Semester's over!
It's been a little over a year since I did this thing, and it's been an interesting year. We even have new default questions! Let's try this out
There is a lot of contention about what zen actually is, what do you feel it is ?
I play with different ways of describing what I feel "zen is"
One way to answer is to think about what the word itself is referring to. I might say that I could best tackle this way of answering as saying that it is the name ascribed to a certain cultural thread that is attributed to the arrival of Boddhidharma into China. Said thread includes people who have shared stories, metaphors, some have similar traditions, and they seem to have a community over time. (Zen Masters going back and fort visiting each other, sending monks to go ask another one their question, etc.)
We can also ask "what's zen?" in the sense of asking what the "point" of the traditions, people, and stories under the term "zen" was. Orrrrr "What is the thing that had people deciding to join this little subculture?"
Etc.
To which I say "Seeing and recognizing your true nature."
How long have you been involved in zen and in what ways ? How has it affected your life ?
We learned about zen in a world religions class I took when I was 18, and they seemed to say that sitting with your spine perfectly straight aligned you with the universe. I remember thinking that was goofy but then being kinda struck by how profoundly the guy in the video we watched talked about it. He was saying things like "by aligning ourselves perfectly with gravity, we give ourselves a tangible way to realize our oneness with the universe by representing our alignment with forces or something bla bla bla."
I forgot about it soon after.
Fast forward 2 and a half years later. I made a post on r/intj back in the summer of 2013, and someone said "this is exactly the kind of thinking that got me into zen" and linked me a video to an Alan Watts lecture
I just clicked the video and the guy (Watts) was getting at the stuff I was panicking-about-panicking about. I spent awhile listening to as many of those lectures as I could find on youtube while driving, getting ready, etc.
He mentions zen a lot (among other things), so I eventually wanted to investigate what he was talking about. At the time, I found that reddit could be a really useful source of information via sidebars and then discussion with people. r/fitness, r/malefashionadvice, etc. had helped me investigate quite a bit about things immediately applicable to my life.
So, I randomly typed in reddit.com/r/zen and found this place. Then I started investigating various books and documents suggested by people here and in the FAQ at the time. (To be clear: Many of the people whose resources I investigated would probably dislike the other people's resources I investigated)
How do you feel drug use impacts zen ?
I think it's completely unrelated. Drug use might cause someone to begin wondering if they really know all there is to know, it might be an escape for some with a life they don't want to "deal with", it might be an attempt (possibly even successful) to help one better accomplish their goals by counteracting various physiological ailments, or they could just be to make Chinese food taste better. None of these have anything to do with zen
What texts, personal experiences and quotes best reflect your understanding of zen?
Texts
The Blue Cliff Record is king imo. I think Mumonkan and Instant Zen are the good things to throw at a person just beginning to investigate zen. I said to tostono once, "if Mumonkan is undergrad, BCR is grad school."
Book of Serenity is also good, and I'd say essential reading for anyone who wants to get into this stuff, but it seemed more playful than BCR. But that could have been because I read BCR first and thus had already experienced one tidal wave, or it could be due to a more fluid translation from Cleary, as ewk suggested when I mentioned it to him
Quotes
I'm writing these off the dome because I'm too lazy to try finding them (most of these sources aren't control+f-able) and because my memory's phrasing of them probably says more about the way I see them than anything. Point being: note that they are likely paraphrased.
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"Do you not see that your teacher will go to the highest heavens and lowest hells just to help save you?"
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"It's just you"
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A monk asked Joshu "What is an idiotic statement?" Joshu said "You are better than me."
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"No matter how rough the waves... the moon reflected on the water."
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"I call this a whisk. What do you call it?"
Personal Experiences
Once I had a strange moment. I had the thought to open BCR and see if anything resonated. As I was randomly opening to a page, I realized I didn't need to know if BCR resonated. In that moment, I saw a verse to the current page I had been flipping through. Then I decided to lay down and go to bed.
What do you suggest as a course of action for a student wading through a "dharma low-tide" ?
I have no idea what a dharma low-tide would be. That could just be from not having heard it used much outside of this AMA format. If someone has a synonymous phrasing of the concept, maybe I could better answer.
If you feel like your'e not hearing the dharma or something, then I say "you feel like you're not hearing the dharma or something"
Submitted December 07, 2017 at 12:15AM by NegativeGPA http://ift.tt/2iyxBRb
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