People tend to want to have a fortress of official truth they can take refuge in. For example the claimed lineage from China back to a so called Buddha or group of early buddhas in India. A most dubious proposition, but some people deem this manufactured lineage as essential to the the authority, legitimacy and credibility of their SECT. There are a thousand examples including many of the definitions that sects have for their important doctrines and canons, their concept based world views that stand apart from all other world views. You either agree with these sectarian positions, form a new variation of sect, or you are banished into what I call a "private" status, which is either enlightened or not, either full of make believe, or free and alive. The relationship between zen figures was not sectarian, it was familial. Such a family is not held together by doctrinal agreements but its composed of individuals whose overlap is not so much as an identity as the shared ability to see. This kind of lineage doesn't fit so well on a flow chart. Not to say that the zen stories can't irreverently borrow from any rung of so called lineage from such an official chart.
In practical terms on r/zen, those with political ambitions are interested in naming classes of people, so we have a lot of name calling and generalizing. Newcomers to r/zen often do in fact have some kind of prior allegiance to any number of packaged teachings with specific identities, in other words, they often bring old sectarian loyalties. But even if they don't its likely the "in group" will find a way to label them based on the in groups own sectarian filters.
I am not trying to approve or recommend any particular method for categorizing newcomers or regulars here. I am simply trying to shine some light on the first question that we encounter in zen, "Where do you come from?".
People have always marched off to ideologies and sectarian groups as crowds and mobs, joining into a fake mirror of what could otherwise be true sangha. It has its comforts.
But when its time, we wake up one by one, not as a crowd or mob. Strangely its not a lonely experience on balance, even if it takes a while to find your family. To wake up one by one, is not really private, nor sectarian. Its an organic state, original, where the lines of separation have been erased. A little disconcerting to be sure, but the world has sufficient demarcations of its own for us to find our way.
Submitted March 13, 2023 at 07:18PM by unreconstructedbum https://ift.tt/oxIpgwv
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