Zen thread

What is beyond "no"?

We have all heard that Reality-as-such is beyond any duality, beyond any affirmation or denial. It is often said that emptiness is not "no," but what is it exactly? -- The fact that we're so frequently discouraged in Zen from asking questions with presumptuous words like "what" makes it all the more pressing that we try to find a way forward.

Let's turn to its logical formulation for a second. What this amounts to goes by many names, but in the West it usually goes by "apophatic" or "negative" theology. It's an idea you find in a lot of cultures, and it seems pretty clear to me that this is the driving factor behind why so many holy texts are filled with mountains of negations. The idea behind it is pretty simple: it's more accurate to say what Reality *isn't* than what it *is*. This is motivated by metaphysical technicalities that I won't get into in my OP, but it can be said that our project is basically trying to put Boundless Reality into a limited, bounded explanation, and for this reason it's difficult to *speak* about Reality-as-such. The ink-blood of many minds has been spilled over the relationship between language and metaphysics, and I won't try to solve it here.

Anyway, the idea is just simple negation. However, Reality is beyond yes and no, being wholly inclusive (it being contradiction in terms for a real thing not to be included in Truth). So Wu/Mu (無) is not just "no", since it indicates reality.

Negation isn't the whole picture. I want to try, with all of you, to speak more clearly about what is. Particularly, is there a logical form that's closer than mere negation? At some point I expect this to break down since Reality-as-such is beyond individuation and affirmation/denial, the two foundations of logic, but I think it can be taken a little further.

Other urls found in this thread:

bangkokpost.com/news/general/1198961/monk-caught-at-love-motel-with-woman-drugs
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_in_Buddhism
thezensite.com/ZenTeachings/Dogen_Teachings/GenjoKoan8.htm#wab0
pastebin.com/MRy0B5p4
youtube.com/watch?v=Yj7aOCB_oaA
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

Perhaps Zhuangzi's wordplay with 是 is relevant here: when paired with 非, the pair indicates affirmation and denial. When paired with 彼, they indicate "this" and "that" (i.e. individuation).

What is interesting here is the link between these two concept (which happen to be the foundation of logic) being 是. Zhuangzi sees that there is a fundamental relationship between, if I may put it this way, where one stands (perspective) and what one sees (what one affirms/denies). I affirm this and not that because I am this way.

It is like this: on an indefinitely large plane, any point can be taken as the center; but you must pick a center in order to start making measurements. (This seems to be the idea behind *rational* coming from *ratio*: that rationality is from comparing things.) In order to say anything, I need a place to stand, so to speak. But as soon as I have a place to stand Reality is /this/ way and not /that/ way. So when I tried to say something about it I had to get my hands messy and join the fray! I couldn't say anything about Reality "objectively", but had to hop right in in order to speak.

This project seems self-defeating, since every time we try to get closer to Reality than "no", we are met with "abandon individuation and affirmation/denial, for they are unreal." But these appear to be the very foundations of language and logic, of sayability! So must we rethink saying? How can something closer than "no" be said? -- Try as you might, the question stubbornly refuses to go away despite our pulling the rug out from under it.

So, in trying to go beyond "no", there appears to be this radical affirmation of limitedness. I keep coming back to the saying:

>Before enlightenment, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers.
>During enlightenment, mountains are not mountains and rivers are not rivers.
>After enlightenment, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers.

I think the individuality of a thing is being affirmed as its Reality. But this "individuality" must not be construed the way we usually do.

So we are pulled in two directions, neither affirming it nor denying it are fully "it." But "no" says something crucial, and when we look closely at this "no" we find a radical affirmation of the Reality of the individual-as-such.

What in the shit am I reading

Keep going tho

I'll write something up with more background info after I run to Wendy's. I'm fuckin' hungry.

If this is completely obscure to you, why don't you read up on "emptiness", "dependent (co)origination/arising", and "expedient means" in Buddhism in the meantime? It'll make this whole "emptiness is not 'no'" business a lot clearer. The Diamond Sutra in particular is good for teaching this, and the basic form in it is "x is not x (being empty), therefore we talk about 'x'" The Lotus Sutra has a couple of chapters early on expedient means, which is CRUCIAL to understanding Buddhism (and why it is slander to say that the Buddha taught anything, according to Buddha himself).

The important thing to keep in mind is what things are empty OF: inherent, separate existence. "Essences."

Oh, I forgot to say:

Pic related. Can you tell me how?

any good collection of zen koan books you can recommend?

