If you steal my style, understand how seriously I take it.

"Whatever he was asked (concerning Zen) Gutei simply stuck up one finger. At one time he had an acolyte, whom a visitor asked, "What is the essential point of your master’s teaching?" The boy just stuck up one finger. Hearing of this, Gutei cut off his finger with a knife. As the boy ran out of the room screaming with pain, Gutei called to him. When he turned round his head, Gutei stuck up one finger. The boy suddenly became enlightened.

When Gutei was about to die, he said to the assembled monks, "I received this one-finger-Zen from Tenryu. I used it all my life, but did not exhaust it." When he had finished saying this, he entered into his eternal rest."

The third case of The Gateless Gate.

Do you notice how little zen masters will quote anther's style? They make reference, but the body of their work is their own. Every day I see this subreddit quote a master or a koan, give a little interpretive questioning, and then will never make a point. I see none of the personality of the current real world in this place, you all have retreated from bravery and retreated into the ivory tower. How are you going to think about walking away from your doubts without knowing how to walk without doubt?

The world was a violent place in Tang china. People died in great wars with untold suffering that really didn't get outmatched until the world wars. So yeah, it was violent. What Gutei did was show this monk just how much it mean to raise a finger. The path is not holding up a finger, but when he does it this is the path. Do you get how this is a rebuke of quoting anyone at all? You have to find it for yourselves in the world around you. You know what you get from the mouths of long-dead men? Mushrooms. Trying to root yourself in something, when there's a world out there to explore.

Sitting on this subreddit, I'm constantly struck with the feeling of someone who found out that "Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance" wasn't real zen, and so they decided motorcycle maintenance was off the table for them.

When someone asks you what zen is to you, will you give a dead man's words? How exhausting.

Submitted February 16, 2023 at 09:33AM by LiveClimbRepeat https://ift.tt/DPMHNQs