Sunday 18 January 2015



why zen is only possible celibate

26 comments:

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    2. the question is whether you remain childless or not, which is the female choice and is a completely different ball game !

      I never chose not to be childless but I was always autistic enough to be removed from relationships with women, both I never quite believed in its supposed reality and was obviously damaged enough to give any woman thinking of partnership considerable reservations . .

      I count myself fortunate in that respect, perhaps I am wrong, I don't know ! ... :o)(

      well maybe I do know ! ... ! : o)

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    3. Will you just give up on everything because Andrew said you can't be Zen cause you're married? I'm not disagreeing with Andrew, but true celibacy exists in the mind.

      In my case, both me & my wife have a very low libido. Marriage stabilized me. I was much more sexual before marriage than I am now. I am much closer to celibacy as a married man than I was as a single.

      How is polygamy an answer? If having 1 creates problem, why would having 10 solve problems? 1 is closer to 0 than 10. And if the relationship with the 1 is calm, rational, and not focused on "romance" and "sexuality", then it's even closer to 0.

      Marriage helps you balance your life and helps you keep your man sexual craziness under control. A wife is like a temple! Well, at least I can speak for my wife. She is Japanese so maybe that changes a lot, I don't know.

      My exp with Western women was bad. Kind of like yours - I felt I could never satisfy them because their libido was high, and they were hysteric, always into some emotional instability.

      Yuanwu spoke of "cultivating a lotus in the fire"; meaning practicing when the circumstances aren't optimal. Dahui said that if a layman achieves enlightenment, it is much more powerful than a monk's enlightenment for that very reason (of attaining it in unfavorable circumstances).

      Of course it's better to be a monk in a temple. But it's not your karma, you won't do it... I am planning to do two long retreats a year and organize my life around that, and also practice everyday; small doses of contemplative solitude, which I am doing consistently now.

      Zephyr wife is the problem, not having a teacher, not having temple? So what, suicide? You have a roof over your head. You have an intelligent mind. You have the Zen texts. What are you lacking compared to a monk?

      It's not a rhetorical question, I am seriously asking you. What prevents you to start where you are, to make even small daily progress? Why throw this life away?

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    5. PS: I am also in a childless marriage and I have only 3 years of exp. of being married, so obviously my exp is very limited. I really just wanted to encourage you... it's really possible to make progress from home.

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    6. zakaj the problem is that celibacy seeks its completion in the light of infinity, not in the illusion of couples and children !

      you guys think you know what you are talking about but you don't !

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    7. I know for myself that I made progress after many years of self-deprecating and self-doubt and even anxiety and depression. The important thing is to not let BS influence you and to respect & appreciate language, esp. language of enlightened beings. Moreover your wife can make progress with you. This is possible. And if she doesn't, then maybe the relationship will hit a wall.

      Andrew writes koans that are very helpful.

      Moreover, in the old times when you came to a Rinzai temple asking to be accepted, they said "NO!" and you had to wait in front of the temple gate, in freezing cold, for one day, two days, three days, prostrating in front of the gate, no food, and they would treat you like a rag tell you to "get the fuck away because you will NEVER be accepted"... this went on and on until you the unsui was almost dying and then they accepted him, not with applause and acclaim but saying something like "oh you're really stubborn aren't you? then get in you worthless bag of flesh, maybe you can make yourself useful and clean the toilets"

      This kind of "tests" were set up before one was accepted through the temple gate.

      The 7th Patriarch's temple has "NO MARRIED MEN ALLOWED" written above it... what will we do about it? Shrug and give up, saying "oh well, too bad, I'm already married"? We have to be like that unsui and keep banging our heads against the wall and pushing and do whatever it takes until a little bit of that "infinity" manifests to us, not for our sake or benefit ,but for its sake and benefit. Anyway isn't this the best form of life you can imagine, even if it's full of suffering? Like the late George Carlin said, what else are you gonna do with your life, play with your prick for another twenty years?

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    9. zakaj, you write

      "The 7th Patriarch's temple has "NO MARRIED MEN ALLOWED" written above it... what will we do about it?'

      I didn't say that and there's no temple, what I do say is to be torn between married with kids and what is essentially only really survivably done as celibacy is usually a disaster eg layman pang !

      you look to have done well in your choice of life partner and it's working out well, sepehr I have more reservations about because he is physically fragile, like me

      if you remain childless you exist in a sort of half way zone of celibacy and suburban life . . .

      what can I say, we all get caught in halfway zones and that is part of the transparency between life and death . .

      death is easier for sure, but we only come this way once, a pity to waste it ! :o)

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    10. It only helps not to be married. If you're already married, deal with it! I'm lucky enough to be young and see the damage that marriage deals. Doesn't seem worth it to live my life around my wife and please her 24/7.