>tfw read one last week and i had an epiphany of sorts

>tfw I am the river

Putting this here for fellow zen friends as a reading list for zen buddhism. This was not made by me


1. Diamond Sutra.
2. Hui Neng's commentary on the Diamond Sutra.
3. Heart Sutra.
4. Transmission of the Lamp (at least a good chunk).
5. Mumonkan ("Gateless Gate").
6. Book of Serenity
7. Blue Cliff Record
8. The Sayings of Zen Master Joshu
9. Some Dogen. By now you should be doing some kind of practice, for example sitting meditation. Read the stuff in Abe & Waddell's collection of the essential Shobogezo and read, read, and reread "Genjokoan."
10. The Record of Linji. You're ready.

So the way I see it, a large part of what makes Zen so weird is the extent to which they take two concepts: UPAYA and PRATITYASAMUTPADA/SHUNYATA.

PRATITYASAMUTPADA ("dependent origination/arising") - This is simply the teaching of relativity. Things do not exist by themselves, being constituted by their relationships (Thich: "a self is a marriage of non-self elements"). This is known as the teaching of ANATTA or "no-self." In Mahayana Buddhism, it is seen that the relative existence of things means that they are "shunya" (empty) of inherent, separate existence. Their arising ("birth") is dependent in many ways including causally and semantically. Thus Buddhists speak of the SHUNYATA ("emptiness") of things. Since things have "no self", it is said over and over in the Diamond Sutra that "x is not x, so we speak of 'x'." It is SLANDER to say that the Buddha taught because there was nothing to teach! Nothing was born and nothing dies. "Things" are not actually /things/ but rather the entire world is this strange, pulsating mass of relationships. A house isn't a house, it's an arrangement of beams. The beams aren't even "beams", just wood. I cut some wood into boards. When I put them in the wall they are studs (and they can be jack, queen, etc.), when I put them in the floor they become floorboards, when in the ceiling they're beams.

Let me put it this way. In Western philosophy, it was noticed that positing an "essence" of a thing ran into the following problem. If I say that there is a "chair" there, which is not merely its sittability or the wood it's made from or its shape or of its other "qualities", can you point to the chair independent of its qualities? It ought to be possible if indeed the "chair" is a real thing, which isn't just the marriage of its parts. The Buddha taught with anatta that this question arises from a fundamental confusion about the existence of "selves." He remedied that with his teachings on emptiness.

I won't get too much into it, but for these reasons Mahayana is metaphysically "nondualist," and Zen is absolutely committed to this. There is no separation between the relative and Absolute (or appearance and Reality).

Continued in next post:

UPAYA ("expedient means", "[Buddhist] teaching") - for reasons in the West that led God to be declared "ineffable" and metaphysics to be "impossible" or "senseless", it is very difficult if at all possible to point directly to Reality, since Reality leaves nothing out and in order for speech to be meaningful it must exclude. Not only this (and more importantly), ACTION IS A HIGHER PRIORITY THAN THOUGHT in Buddhism (to put it crudely, though Buddhists are certainly far from anti-intellectual) and so the emphasis is not on correct speech in Buddhism, but on enlightening others. This means that the Buddha's teachings are not to be clung to as absolute. It is said: "the teaching on impermanence is permanent, and the teaching on permanence is impermanent."

So all upaya really means is that you don't take what the Buddha says too far. Don't construct idols. Don't take the words of the teaching for the Reality taught. Do not confuse the letter with the Spirit.

Upaya is like a balancing act, and Buddhism is the MIDDLE PATH. If you stray too far into essentialist/reificationist territory, a buddha will remind you of emptiness; straying too far into nihilism buddhas will remind you about relativity (or just smack you and tell you to look right in front of your face!).

Given this background, one way to interpret my question is that I'm asking how to resolve the disparity between emptiness and the logical form of negation. In other words, "not x" doesn't quite square with emptiness (Reality) and I want to find a better one. Of course, "not not x" immediately comes to mind, but that's not entirely satisfying...

Hi! I actually wrote that one, and I also suggested some others to mix in there in the original post (like Zhuangzi). I forget what else I said though.

Sorry, this a lengthy message I hope some of you will take the time to read it, you might find it interesting. For me it is of great spiritual import so I hope you will persevere to get to the nub of the issue. Anyway, it needs some explaining and also some context to communicate a very painful experience I have had recently that has caused a lot of suffering to myself, and any advice for its treatment.

