I came across this interesting article about a study on definition vs conception:
At stake is the differences between words with agreed upon definitions and the CONCEPTS people attach to those words suggests there is very little commonality in these concepts... concepts evoked by words with agreed upon definitions.
It's not just that new agers, Buddhists, and Zazen Dogenists, don't study Zen texts and so don't learned what Zen Masters teach, it's also that the definitions in the Zen context are also not learned. But when the context isn't studied, the concepts are learned either, along with the definitions and the teachings.
Consider Zhaozhou...
139
Magistrate Ma (Ba) as k ed, "D o you do practice or not'".
The master said, "If I did practice I would be in serious difficulty."
The magistrate said, "If you don't do practice, who do you expect to do practice?"
The master said, "You are a person who does practice."
The magistrate said, "Why do you call me a man who does practice?"
The master said, "If you haven't ever practiced, how could you have managed to be a servant to the ministers of the king? Has there never been a time when you have been starving and cold and penniless, yet have pulled through?"
The magistrate shed tears and expressed his gratitude.
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Yo͞ok Welcome! Meet me My comment: What does the above Zhaozhou passage even mean?
Aside from the fact that illiteracy is such a big issue that it sinks most conversations from the start, consider what the trigger words are for these people... practice is one of them, but so are Buddha, study, knowledge, and way.
The whole function of conversation is to draw out these distinctions from people who make them, but again, illiterate people won't even acknowledge the dictionary often enough, so where is any conversation going to go?
Submitted April 26, 2023 at 12:14PM by ewk https://ift.tt/MwSvgFx
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