The Radical Toxicity of Zen | Part I | Your Spirituality is Totally Bogus

To comitted devotees to ritual practices of spiritual-cultivation, aka. meditation, aka. zazen, aka. mindfulness that wander in here, Zen Masters are so incorrigably toxic that they frequently engage in all manner of precept-violating conduct by blaming participants in this forum for simply stating long-established historical facts about their cult in the context of a primary-source study of texts.

We have seen this over the years in:

• The totally animal crackers, all around wackadoo, wannabe-cultleaders a users attempting to dox users; using bigoted, frequently violent language, to harass prominent users for engaging with Zen texts.

• Buddhists--in violation of their precepts--tolerating this behavior; even encouraging it.

• Misrepresentation of this community by people whose impetus for doing was acknowledged as being rooted on them being offended on a religious level by what they see in other subreddits, such as /r/AskHistorians.

As a quick aside, I was asked about the distinction between primary sources and secondary sources in Zen. Zen Masters are the only source that is authoritative on what Zen Masters said. I think the tautological significance of this is significant when it is further pointed out that everyone--everyone--out in the "no-thinking-needed" marketplace of religions is trying to affiliate themselves with Linji, Dongshan, Huangbo, Bodhidharma...well...anyone found here

To new-comers, old-comers, 0-day trolls stuck in Hell, and

Exhibit A: The Toxicity of Wansong

In mundane truth how many people have been enlightened, in Buddhist truth how many people have been deluded! If they suddenly become one, can you then define delusion or enlightenment?

Buddhists insist upon a doctrinal understanding of delusion and enlightenment that consists of certain changes in behavior that, gradually and supernaturally, transform you from the former to the latter.

Zen doesn't admit of a fixed conception of the unborn

Wansong remarks, "Ghosts and spirits attain their essence by weird powers. Spells and drugs form their essence of dependent powers...Buddhas and Patriarchs attain their essence by the power of the Way. Nanquan and Zhaozhou were people beyond Buddhas and patriarchs--how could they grow old?"

The essence of LSD-DMT-BBQ hallucinations only give you the essence of a ghoul: dead, yet wandering. Not Zen.

Exhibit B: The Toxicity of Yunmen

Master Yunmen mentioned the following episode:

The Buddha asked an adherent of another religion, "What is in your view the essential?"

Master Yunmen answered in place of the adherent, "Hey, old monk, I've seen through you!"

The other religion's adherent answered, "What I regard as essential is not to be taken in by anything."

Master Yunmen said in place of the Buddha, "Your turn!"

The Buddha said, "You do regard it as essential not to be taken in by anything, do you?"

Master Yunmen answered in place of the adherent, "Hey, Gautama, don't make [yourself] lose the [point of your] question!"

In Zen texts, we get Zen Masters talking about--on behalf of--Sakyamuni Buddha, in a way that Buddhists not only do not do, but insist no one has the authority to do. Zhuangyan infamously said, "My words are the Buddha's words."

This is toxic to the Buddhist conception of authority as that is rooted in (imaginary) "historical teachings".

Exhibit C: The Toxicity of Huineng

The Sixth Patriarch said, *"What is impermanent is the Buddha nature, and what is permanent is the mind that discriminates all things good and bad."

Outside of /r/Zen, no one approaches this.

Guard it well.

Submitted June 24, 2022 at 10:23PM by ThatKir https://ift.tt/6OFJEoz