Confession: my way of integrating into a community can feel clumsy. Doubly so on the internet, where there's no nonverbal feedback, so you have to be careful not to talk to yourself when you meant to talk to someone else. But, I like r/zen, and would like to be a good steward, and this seems like something good stewards do. So here it is! Forgive me if I don't get back to you right away, I will get back though.
Not Zen?
I think "lineage" is mostly meaningful if you're trying to show somebody something. As an analogy, I grew up Catholic, and I have run into Protestants who claim Catholicism is not a Christian religion. That is incorrect, but if I'm not trying to sell them on Catholicism, who cares? Why argue?
I think of "zen patriarch zen" as a piece of furniture you can learn to build, so that you have it around the house to use whenever you want. It isn't "enlightenment" you're building, it's just "zen," and it's very specific, very well-characterized, and frankly pretty easy to learn.
So if I'm showing something to somebody, and I tell them it's 'Zen,' that's a testable claim. Is it Zen or just a coffee table? If they tell me it's 'not Zen,' my inclination is to check and see if they're right. Either way, I probably end up understanding 'Zen' better. And can reflect on whether I want to be in the position of 'showing somebody something' in the first place.
What's your text?
The right answer, of course, is that if I have an 'understanding of the essence of Zen,' that understanding is wrong.
In the spirit of the exercise though, one snippet I return to a lot is the line from Huineng's poem: "Fundamentally, there is not a single thing."
It's the 'essence' of what makes reading zen fun for me. A statement so strong it's kind of funny, but every word is undermined by its neighbor, any attempt at interpretation falls apart. Just a language game, but a pretty well constructed one.
Dharma low tides?
For me, the interesting part of this question is the framing of (some species of) "having a bad time" as a "dharma low tide." For me, using words like "dharma" to describe my own life feels like a bad habit. It feels 'specific' and 'meaningful' because it's exotic, but it actually just promotes vague conceptualization of my lived experience. Possibly relevant quote:
Yantou: If you want to attain understanding easily, just clarify the fundamental. When you couldn't leave it even if you wanted to, then you should turn around and bite through in one snap; afterwards don't pursue that which goes and stays--far or near, just go and be naturally unveiled. Don't keep on thinking about it dully; as soon as you esteem something it becomes a nest. This is what the ancients called clothing sticking to the body, an affliction most difficult to cure.
(Full passage from "Treasury" highly recommended for all the biting imagery)
Submitted May 04, 2020 at 01:29AM by in_dee_nile https://ift.tt/3c0E1CY
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