Why Mahayana Buddhists Don't Like Zen: Sudden Enlightenment

Whether it's Buddhists lynching the Second Zen Patriarch or Buddhists content brigading in this forum, whether it's Dogen lying about having learned prayer-meditation from Rujing or Japanese Buddhists ridiculing "do nothing" Zen, one of the central reasons for the animosity is Zen's Sudden Enlightenment:

1. No enlightenment through practice or cultivation
2. No enlightenment through beliefs or conduct
3. No enlightenment based on scriptures, doctrines, or wisdom
4. No enlightenment based on certification of organizations

While Zen Masters occasionally mention "gradual enlightenment", which is the category all Buddhist enlightenments fall into, there are

• no Cases in which anyone experiences gradual enlightenment,
• no Masters who admit to have been gradually enlightened, and
• no methodology specifically described as leading to gradual enlightenment.

So why does Zen Sudden Enlightenment stick in the throats of Buddhists?\

1. Sudden Enlightenment doesn't depend on being good or doing good.
2. Sudden Enlightenment doesn't involve a relationship with a Buddhist church.
3. Sudden Enlightenment invalidates practices, rituals, values, beliefs, and commandments that are the defining features of Buddhism.

In short, Zen is a direct and total rejection of Buddhism's very foundation: Obedience.

Submitted October 02, 2019 at 09:14AM by ewk https://ift.tt/2nHljfz