Now 46 years of age, I’m a male Buddhist that started practising back in 2002 upon reading "The Art of Happiness". Up until 9 months months ago I have been mostly very grounded, strongly intuitive man who has not suffered any mental health issues of any kind, except a few shortish periods of mild depression, not unusual. Having stated this, it should be noted that I suffered a deeper depressive period around 2009, a family breakdown and a few short but fairly extreme periods of alcoholic drinking, part of my past. Besides these periods I have always been engaged with continued spiritual practice although lost a bit of connection at times to my Buddhist roots.

Leading up to May last year I feel that I have suffered a loss of mental clarity and that the 3 Jewels were a bit distant which allowed me to make an uncharacteristically bad decision to join a "Shamanic" style retreat where participants take a psychotropic substance as part of the retreat practice. Without naming the substance I can say that it is a very powerful hallucinogen and has started to become popular with westerners not only visiting South America to attend these type of retreats but are now appearing in first world countries like mine, Australia.

During the retreat on the first night when I took the substance and it started to come on, I had a massive electric/energetic jolt that seemed to originate in my heart centre and knocked me out of my chair. At the same time I saw in my mind's eye/visualised a silver cord retreat up into a dark sky. Just prior to this I also visualised red clouds (blood?) in my mind's eye billowing and dark. After this event I continued to meditate and notice a lot of feelings and energy releases moving up through the body mostly from my Solar Plexus energy centre.

The second night we took the substance again and not long after the effect started to come on I entered a highly anxious state and felt like this whole thing was an entrapment and that the leader of the retreat was a sorcerer. Understandably this could be thought of as a paranoid episode and the continuing experience that night was the most horrific thing that had happened to me in my life up to that point. I ran from the retreat for fear of my life and had this horrifying feeling that I had been permanently cut off from the Dharma and enlightenment. I was eventually picked up by an ambulance and spent the night in a hospital under surveillance. A lot more could be said of my experience that night but this is already a long read.

The next day I was ok and returned to the retreat to say goodbye and go home as the retreat was over. I was OK for about 1 week then the horrifying thoughts and feeling returned to my mind, they did abate though after talking at length with my Buddhist teacher. The thoughts returned again a few days later for a period of hours, then went again after talking to another friend. By 3 weeks after the retreat I was dealing with constant horrifying thoughts that I had been permanently cut off from the possibility of spiritual advancement. These thoughts were strengthened as my mind kept returning to the vision of the cord retreating into the sky and a sense that my Pineal Gland may have been damaged, this is said to be the seat of consciousness and ‘connection to the heavens’.

Only a week later, the thoughts in my head reached a crescendo and I went into a paranoid psychosis by definition, after arriving home from an intensely mentally stressful day I saw people chasing me and feared for my life, this began a psychotic bender over about 4 days. I say psychotic as this would be the definition, but the events I experienced were not just hallucinations and mental aberration of some type, some of the things I experienced were verifiably real.

I can share more specifics with anyone who is interested in private message/chat or even on Skype but that is enough for now.

My main aim here is to seek some advice about what my main fear is, which is this silver cord is real and it is how we receive spiritual nourishment or connect more with it, and that mine has been cut, since then I have had hellish experiences, cut off from the heavens, am I damned to some sort of hell? Is there something I can specifically do to repair/reconnect/develop/maintain the source connection. Recently I have been able to start reconnecting with some of my formal practices and can feel some light and lightness, but there are definitely differences in my mind since the event. My ability to visualise is now greatly impaired, short term memory is also impaired, my heart centre also seems to be ‘offline’. Also I have lots of dark thoughts and sometimes ones that don’t really feel like they are coming from me. I am aware of the obsessional and paranoid aspects, but this is alleviated somewhat by my Sangha connections and Vajrasattva practice.

Any helpful comments are welcomed.

Love.

Relationship.

>zen
>in words

The sound of the rain needs no translation.

...Mothafucka.

fuck yes, a zen thread. i needed this. nice work anons

True, but if I don't notice it's raining someone might need to point it out.

bopnm

OP who are you and how do you know these things?

One day after Buddha took a shit he produced a gatha:

> You were never stricken by poverty,
> Nor have you lost wealth and nobility.
> Only in order to pursue the Truth, you have left home.
> You will be able to endure the hardship.

This is the essence of Buddha's teaching on suffering: sit up straight, clear your head, and act in the dignified manner of the sages. Your suffering is an opportunity to turn the Dharma Wheel helping others along the Way. Great Sages like Buddha, Jesus, Socrates, and Confucius ask us to do ourselves a favor and bring out the best in ourselves. Buddhism is a PHILOSOPHY OF ACTION and it demands that we strive to improve ourselves. In Abrahamic terms, we ought to embody the Image of God that we are and carry out the Lord's work on earth. It's not easy, if it were, it wouldn't be worth it.

