Zen: Killing by the Thousands

Master Zhenjing said to an assembly,

Zen does not go along with human sentiments. Elders everywhere talk big, all saying, 'I know how to meditate, I know the Way!' But tell me, do they understand or not? For no reason they sit in pits of crap fooling spirits and ghosts. When people are like this, what crime is there is killing them by the thousands and feeding them to the dogs?

In terms of immorality, butchering by the thousands and feeding-to-the-dogs those who preach the heretical doctrine that meditation has anything to do with knowledge of the True Zen Way isn't something we get affirmed. According to Zhenjing, they're dead anyway--company of spirits and ghouls.

Well, apart from all that, what is the meaning of life?

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Baizhang said:

From humanity to Buddhahood is the grasping of holy sentiments; from humanity to hell is the grasping of ordinary sentiments. Right now as long as you have any mind of attached love in either realm, holy or ordinary, this is what is called sentient beings without enlightened nature

Love and hate, holy and ordinary--as soon as you conceive of these as self-existing concepts, you're off in la-la land.

Five matters of 'sentiment' that Zen has no part of:

1. There are values that we should conform ourselves to in order to understand reality.

2. Certain emotions and behaviors have greater-or-lesser levels of value and classifying them according to these conceptions is true, wise, good, etc.

3. Enlightenment is attained by affirming or denying sets of doctrines.

4. By engaging in religious rituals, i.e., prayer, meditation, confession of sins, we are doing something spiritually beneficial to us.

5. You should do what you want to do, don't observe any precepts, rules, or promises.

Which of these is most controversial in 2022?

How is the message of Zen proclaimed?

Submitted February 06, 2022 at 06:53AM by ThatKir https://ift.tt/n4L09ly