Brief AMA

Apologies, I'm on mobile and not entirely interested in the forum anymore. I will commit though to answering questions for at least one or two days.

Not Zen: I don't believe in lineages. Seated meditation, and meditation, so far as I have seen them practiced, have little if anything to do with zen. Present moment awareness, for example, has nothing to do with zen in my opinion.

Zen, in my opinion, is just detachment from thought. However, the moment you cling to this or any other definition you have already lost it. You're attached to one more thought. Probably it's best to refrain from definitions altogether. The old masters were wise in this. You can look at most of the written interactions between a teacher and student as a student presenting a thought or idea he is attached to (and so being blocked from zen) and a teacher cunningingly and often humorously derailing that thought. That is often how I read them anyway. Which leads to:

What's your text: I don't think reading or writing, as commonly practiced, but especially in this forum, have anything to do with zen. If anything they are reliable indicators of attachment to thought.

But to each his own I guess. I have enjoyed the Joshu stuff that gets passed around here. Of all the teachers quoted here he is probably the only one that strikes me as completely "zen." There's often something a little off from my vantage point, even if just slightly, in the others. Joshu is impeccable though. I suppose something like that could be in the translation, but honestly I don't care enough to investigate.

Dharma low tides: Stop. Take a good look around and pay close attention. There's an important life lesson you are failing to learn in this moment.

Submitted February 16, 2018 at 03:42PM by ragezen http://ift.tt/2EIibGS