Master Dogen tells us that we ought to remember that buddhas have toilets too. What he means is that real men carry themselves with dignity when they take a shit. Real men carry themselves with dignity when they go through some shit.

Strive to carry yourself like a buddha moment to moment. This is called: "True Man", as it is what is most worthy and dignified in man, his very raison d'etre. "True Man" is true to himself and his fellow man. That's it.

Nobody needs to do anything.

Unless they do, in which case they are already doing it.

I'm pretty sure Zen is NOT a system if elaborate word games, as you seem to think it is. It is a system of change in states of consciousness, specifically those aspects of consciousness that relate to your sense of self.

Very thought-provoking, it really caught my interest. I'd suggest doing away with the second person pronouns...it feels out of place to directly address the reader(s). There's also a strange mix of continentalese phrases ("as such," "contradiction in terms") and simplistic language ("a lot" etc.). Actual content is great, but massage the style to get the message across more effectively.

>"no"
is just a word so this is a senseless question.

>We have all heard that Reality-as-such is beyond any duality

Never heard of this. I'm going to assume you mean something like the thing in itself of all reality is beyond the two truth values, which is incredibly vague.

> it's more accurate to say what Reality *isn't* than what it *is*
No it's just more practical. You can divide or collect when trying to define words.

>our project is basically trying to put Boundless Reality into a limited, bounded explanation, and for this reason it's difficult to *speak* about Reality-as-such.
You want to define reality*

So up till here everything you said is pretty banal man. Then you say this

>Reality is beyond yes and no, being wholly inclusive (it being contradiction in terms for a real thing not to be included in Truth)

There are so many things wrong with this. You just jump to the conclusion that reality is beyond yes and no after you just said how difficult it is to bind reality. What in the fuck, you dont even give a proof for it beyond "some fucks once said and we all of course have heard that reality is beyond yes and no". You also just assume what the words "real" and "truth" means, even though these words seem just as difficult to grasp as the word "reality".

> is not just "no", since it indicates reality.

Maybe you should study some formal logic, or just read some Plato since he even got past the problem of Pareminides, "talking about nothing is affirming nothing which is contradictory", in Sophist.

I am only examining the way that Zen dialogue conducts itself. I am by no means reducing Zen to "word games" (quite the opposite in fact, as you'll note with my emphasis on action). However this specific question, which explores the fuzzy area between indefinitude and Infinitude is quite focused on word games, since it's a question about being precise in the area which is most difficult in metaphysics.

I'd generally agree with that statement, though I don't think I'd really put it that way. It seems simpler to take buddhas at their word when they say "this man said x, which was too essentialist, so I said not-x." Turning the Wheel is a matter of letting circumstances present themselves, and then skillfully acting according to the moment. No need for mind, just action.

I just read books and meditate sometimes.

Zen is able to admit both the Eternity of time and its flux. I'm not quite sure how they do it, but I think it has something to do with the fact that Eternity is not opposed to time (just as Reality is not opposed to anything). On the one hand, yes you are right, our true nature is our original nature, and so we cannot escape it. On the other hand, there is this famous case cited in Genjokoan:

>As Zen master Pao-ch'e of Mount Ma-yü was fanning himself, a monk came up and said, “The nature of the wind is constancy. There is no place it does not reach. Why use a fan?” Pao-ch'e answered, “You only know the nature of the wind is constancy. You haven't yet grasped the meaning of its reaching every place.” “What is the meaning of its reaching every place?” asked the monk. The master only fanned himself. The monk bowed deeply.

I didn't know I was writing for an editor, but thanks for the advice on something I quickly wrote up before lunch I guess? A lot of those words are actually everyday words that Zen uses technically that I carried over from the Chinese (since English has such a poverty of metaphysical language).

It's clear from your post that you don't understand the background of my question. A basic idea in Mahayana Buddhism is "emptiness", which many people confuse for nihility or voidness. I've given some suggestions on where to get informed about it above.

I'm not really gonna touch the rest of this post because it's pretty clear that you don't really know much about the context in which this question is traditionally explored. A lot of the stuff you're critiquing is covered in Mahayana 101 when you learn about emptiness and relativity (i.e. no-self, the basic teaching of Buddhism). Have you even read Nagarjuna?

