A monk asked, "Asking for help like a man whose head is on fire - what is that like?"
Joshu said, "Be like him."
The monk asked, "In what way?"
Joshu said, "Do not put yourself in his place."
When your head is on fire, you don’t stop and ask for help, you put it out.
Voluntarily going out of your way to consume substances that degrade your body renders you unfit for holding a conversation about your own understanding. Lying is just muddying the conversation rendering nothing real to be considered.
In the Zen context that plays itself out in every encounter that Zen Masters had—even edge cases of Budai and Xianzi—they didn’t attempt to justify “lifestyles” as indicative of truth attainment.
Not putting yourself in the place of a man whose head is on fire is dealing with your current conditions, not to be found, as Mingben states, in trying to “imitate the ease” of famous Zen Masters by carrying on doing whatever you like Willy-Nilly.
Faith in doctrine and a salvation that is earned through religious practice isn’t the same as the Zen path of confronting reality directly and the original enlightenment manifested in ordinary activity.
Of course, all the LSD-psychonaut dope smoking Watts fanboys want to pretend their insights are ordinary but when it comes to Zen culture literacy is out of the question for them. That’s why the crash and burn on /r/zen is typically so hard on them.
Yongjia says that hearing a Zen Master speaks makes outsiders brains explode.
Drugs can’t match that.
Submitted February 24, 2023 at 07:35AM by ThatKir https://ift.tt/7leMcw1
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