Not Zen? Suppose a person denotes your lineage and your teacher as Buddhism unrelated to Zen, because there are several quotations from Zen patriarchs denouncing seated meditation. Would you be fine admitting that your lineage has moved away from Zen and if not, how would you respond?
I have no lineage, and there is no longer any Zen for one such as me. Everything I have thought of as Zen has merely become another mirage on the horizon, so there is no longer anything to seek from it. Now the work begins for me to stop chasing after ghosts, and merely exist for the time being. Those old bastards were quite devious to point away from such a thing.
What's your text? What text, personal experience, quote from a master, or story from zen lore best reflects your understanding of the essence of zen?
All Zen texts should have been burned a long time ago, as they make something quite special out of the mundane. I'm only half-joking of course, but there are those in Zen who say that Buddhism is like calling yellow leaves gold to settle down crying children. What they may not realize is that Zen is just a more advanced form of placating adolescents. Only adults can face the absolute of the void without any juvenile shamanic rituals or conceptual foundations.
Dharma low tides? What do you suggest as a course of action for a student wading through a "dharma low-tide"? What do you do when it's like pulling teeth to read, bow, chant, or sit?
There are no highs and there are no lows. If you experience anything of the sort and try to link it to the "dharma", then you don't know the first thing about Zen. If your mood affects anything you do, then you are still unskillfully bound to the world of form and nothing more than a slave to another falsehood. Also, what need is there to read, bow, chant or sit in the first place? Is there anything special there more useful than anything else?
Submitted November 23, 2018 at 07:37PM by WanderingRonin77 https://ift.tt/2DTnQKm
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