Does Zen condone lack of compassion, misanthropy (aversion to human society and companionship, poor esteem of humanity), and a strong (arguably exclusive) focus on personal enlightenment?

Core Zen texts do not seem to emphasize compassion. Consider the central Platform Sutra by Hui-neng. There's only a handful of laconic comments about compassion in the entire text. It's particularly glaring compared to the huge amount of content regarding personal enlightenment through meditation and wisdom (insight, prajñā).

There are many Zen stories (aka cases, koans) about Zen masters acting in non-compassionate ways: cutting off fingers, pushing people off bridges, and killing cats.

These are not obscure, fringe tales; they appear in central Zen texts like the The Gateless Gate.

There's also a strong streak of misanthropy running through Zen. Consider the story of Chan Master Daolin (kindly provided by u/grass_skirt) who spent his whole life shunning human society and companionship. First he wandered between other Chan masters, who were hermits themselves. He learned what he could from each, then moved on. This is strongly reminiscent of Shakyamuni Buddha's path to enlightenment, except if you read the account carefully, you'll notice Daolin was rather rude and abrupt when informing Master Fuli that his student has surpassed him.

Eventually, Daolin settles as a hermit in isolation on mount Qinwang. His companions were magpies. He lived there until his death. He clearly didn't have much desire for human companionship. Nor much esteem for humankind; he said about the Buddhadharma: "A three year old child can understand it; but an eighty year old man cannot put it into action."

You can sense similar poor opinions of humanity in other masters, including those who weren't hermits. Huangbo famously said "Of the thousands and ten-thousands students in this zen school, only three or five attain [enlightenment]", and explained this is due to poor effort on the part of an already select and limited group of lifelong Zen practitioners.

Compared to this aversive attitude towards humanity, and the lack of teachings about compassion, Zen teachings generally focus on personal enlightenment.

Summing this all up, in my previous post I presented a version - arguably, a distortion - of Buddhism that is:

1. Non-compassionate
2. Misanthropic
3. Strongly focused on personal enlightenment

But now, it seems that perhaps Zen is rather compatible with this vision / distortion of Buddhism?

Submitted November 18, 2017 at 07:21AM by SilaSamadhi http://ift.tt/2zMnti8