Zen and Hope: High Evolutionary's Murder-Raping Lifestyle

I've been talking lately in this forum with people who have no interest in keeping the five lay precepts.

THE FIVE PRECEPTS

1. abstain from taking life

2. abstain from taking what is not given

3. abstain from sexual misconduct

4. abstain from false speech

5. abstain from intoxicants clouding the mind

There's a lot of reasons for people to struggle with these... The most obvious one is the dietary restriction... If you don't live in a community that encourages this behavior it can be a huge challenge.

Hope in Keeping

But does anybody think living this way is less hopeful?

If you keep the lay precepts and you don't murder-rape animals and people, do you think it's easier to understand living the life of a non-murder-raper?

That's fair, right?

Hope by Keeping

On the other side of the coin, we all acknowledge that reading books isn't going to save anybody from anything (unless you are Huineng) but does anybody think you're going to understand what Zen Masters say without the Lay Precepts?

Okay, some people really think that.

But does anybody think that they're going to understand what Zen Masters say that touches on the Lay precepts without keeping the lay precepts themselves? I'm not keeping them for like a week or something, but keeping them with the intention of keeping them. Like being a guardian of them even if you make a mistake.

So the hope is, this side of the coin, that Zen masters make more sense the more you hope to keep the precepts.

If you live a people-animals murder-raping lifestyle, like High Evolutionary, doesn't it seem more likely that Zen Masters are going to sound incomprehensible?

Zen and Hope

A student of the sutras once visited Guizong Zhichang while he was working the soil in the garden with a hoe. Just as the student drew near, he saw Guizong use the hoe to cut a snake in half, killing it in violation of the Buddhist precept not to take any form of life.

“I'd heard that Guizong was a crude and ill-mannered man, but I didn't believe it until now,” the student remarked.

“Is it you or I who's crude or refined?” Guizong asked.

“What do you mean by ‘crude'?” the student asked.

Guizong held the hoe upright.

“And in that case, what do you mean by ‘refined'?” the student asked.

Guizong made a motion as if cutting a snake in half.

“And yet,” the student said, “if you had allowed it, it would have gone away on its own.”

“If I'd allowed it to go away on its own, how would you have seen me chop the snake in two?”

First of all, how is this evening an argument?

Clearly the zen master wasn't thinking someone was watching.

He was just hoping to keep the precepts. It's crude to do more than that.

Submitted May 21, 2023 at 07:32PM by ewk https://ift.tt/vetKd7l