Zen Under the Gun: Yeah, that's a problem...

https://www.amazon.com/Zen-Under-Gun-Masters-Turbulent/dp/0861715926/ Zen Masters after Wumen: Hengchan (1222-1289)

1

Hengchuan quoted an ancient Zen saying: “When a strong man flexes his arm, he doesn’t depend on anyone else’s strength. Someone good at twirling a sword does not cut his hand.”

Hengchuan held up the staff and said, “Stretching the body across space and time, setting the guiding principles with a single phrase.”

2

Hengchuan said, “If a single thing exists, Vairochana falls among the ordinary mortals, not to return for eternal ages. If the myriad things do not exist, Samantabhadra loses his realm and has no. place to go.”

. . .

Welcome! ewk comment: Several things going on here... notice for example that there is definite structure being used in the arguments of these two... sermons? In the second one, we have references to two famous myths... why would that be relevant? Who are they anyway? Don't you need to know to follow along?

More to the point though, the "with a single phrase" is yet another statement to the effect of "you don't need more than what I'm offering you right now", which is both anti-philosophical and anti-religious. Meta-sciencey, really... "here is the method, go apply it".

There aren't a terribly lot of examples of this teaching style being effect in the Zen written records themselves. Where does that get us?

In summary, two short lectures(?) but that's going to be a problem...

Submitted July 05, 2022 at 06:13AM by ewk https://ift.tt/lO0HzLK