述而不作、信而好古
Kongzi (trad. attr.): Lunyu [7.1] (my trans.)
Why Confucius, in r/zen?
Just think: all past Zen masters, who could read and write, knew this quote by heart since the very beginning of their education. The idea that there is some distinction between inventing the new and relaying the old. Confucius is picking'n'choosing, and he chose trying to be the objective bystander, though without pretence of being emotionally above the fray.
There is a point where "objectivity" is the last refuge of the illusion-creating subject, the "witness" (or so they believe). The relativistic alternative is to admit it's all subjective, but what to do then is wide open. Resume the pretence of objectivity? Would that be as a heuristic or disposable ladder? Or would it be arrogant? Cave to your wildest fantasies? Would it matter?
The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' [...] 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do'.
In the case of Zen, we know Zen masters were aware of the problem this issue speaks to, at a sophisticated level that was independent of their Zen training. It was the common secular heritage they shared with the wider literati community.
I'm very confident there'll be enough people in r/zen who can point to, or infer, some obvious ways that Zen masters surpassed Confucius on this point alone.
Submitted January 05, 2019 at 12:02PM by grass_skirt http://bit.ly/2VxUNBp
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