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 !
The vast majority of historians disagree with you.
Pagan/Roman historians such as Tacitus wrote about the execution under Pilate. And the Jewish historians such as historian Flavius Josephus, or even the Talmud, which is the collection of Jewish oral tradition that claims Mary, mother of Jesus, was a harlot, and had intercourse with a Roman soldier named Panthera and made the whole "God impregnated me" story up as a cover ... then you have Celsus, so many people that hated Christianity passionately, they detested every aspect of it and found it repugnant and would be more than happy to claim Jesus was an invention... yet even though they uttered every blasphemy imaginable against him, none claim he didn't exist. Interesting.
As for "Christianity" - you remain Christian, culturally. The whole culture of Zen (Chinese) is foreign to you as a person and as a writer. You'd be hard-pressed to find a single instance of the "visionary" dimension in Zen, it's almost completely absent from it, save a few scattered allusions here and there.
The "visionary" dimension is on the other hand prominent in the biblical tradition, from the visions of the prophets Ezekiel & Daniel to the Book of Revelation.
What I discovered by browsing /r/zen for many years, and people seemed to find some merit in what I had to say as my comment was the most upvoted comment of 2016:
and it got gilded to boot, is that Westerners who get into Buddhism are fundamentally different to people who are born into Buddhism, culturally.
For instance, my wife is an atheist, she couldn't care less about religion, but in her modes of thinking she automatically thinks in terms of "karma"; while I, even when I was a Buddhist, thought more in terms of "sin and forgiveness of sin".
Anyway, you see this in ewk via his atheism and pathological obsession with Christianity, his Anti-Christianity, that takes the form of a 1) distorted understanding of Mazu style Zen; 2) anti-Buddhism.
But you can see the same in you, although in a different way: you (and Zennist) project Christian mysticism and the prophetic-visionary into Zen.
"Zen" to Westerners is a Rorschach inkblot. It has been for a long time: for beatniks, it was anarchy, rebellion; for ewkians, it is "atheist spirituality"; for you, it's a Christian mysticism sans Christianity.
My point is not "you should convert to Christianity". Instead, it is: you are already Christian, you always have been, and always will be. It's just a matter of reflecting this fact and finding an appropriate, articulated stance towards it.
you refused to follow up my previous advice on looking at dr. richard carriers systematized refutation of the historicity of jesus
you are bossy and preaching to me that is way out of the context of this blog, please reread the terms
i'm open to contact on reddit, but really i need one place without having to deal with the bullshit of idiots, so please cease to post here permanently and go to some jesus bumfest to be resurrected, which, when that happens you better hope you going through five religions in three years doesn't count against you !
zakaj, you are retarded at times, why do i remember having discussed this before and not you ?
if jesus or buddha or mohammad were historical persons then it implies the world works differently from the way it is and if you believe in their historicity then you are constantly going to be caught in a mist of distortion, these bad and voynichy fictions !
i almost never set stuff as tasks to do, but follow my interest and what seems of benefit and mostly never set out to write a poem though sometimes i do !
writing has its own life and takes you to new undiscovered places, there is a joy in that to be followed !
The vast majority of historians disagree with you.
ReplyDeletePagan/Roman historians such as Tacitus wrote about the execution under Pilate. And the Jewish historians such as historian Flavius Josephus, or even the Talmud, which is the collection of Jewish oral tradition that claims Mary, mother of Jesus, was a harlot, and had intercourse with a Roman soldier named Panthera and made the whole "God impregnated me" story up as a cover ... then you have Celsus, so many people that hated Christianity passionately, they detested every aspect of it and found it repugnant and would be more than happy to claim Jesus was an invention... yet even though they uttered every blasphemy imaginable against him, none claim he didn't exist. Interesting.
As for "Christianity" - you remain Christian, culturally. The whole culture of Zen (Chinese) is foreign to you as a person and as a writer. You'd be hard-pressed to find a single instance of the "visionary" dimension in Zen, it's almost completely absent from it, save a few scattered allusions here and there.
The "visionary" dimension is on the other hand prominent in the biblical tradition, from the visions of the prophets Ezekiel & Daniel to the Book of Revelation.
What I discovered by browsing /r/zen for many years, and people seemed to find some merit in what I had to say as my comment was the most upvoted comment of 2016:
https://www.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/5kvu4i/this_place_makes_me_cringe_sometimes/dbr2w7y/
and it got gilded to boot, is that Westerners who get into Buddhism are fundamentally different to people who are born into Buddhism, culturally.
For instance, my wife is an atheist, she couldn't care less about religion, but in her modes of thinking she automatically thinks in terms of "karma"; while I, even when I was a Buddhist, thought more in terms of "sin and forgiveness of sin".
Anyway, you see this in ewk via his atheism and pathological obsession with Christianity, his Anti-Christianity, that takes the form of a 1) distorted understanding of Mazu style Zen; 2) anti-Buddhism.
But you can see the same in you, although in a different way: you (and Zennist) project Christian mysticism and the prophetic-visionary into Zen.
"Zen" to Westerners is a Rorschach inkblot. It has been for a long time: for beatniks, it was anarchy, rebellion; for ewkians, it is "atheist spirituality"; for you, it's a Christian mysticism sans Christianity.
My point is not "you should convert to Christianity". Instead, it is: you are already Christian, you always have been, and always will be. It's just a matter of reflecting this fact and finding an appropriate, articulated stance towards it.
zakaj, i think that should be your last post here
Deleteyou refused to follow up my previous advice on looking at dr. richard carriers systematized refutation of the historicity of jesus
you are bossy and preaching to me that is way out of the context of this blog, please reread the terms
i'm open to contact on reddit, but really i need one place without having to deal with the bullshit of idiots, so please cease to post here permanently and go to some jesus bumfest to be resurrected, which, when that happens you better hope you going through five religions in three years doesn't count against you !
goodbye ! : o)
Deletezakaj, you are retarded at times, why do i remember having discussed this before and not you ?
if jesus or buddha or mohammad were historical persons then it implies the world works differently from the way it is and if you believe in their historicity then you are constantly going to be caught in a mist of distortion, these bad and voynichy fictions !
I'm making a blog soon.
ReplyDeleteI ordered Joshu's koans and plan to read them outside with long pauses to quiet my mind. I will write a poem after doing this for 2 hrs each time.
Deletei almost never set stuff as tasks to do, but follow my interest and what seems of benefit and mostly never set out to write a poem though sometimes i do !
writing has its own life and takes you to new undiscovered places, there is a joy in that to be followed !