Saturday, 18 May 2019

Zen is blah, blah, blah

FromRuth Fuller Saskai’s paper, "Zen, a Religion" (Anthology of Zen).

“Zen is a kind of nature mysticism; Zen is a kind of existentialism; Zen is a kind of mental therapy; Zen is a discipline of which blows and conundrums are used as teaching devices; Zen advocates a humble, retired mode of life, the main activity of which is the practice of meditation; Zen aims at the attainment of satori and with satori comes total knowledge and understanding; Zen is everyday life; Zen is complete freedom; the man who has attained the aim of Zen, that is, satori, is beyond law, beyond the regulations laid down for human society.”

And, Quoting from the Pali Text Society’s Pali-English Dictionary we learn more of what jhāna [Chan/Zen] or in Sanskrit dhyāna is.

“It is the technical term for a special religious experience, reached in a certain order of mental states. It was originally divided into four such states. These may be summarized: 1. The mystic with his mind free from sensuous and worldly ideas, concentrates his thoughts on some special subject (for instance, the impermanence of all things). 2. Then uplifted above attention & reasoning, he experiences joy & ease of both body and mind. 3. Then the bliss passes away, & he becomes suffused with a sense of ease and 4. he becomes aware of pure lucidity of mind & equanimity of heart” (p. 286).



Submitted May 19, 2019 at 01:28AM by Mumagic http://bit.ly/2Js4WwU

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