Casual Questioning?

Does anyone have a "line" of questioning that is best to get people interested in Zen philosophy and practice?

When people ask what religion I am, I usually answer "Zen Buddhist, even though it isn't really a religion I guess." That gets them questioning my beliefs.

I usually go down the track of stating that the "I" is an illusion, but the path to enlightenment is unique to each of us. I then ask them to explain who they are without using anything that exists in relation to anything else. They generally can't do it. At that point they either balk at my statement that the "I" is an illusion or end up in the old "my existence began at conception when God gave me my soul" scenario.

Don't know if there is any other better way. I've also tried Alan Watt's discussion of "there is no same river twice" but last year someone pointed out that that is a line in a song in the Disney film Mulan, which was absolutely hilarious.

Basically, I'm just looking for good introspective questions or discussion pieces to get people to rethink their relation to the universe in terms of the illusion of the self. Any ideas?

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Also, I'm not a dork, I'm not doing this at parties or anything. I'm doing this with close friends when we are talking about different ways of looking at life.

Submitted July 17, 2020 at 02:42AM by guuutbutttt https://ift.tt/3j9FnPG