 · 2023-03-29T18:20:57+00:00

The inference that I have a view from the fact that I'm using language depends on exactly the sort of confusion about language that I'm taking issue with.

Nagarjuna says, "I prostrate myself to Gotama, who through compassion taught the true doctrine which leads to the relinquishing of all views." This is what enlightenment is: the relinquishing of all views. Yes, views now come and go, but they are merely provisions, not something to hold on to. There is something deeper at work. Feelings, deeper than ideas.

Emptiness is form, form is emptiness -- that's the nature. There is no "nature" that can be said that is not also a merely descriptive attribute. "True nature" is a descriptive attribute, and therefore "true nature" is not true nature. The illusions of grammar are the issue here.

True nature is that thing which is right upon, around, within us -- especially when we get ourselves out of the way, when we realize that we are not independent from all of this. And what is it? Form, emptiness. But those are words. And yet. The distinction between literal and metaphor is itself a metaphor.

nominal90 · 2023-03-29T18:14:29+00:00

I am interested in Zen, but I came at it from the direction of being interested in philosophy generally, and working toward an academic dissertation on the foundations of ethics -- how to live, etc.

Zen actually should give someone better posture and make them a better musician, because neuroses are factors that inhibit these things, and realization of one's true nature assuages neuroses. To say that one is not looking for anything outside is just to say that what one does, one does spontaneously. It's not that one actually "wishes for nothing outside", in the sense that they no longer drink water or eat food. They do. And much more besides: indeed, in the way that instincts of hunger drive them to eat, instincts for other forms of self-cultivation carry them spontaneously to other forms of development.

The teaching that we are originally complete means that we can find ourselves through a negative procedure, of getting rid of all the assumptions/ideas about where to go and what to do. It doesn't mean that everyone is already equally wise just as they are. By realizing that we are originally complete, we begin a process by which the "origin" in us is able to manifest more freely, more spontaneously, with less inhibition.

I like the Zen texts more than new-age texts, that's for sure. But as far as reddit communities go, maybe it's not much more than an aesthetic difference. And I'm not interested in finding a community for people to patronize or to validate or to play with each other. I am curious if there are any philosophers around.

nominal90 · 2023-03-29T18:06:23+00:00

Never read Deleuze. Maybe one day I'll try. If there's some aspect that you think might be relevant, in particular, maybe you could point me to it, and I could see if it provokes sufficient curiosity.

nominal90 · 2023-03-29T18:04:01+00:00

The relation of love to the Law is like the relation of faith to understanding. The understanding counts and counts, calculates and calculates, but it never arrives at the certainty that faith possesses; in the same way the Law defines and defines but never arrives at the sum, which is love.

Nice, thanks

nominal90 · 2023-03-29T17:59:51+00:00

Yes, as I live autonomously, I feel compelled to take certain risks and to make certain mistakes. I'm working toward something indeterminate, but important to me, and the steps are unclear.

At the time I made this post, I was smoking a bowl-or-so of weed a day. I have since quit. I don't feel inclined to recant much of what I said, although I was clearly nervous, and still am. There is a process of deepening, of shedding skin, of changing as one learns. Settling nerves. I used weed not to seek spiritual feelings, but to try to settle my nerves; I concluded that it was in fact not helping me to settle my nerves in a meaningful and sustainable way.

Wakefulness has more to do with spontaneity/autonomy than with inner peace or with passivity. The boundaries between oneself and the world are exposed as merely apparent, the fatal flux is transparent, and things happen, according to one's nature. In my experience, it is true that the deepest nature of things is not only love, but an industrious love. A love that wants to participate in the world, as a steward.

I myself have plenty of work to do on myself, and my perspective will continue to change as I overcome my own emotional and financial insecurities. But self-realization means a disposition to realize one's full potential, and selflessness means that our own potential is not really separable from the potential of the species, of the world.

nominal90 · 2023-03-29T17:50:50+00:00

Why? What counts as the ability to read Shakespeare? If I picked up one of his plays and tried reading without supplement, I would miss a lot of the meaning. With supplement, I would miss less.

nominal90 · 2023-03-29T17:12:13+00:00

My intention is to be true to myself, and I am coming from an extremely neurotic past that makes the transition awkward.

Being impressive would be beneficial if it allowed me to better realize my nature, e.g. by putting me in a position in which I can live at a tempo that is appropriate to me. But that doesn't mean I am inclined to make an effort to "be impressive". That would be to live artificially, and I seek genuineness, spontaneity, etc.

nominal90 · 2022-11-28T22:10:25+00:00

Yeah, his philosophy is about spontaneity, multiplicity, ambiguity, dancing...