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    11. If you're still thinking couples and children, you're not seeing infinity. Is that right?

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    12. "If you're still thinking couples and children, you're not seeing infinity. Is that right?'

      that's a hard question, in fact I don't even know how to reply to it !

      there you are, checkmated me !

      it's like the alphabet, the letters and characters give rise to richness, but basically they are still or come to/into being by the exclusion of infinity !

      it's like the alphabet, the letters and characters give rise to richness, but basically they still come into being by the exclusion of infinity !

      http://mueller_ranges.tripod.com/andrew/pending_poems126.html#letters moon

      I think the problem is that inclusion or exclusion is not definite and matches categories we can think of, like most celibates seem to waste their time . .

      I think the problem is that inclusion or exclusion is not definite and doesn't match categories we can think of, like for instance most celibates seem to waste their time . .


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    13. I'll be going to Furnace Mountain (http://zenmind.org/) this summer to do Work Practice. George Bowman is living there, so I'll get to meet him. Looking forward to it.

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    14. Have you contacted George? Afaik he lives at furnace mt but doesn't participate in temple activities.

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    15. I emailed him and he just said he lives at Mt Furnace

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    16. I'm going to visit a guy, eventually, who would call himself a "good ch'an Buddhist". He calls his plot of land in Oregon the "Zen Shamanic temple". I'm guessing he does drugs? And it's not like I need to fuck my brain any more, with all the weed smoking all all. I use it to stupidly curb my depression and anxiety. Any way, this guy plays the shakuhachi, writes, meditates under water falls etc. He sorta promotes himself on Reddit Zen. I don't think he would ever admit to Andrew being the 7th patriarch.. I'm probably going to walk out more deluded than when I walked in, but I'll see.

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    17. Jason, because you are self medicating, drugs will be a life long koan for you, survivors are always moderate, even abstemious in use, you want to look at what you are self medicating for and keep in that window that the use is effective for . . !

      with alcohol it's easy, a standard drink of red wine a day, less rather than more . .

      red wine freezes very well and i add it to cooking, however most of my life i have teetotalled, in part i think because even small amounts make me an accident prone driver ! :o)

      but basically i don't like the state of too much alcohol !

      other drugs i am not familiar with unless you count fluoride and lithium ! :o) . .

      whatever the claims, pot is in fact toxic to the brain, again amounts want to be minimized . .

      of course i strongly promote intelligent supplementation and diet as the preferable alternative . .

      but not everyone has that motivation ! :o)

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    18. i'm now taking chromium, the enzymes, iodine, krill oil, and vitamin d3. the lithium aspartate should be here soon. i've been preceding every meal with heavy cream. i dropped the vegetarian diet and have been eating lamb steaks, just have to work up the courage to go to the butcher and pick up offal.

      got upset the other day when i realized New York is not the optimal place to be living, and the food is crap !

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  4. I dreamed of an idyllic town where everyone cultivated the land and played chess. Everyone was jolly until strange beings from the sky invaded and started mutilating everyone. I experienced everyone's unique private experience and pain; it felt as if the feeling of loss was stronger than gain in life. Eventually everyone in the dream stood still and stares away from the dream's circumference towards "me" asking why I dreamt them into existence just to suffer.

    I appeared as a golden bodhisattva, don't know how, and promised to stop the onslaught from the alien invaders. I was able to mitigate their damage and send them back, but as a consequence, the land was no longer arable. New children were born and played amongst a river that froze into black ooze while the older generation remained with the harsh memories, jaded from realizing they can never enjoy life like before the onslaught.

    In short: the most painful way to die is to become a pantheistic deity because life is about pain and loss ultimately. You would consequently feel the pain and suffering of everyone without division because that what life truly is. Their groaning and lamentation shall come in unison as one voice. There would be a multiplicity of dying and suffering within your One Body, and you'll be slowly murdered as you can feel everything deteriorate or something like that.

    The dream was depressing as hell, but I liked it, I guess.

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    1. " I dreamed of an idyllic town where everyone cultivated the land and played chess "

      all history says "Syria !"

      "anabasis" is instructive !

      http://mueller_ranges.tripod.com/andrew/pending_poems73.html#xenophon

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  5. One night, while at Tassajara, I had a dream of a man that approached me while I was doing cement work on a building. The dream was set in London area, and during the dream the man stepped off one of those double decker red busses. He approached my from behind and pushes my pelvis forward and then my chest forward. I had been focusing on my posture a bunch, and when I tested out this new posture when I woke, it felt great! I also felt that the dream was telling me to take things slower.

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    1. " I also felt that the dream was telling me to take things slower "

      or be careful of your back ?

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