Seriously. He says if you try to get enlightened by meditating there is a 99.5% chance (at least) that you die first. It's right after that one line that the meditation evangelizers love to quote. Be mad at Huangbo not me lol.
Anyway my answer to question 1 is that I was writing up an answer to https://www.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/vg90gp/thoughts_on_eric_m_greenes_translation_and/ and decided to make an OP instead and then I realized I did my most recent, first, and only AMA over a year ago so here we are. Also man I titled it like such a dweeb. 2nd AMA title much better. In regards to the "meditation" debate here I have been on both sides. When I first subbed to r/zen I thought Zen masters taught meditation had at least something to do with enlightenment and then I read a bunch of Zhaozhou, Linji, Wumen, and Wansong and now I don't think that anymore. Reading books and thinking for yourself works.
My answer to question 2 is the ENTIRE text of that Huangbo. Because I don't like taking things out of context. UNLIKE SOME PEOPLE.
Q: But how can we prevent ourselves from falling into the error of making distinctions between this and that?
A: By realizing that, though you eat the whole day through, no single grain has passed your lips;
Reminds me of the case /u/astroemi and I were talking about the other day.
As Yunyan was eating his rice, Daowu said, “Too ravenous.”
Yunyan said, “You should know there’s one who isn’t ravenous.”
Daowu said, “If so, then there’s a second Antares.”
Yunyan held up his spoon and said, “Which Antares is this?”
Daowu then stopped-
and that a day's journey has not taken you a single step forward-also by uniformly abstaining from such notions as 'self' and 'other'. DO NOT PERMIT THE EVENTS OF YOUR DAILY LIVES TO BIND YOU, BUT NEVER WITHDRAW YOURSELVES FROM THEM. Only by acting thus can you earn the title of 'A Liberated One'.
This is a pretty standard description of the enlightened state. You're free of concepts like "self", you're unbound but participating in life, you're free, you're in the ideal state for someone to be in.
Never allow yourselves to mistake outward appearance for reality.
True but like duh dude this is obvious nobody's out there teaching that we should actually totally be accepting outward appearance as reality.
Until now.
Guys, you should absolutely accept outward appearance as reality. When that turns out not to be the case just go with it. This is The Way.
Avoid the error of thinking in terms of past, present and future. The past has not gone; the present is a fleeting moment; the future is not yet to come.
This is much better. Lots fewer people out here preaching that "the past has not gone". Kinda cool.
When you practice mind-control, [Zazen or dhyana.] sit in the proper position, stay perfectly tranquil, and do not permit the least movement of your minds to disturb you. This alone is what is called liberation. [From the burden of ever-renewed transitory existence.]
So this as him addressing people who are trying to practice their way to the Way (which when I put it like that sounds exactly as silly as trying to do that).
And that's where most people who quote this line stop quoting Huangbo. They don't want YOU to know the TRUTH!
Ah, be diligent! Be diligent! Of a thousand or ten thousand attempting to enter by this Gate, only three or perhaps five pass through.
So yeah, just for those following along at home, the absolute BEST odds that one can CONCEIVABLY interpret him as giving you are 5 out of 1000, which is a 99.5% failure rate. But like maybe it's 99.97% failure rate. It's up there, is Huangbo's point. REALLY high chance that you will die without getting enlightened.
In case it needs to be said: that's not an endorsement. If you're trying to accomplish something and I tell you "hey try this I'm like 99.9% certain it's not going to work" then you're going to call me a smartass (which I am) and then not try that.
Just in case anyone disagrees with that I am 99.9% certain that sending me $100 now will not result in me sending you $10000000 later. DM me for payment options and good luck! (any and all proceeds will be sent to Medecines sans Frontiers)
If you are heedless of my warnings, calamity is sure to follow. Therefore is it written:
Exert your strength in THIS life to attain!
Or else incur long aeons of further gain!
So I'd tl;dr this bad boy as "there is a 99.95% certainty that staying perfectly still will not get you enlightened so you should probably work hard instead".
Question 3: When I'm not interacting with r/zen I'm either working as a devops engineer, hanging out with friends or partners, doing drum circles, started hitting the Duolingo pretty hard that's been fun.
¿Por qué no estudias Zen mientras estás aquí?
Submitted June 20, 2022 at 10:41AM by snarkhunter https://ift.tt/3J7swMz
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