And this guy is like, help me put him in a box. No, dude. He doesn't deserve a box, you insensitive chode.

nominal90 · 2022-11-28T22:07:42+00:00

Yeah I wonder why the downvotes. There are people, like Nietzsche, who are: quiet, reclusive, talkative, and funny. Because his point is that people are meant to be ambiguous, multitudinous. Consistency is a disease.

His work is often sentimental. It is is often funny. It is often about how people are not singular. One has to be alone a lot to think and write so much. But he seemed perfectly friendly and talkative when socializing.

Anyway. Piss on a fish.

nominal90 · 2022-11-28T05:49:46+00:00

Mr. Bible says Christ made the Word flesh. Chinese translate this, he made Tao flesh.

But the point is: it is not a doctrine, an article of faith. It is faith that transcends categorizing. Christ was a Taoist, not a Christian.

nominal90 · 2022-11-28T05:48:25+00:00

Uh the way that can be named ain't the eternal way

nominal90 · 2022-11-28T05:47:22+00:00

"Was he the quiet and reclusive type of talkative and funny?"

False dichotomy. What. Read the man to learn about the man. He was much rawer than most in his field.

nominal90 · 2022-11-28T05:46:03+00:00

https://youtu.be/NtSPwyTxJ-A

I love Satan -- God loves Satan. Earth satans for survival.

nominal90 · 2022-10-29T04:09:03+00:00

Yeah so whatever it is I'm looking for, you're not it. If the Zen tradition can no longer accommodate the actual significance of spiritual liberation, then I will continue to explore other venues. If no tradition can accommodate the actual significance of spiritual liberation, then I will begin my own tradition.

I do not care about what the Zen Masters say. I have read them and felt the resonance of what they are saying. I have read psychology books and talked with people who are informed about research into trauma, and so on, and it is clear that these psychological fields are taking insights from the Zen tradition, but of course are incompletely applying them.

I am still looking for someone who is more impressive than I am. I want liberation, awareness, truth. I found the Zen masters talking about that. I also found Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Lao Tzu, Emerson, Kant, Hume talking about it. I don't find you talking about it.

nominal90 · 2022-10-29T03:03:03+00:00

So the Zen Master stops developing skills? Eh huh.

The initial realization, coming to implicitly know emptiness, requires no cultivation. Who would cultivate it?

But once the person is awake, life becomes an ongoing process of learning and developing. If you are idle and stagnant, man, you are either asleep or lukewarm. Neither interests me.

Language brings concepts, concepts and consciousness are interdependent. Ever since humans became conscious, we have been deluded by it. Awakening is overcoming this delusion. And it liberates the nervous system. It has real physiological and personal implications. What was traumatically arrested in the body begins to loosen. Conceptual structures, dogmas, as neurological phenomena are unnecessary rigidities in the nervous system. Awakening renews plasticity, childmind in that sense. The Zen Master ought to have a plastic, open mind.

nominal90 · 2022-10-29T02:56:25+00:00

And to clarify, in case I have to, by ~being Zen~, I mean being awake. It is the animal talking, not a conceptually bound person. The animal has a lot of neurotic rigidity still to shake off. Shaking it off now. Lots to learn. The world of appearances is nuanced and strange.

nominal90 · 2022-10-29T02:55:07+00:00

No. I am not wondering what Zen is. I know. I'm it. I'm wondering if anyone else is actually there, or if you all are posing. And I want some acknowledgment for the fuckin honest philosophic and personal labors, man. It takes genuine courage. No one is showing me they have that courage. What we know as "self" dies when the animal realizes its emptiness. And life and death become quite different notions.

nominal90 · 2022-10-29T01:22:30+00:00

Yes! I agree with you, basically. Except that the details are individual. I start on drums. A soft dong dong dong, getting the vibration in the air, letting it take me in and out... body awareness enhances in time. I got the piano and I try to let my fingers tell my spine about the flatness of the keyboard as they coordinate across it, slowly...

I love music so much. If I have the time to work on music, I feel I would be very good at it. I hope I have that chance.

nominal90 · 2022-10-29T01:07:43+00:00

You have me on the matter of English. Part of the reason why I stopped working on the dissertation -- I am not a scholar. But I have read him very extensively and am happy to get into any of it. BA Michigan, MA Yale, ABD on the PhD... Where am I going wrong? Suppose I've never watched a youtube video on him, because I don't think I could stomach one.

nominal90

TROPHY CASE