China Root, a book by David Hinton, is a ridiculous tissue of lying and fraud. Just like the doctrines of Dogen or Scientology, it depends entirely on academic incompetence, outright fabrication, and an ignorant and illiterate audience.
Let's dive in for a detailed skim through this trainwreck of idiocracy, Part One!
Review by Dogenist praising book as an intro!
"I can’t help feeling I’ve just read a staggeringly good account of the modern Zen training a contemporary Japanese-based lineage led me through." * This is especially ironic now that we know, from Dogen and Hakuin, that there was never any Japanese Zen lineage to begin with. Just like there was never Science in Scientology, claims by religious nutbakers aren't the kind of evidence that scholars, academics, and sectarian audiences will accept. * Please note that even today, Dogenists are unwilling to discuss anywhere on social media, Bielfeldt's findings in his 1990's book on the origins of Zazen prayer-meditation.
Hinton:
Tao is the central concept in Taoism as formulated in the I Ching (c. second millennium B.C.E.) and Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching (c. sixth century B.C.E.)—poetic texts that are the seminal works in Chinese spiritual philosophy, and the deepest root-source of Ch’an thought and practice.
• No evidence. Plus all Zen Masters disagree. None mention Laotzu as a progenitor of Zen teachings. Odd how Hinton doesn't discuss the counter evidence... but then, evidence is something Hinton has no interest in.
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Tao Te Ching seems to have been largely constructed from fragments handed down in an oral wisdom-tradition
• "Seems" to be no evidence
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Lao Tzu’s vision apparently derives from a primal tradition that persisted outside the theocratic power structures
• "Apparently" no evidence
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American Zen generally sees its tradition as a stream of Buddhism that began in India, passed through China (with some significant developments), then through Japan
• Nobody now thinks this. No Japanese Masters. Not from Dogen's Zazen fraud. Not Hakuin's "koan answers".
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It would be more accurate to say that when Buddhism arrived in China during the first century of the current era, it was fundamentally reinterpreted and reshaped by Taoist thought
• Based on what? This is a massive claim that Japanese Buddhists have made repeatedly, but there is never any evidence. Given how massively Zen Masters reject it, there must be some evidence somewhere in order to entirely disregard 1,000 years of Zen textual records from China... right? Nope. Zero evidence.
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And dhyana (“meditation”) becomes Ch’an itself, which originally meant “altar” and “sacrifice to rivers-and-mountains,” and we will see that its etymology suggests “the Cosmos alone simply and exhaustively with itself.”
• This is absolutely false. Not only does this misunderstand the nature of Chinese terms taken from India terms, it entirely ignores everything Zen Masters have said about Zen. * It goes without saying that this is something that's come up many times before from Japanese Buddhists, and they've been pwnd every time: www.reddit.com//r/zen/wiki/dhyana
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Welcome! ewk comment: There are people in this forum that have openly recommended this book as "truth", claiming the book is somehow the product of rational inquiry. How? Remember that Hinton fans, like Mormons and Scientologists, have traded their intellectual integrity for the comfort of a fantasy that explains for them something they can't think through for themselves.
As we examine Hinton's book, looking for but never finding any evidence, the honest thing to do is to remember that the difference between Mormons, Scientologists, Dogenists, and Hinton fans and the modern age is evidence. We are always asked to pick a side, sure, but social media makes that harder because we can't all be experts in everything. Who to believe? The answer that science insists on isn't popular with lots of people, but the answer is believe what you can prove.
Hinton can't do it. I'll show that over and over again.
Hinton fans are going to be as angry as Dogenists have been, but watch... it's not going to produce any evidence, integrity, or conversation.
Submitted August 09, 2022 at 07:08PM by ewk https://ift.tt/3UEPstq
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