this blog is the continuation of a genuine mystical tradition, unless you get in daily contemplative time and abstain to a significant degree from "entertainment" then you are just wasting your time and mine !
"Chao-chou, teaching the assembly, said, “The Ultimate Path is without difficulty; just avoid picking and choosing. As soon as there are words spoken, “this is picking and choosing, “ “this is clarity.” This old monk does not abide within clarity; do you still preserve anything or not?” At that time a certain monk asked, “Since you do not abide within clarity, what do you preserve?” Chao-chou replied, “I don't know either.” The monk said, “Since you don't know, Teacher, why do you nevertheless say that you do not abide within clarity?” Chao-chou said, “It is enough to ask about the matter; bow and withdraw." ― Blue Cliff Record, Case 2
what I have found is anything said from the "I" or "you" viewpoint is complete nonsense
it's really simple and works really really well and shows all the religious stuff to be complete barf :o)
if you read the koan carefully you will see how chao-chou keeps to the third person !
I see this koan so aften quoted in zen and the "not picking and choosing" being part of the faith mind sutra, everybody with some involvement in zen knows it, yet people in zen do nothing but pick and choose, they ban me or this is right and this is wrong, this person good and this person bad, it's all just a validation of the supremacy of their own judgement simply because it's their judgement......................
Is this why it is said not "to take pain personally" in the infinity, that is life?
It is just another judgement and the construction of "you" or "I" that separates one from the infinite which has no "up" or "down", no "left" or "right", and no "here" or "there", but to say it, is to confine it... thus, the subtraction process involved in koan or sitting practice?
not necessarily, there's a whole different world out there in terms of the creative process and identity with infinity that "so called" zen alienates itself from leaving some schizophrenic residue of rigidity, blowzy thinking and disguised self contraction
I think one of the issues with zen is it has abandoned the creative space for some dreary hackneyed and clichéd supposedly subsumptive but in fact severely crimped schema of reality
the creative space is completely open and is factually unknown since what has yet to be conceived, is so in fact and not the mentally retarded image that zen espouses !
so true unknown is the fact of creative endeavor because new and completely new forms displace what was, it's not the empty nullity of claims of the unknown that occur in religion where there is no displacement of the existing : o)
Would you agree language can guide itself outside of itself, into the place where there is no longer any language – as any system of meaning can, language itself can self-destruct pointing beyond itself without encapsulating what it means to say. This explains the function of koans and creative writing in Zen?
it's not that you have to go outside language if it was even possible and I am not sure it is, but good writing, a koan or poetry is aligned , of and the actuality of absolute reality
there is no necessity for language or any form of reality to self destruct, like there's some outside that buddha nature or infinity is in, rather it's special cases of reality or language that are buddha !
it's cultivating that sense of absolute reality or infinity that is the real work and following that sense into all the strange and contrary to our own idea spaces of where we should be and going in opposition to social norms that's so difficult : o)
This reminds of this koan:
ReplyDelete"Chao-chou, teaching the assembly, said, “The Ultimate Path is without difficulty; just avoid picking and choosing. As soon as there are words spoken, “this is picking and choosing, “ “this is clarity.” This old monk does not abide within clarity; do you still preserve anything or not?”
At that time a certain monk asked, “Since you do not abide within clarity, what do you preserve?”
Chao-chou replied, “I don't know either.”
The monk said, “Since you don't know, Teacher, why do you nevertheless say that you do not abide within clarity?”
Chao-chou said, “It is enough to ask about the matter; bow and withdraw."
― Blue Cliff Record, Case 2
"Chao-chou replied, “I don't know either.”"
Deletewhat I have found is anything said from the "I" or "you" viewpoint is complete nonsense
it's really simple and works really really well and shows all the religious stuff to be complete barf :o)
if you read the koan carefully you will see how chao-chou keeps to the third person !
I see this koan so aften quoted in zen and the "not picking and choosing" being part of the faith mind sutra, everybody with some involvement in zen knows it, yet people in zen do nothing but pick and choose, they ban me or this is right and this is wrong, this person good and this person bad, it's all just a validation of the supremacy of their own judgement simply because it's their judgement......................
*Deep bow*
ReplyDeleteIs this why it is said not "to take pain personally" in the infinity, that is life?
It is just another judgement and the construction of "you" or "I" that separates one from the infinite which has no "up" or "down", no "left" or "right", and no "here" or "there", but to say it, is to confine it... thus, the subtraction process involved in koan or sitting practice?
"but to say it, is to confine it... "
ReplyDeletenot necessarily, there's a whole different world out there in terms of the creative process and identity with infinity that "so called" zen alienates itself from leaving some schizophrenic residue of rigidity, blowzy thinking and disguised self contraction
I think one of the issues with zen is it has abandoned the creative space for some dreary hackneyed and clichéd supposedly subsumptive but in fact severely crimped schema of reality
ReplyDeletethe creative space is completely open and is factually unknown since what has yet to be conceived, is so in fact and not the mentally retarded image that zen espouses !
so true unknown is the fact of creative endeavor because new and completely new forms displace what was, it's not the empty nullity of claims of the unknown that occur in religion where there is no displacement of the existing : o)
Would you agree language can guide itself outside of itself, into the place where there is no longer any language – as any system of meaning can, language itself can self-destruct pointing beyond itself without encapsulating what it means to say. This explains the function of koans and creative writing in Zen?
ReplyDelete
Deleteit's not that you have to go outside language if it was even possible and I am not sure it is, but good writing, a koan or poetry is aligned , of and the actuality of absolute reality
there is no necessity for language or any form of reality to self destruct, like there's some outside that buddha nature or infinity is in, rather it's special cases of reality or language that are buddha !
it's cultivating that sense of absolute reality or infinity that is the real work and following that sense into all the strange and contrary to our own idea spaces of where we should be and going in opposition to social norms that's so difficult : o)
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete