Recently I ask you guys about the importance of lineage. One of the people who had something to say was u/ewk. Through our conversation a lot of interesting things came up, so I thought it would be nice to share it with you guys. Read the conversation in the original post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/dd7u7g/the_importance_of_lineage_in_zen/ or below.
Please read everything carefully and share thoughts with us.
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Ewk: Lineage is critical to Zen Masters, in that it is context.
They aren't at all interested in something inherited in the modern religious sense.
There are lots of cases dealing with the importance of lineage and it's non-tangible qualities.
Maku19: Can you explain what do you mean with context?
Ewk: Zen Masters mentioned bodhidharma all the time because they say that what he is transmitting is the same as what they are transmitting. They talked about all their relatives for the same reason.
The transmission is not dependent on doctrine, but it does emerge from the context of lineage. so you have all these different Masters talking about all these different things but the Masters come back to the main point which is we may not be saying the same thing but we're all talking about the same thing.
Maku19: Let me put this in my own words just to see if I understood you right, and please correct me if I am wrong.
Lineage in zen functions as a guide for the rest of us to know that what a zen master is saying is the same in essence as what bodhidharma was saying.
Right?
Ewk: Kind of.
Lineage is a line of people tied together by transmission that isn't based on words... So if the words are not fixed, people might not see it.
Maku19: And how would you define transmission?
Ewk: https://www.reddit.com/r/zensangha/wiki/ewk/4pillarszen
Maku19: So transmission can not be expressed by words neither it can be understood by Mind. Therefore it must be something mystical?
Ewk: Zen Masters say it's a mystery.
My thought is that there is very little sense in telling people about their own nature.
If they don't see it, then their imaginations can't help them, and if they do see it, you'd sound like an idiot trying to put into words something they have directly experienced themselves... like describing a cold glass of lemonade to someone about to drink one.
Maku19: Ultimately, a zen master is someone who has experienced transmission. Correct?
Ewk: Right... a transmission which... what...
"Obtaining no Dharma whatever is called Mind transmission. The understanding of this Mind implies no Mind and no Dharma. "
Even "experienced" is going out on a limb.
Maku19: We can summarize all the above and say that a lay person, someone who isn't a zen master, someone who hasn't "experienced" transmission, has to rely on lineage in order to identify the true teaching, which ultimately means trust in transmission itself
Ewk: No.
A lay person can't tell who is a Zen Master, can't tell who has received transmission.
Reliance of any kind is antithetical to Zen.
Maku19: So a lay person cannot trust the lineage
Ewk: The lineage says "trust in mind".
How could it be any more explicit?
Maku19: If a lay person cannot trust the lineage, then the above claim cannot be trusted either.
If the mind can be trusted (whether the lineage can be trusted or not) then truth in zen is subjective to each mind.
Right?
Ewk: The lineage comes with warning labels it wrote itself...
We've established that trust won't get around that.
Maku19: In other words lineage is not absolute
Ewk: I think that misrepresents their position... I think they'd say that to a person who knows, lineage is absolute, but enlightenment isn't.
Maku19: But if a person knows what is the point of lineage? To reassure the already known?
Ewk: If you know who your parents are, what's the point of that?
Maku19: But you don't, how can you 😅
Ewk: After enlightenment, you know. Before enlightenment, why take anybody's word for it?
Isn't it likely that, if they are your parents, you'll see that for yourself?
Maku19: So, a lay person cannot trust anyone, even his mind, until he/she become enlightened?
Ewk: Your own mind is all you can ever trust.
"Layperson" btw doesn't have anything to do with Enlightenment.
We are all Patriarchs since Bodhidharma has come.
Maku19: If we are all Patriarchs, we are all enlightened and so we don't need lineage
Ewk: Juzhi didn't need a lineage, nobody needs a lineage.
Maku19: So lineage is useless
Ewk: Of course. Like Zen teachings.
It's see the self nature... after all.
Maku19: OK. Thank you ewk
Submitted October 12, 2019 at 12:49PM by maku19 https://ift.tt/327PUC0
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