Yunmen said,
"If you don't understand, do not pretend that you do."
New Ager-y, particularly the perrenialist flavor, is all about pretending that everyone--all religions and philosophies of which Zen gets falsely lumped in with--means or "points to" the same doctrinal truth regardless of what primary sources say about the nature of their belief. It's a form of racism, really.
In contrast, Zen texts are all about instruction is given out according to the situation. The most obvious example to me is,
A monk asked Yun Men,
"What are the teachings of a whole lifetime? "
Yun Men said, "An appropriate statement."
When handing out teaching contextually, as in Zen texts, that doesn't leave room for any "perrenial" truth that is being pointed to. Mingben says, "Your idealist philosophies must be dead, your familiarities forgotten, your dispositions vanished, your opinions withered away." How could anyone confuse that with New Ager Perrenialism?
Anyone claiming to have a "perrenial truth" is not Zen and is just trying to ride a raft after having already crossed a river.
Submitted April 02, 2023 at 06:51PM by ThatKir https://ift.tt/PltZLCH
No comments:
Post a Comment