And I think it's you who should study some formal logic, since it's painfully obvious that you've never heard of things like paraconsistent logic (which logicians like Graham Priest have brought into direct dialogue with Buddhism). What you don't understand is that Buddhism is questioning the dogmas which you and the Western logical tradition have held since Aristotle. Do you know how weak the arguments for the principle of contradiction are? There isn't a single defense of it which doesn't beg the question.

The very basic thing about logic which you do not seem to understand is that there is not one "logic." There is "vanilla" logic, modal logic, paraconsistent logics, and many other kinds of logic. Paraconsistent logic just happens to be logics which don't "explode" when you remove LNC.

And I hate to break it to you, but most philosophy is banal until you start making connections and drawing out implications. But at the end of the day most of it can still be distilled into banalities, common sense, and tautologies.

I don't mean to be rude or anything (ignoring your rather juvenile tone), but I have a really hard time imagining someone who knows even the basics about Buddhism would come in with a blunt approach like that. Reflect on the most profound insight that Mahayana has to offer: that relativity is Nonduality.

>mfw "logic" is still positivism's discredited unicorn of an ideal language to some ppl

>mfw it's like the last 60 years in logic didn't happen to some

I like the techniques and the attitude of Zen, it's just a shame that it is founded on tathāgatagarbha/Buddha Nature thought which encourages the reification and portenteous capitalisation of concepts like Mind, Emptiness, Reality. There's no need for any of that, it doesn't happen in Early Buddhism, it's a step away from the truth rather than towards it.

Yeah the Buddha-nature stuff can be a pretty dangerous way of speaking if it's used loosely. I wouldn't so much say that Zen is founded on it as much as that they speak a lot about "xing" over there in China, Zen included. However, I'd also argue that the usefulness of Buddha-nature is in discouraging the emptiness as 'no' view I've mentioned above.

Yes, it can encourage reification, just as emptiness can encourage nihilism. However, I think it's a useful counter - for it's "shock value" - to anatta (since it forces the student to cope with the fact that the Nature is not contrary to no-self) as well as to emptiness (since emptiness is not 'no'). I personally think that the so-called "mind only" approach tempts more than tathagatagarbha, people being very susceptible to idealism. I really don't see it as that dangerous if a good master is there to give you a THWACK every time you forget that there is no self! Buddhism is very clear on this and I actually think it's pretty clever to use something so close to a Self as a tool (but only in certain instances). Buddha-nature has a time and a place and I think a lot of masters would agree that it's often overemphasized or used in unhelpful contexts. I think it should be used sparingly to preserve the "shock value" as well as to not give off the false impression of espousing the Senika heresy.

The techniques and attitude are the real gem of Zen, I agree. A perfect match for the Chinese literary tradition! I've also found the level of self-consciousness in the tradition to be rather impressive. There are many masters who would agree with you and would rather not waste breath on this buddha-nature business (or ones who don't fancy koans, or sitting, etc.).

Reading your post again it strikes me that I'm saying that I think it can encourage reification when used in the wrong context (unskilled means), but when used in the right context it can be used to counter nihilistic tendencies with concepts like no-self, emptiness, etc.

Historically, I suspect that Buddha-nature was an expedient means used in China for just that reason. The native concept of "nature" lent itself well to this purpose, and while I think it might be fair to argue that it's largely an outmoded concept, it was probably a huge factor in convincing China of Buddhism. It's said that Bodhidharma taught only the Lanka, because he saw that it was well-suited for chinamen.

I'd say a more effective counter to nihilism is the teaching of dependent origination, ie. things do exist, but they are not permanent.

But yes, the 'true nature' emphasis was inevitable for historical reasons.
And not just because of ancient Chinese philosophy. The Lotus Sutra is just more mythologically inspiring than the Agamas.

But personally, it means that half of Zen poetry falls flat whenever it mentions true nature, original nature etc.

“Bhikkhus, there are these five kinds of forest dwellers. What five? One who becomes a forest dweller because of his dullness and stupidity; one who becomes a forest dweller because he has evil desires, because he is driven by desire; one who becomes a forest dweller because he is mad and mentally deranged; one who becomes a forest dweller, [thinking]: ‘It is praised by the Buddhas and the Buddhas’ disciples’; and one who becomes a forest dweller for the sake of fewness of desires, for the sake of contentment, for the sake of eliminating [defilements], for the sake of solitude, for the sake of simplicity. These are the five kinds of forest dwellers. One who becomes a forest dweller for the sake of fewness of desires, for the sake of contentment, for the sake of eliminating [defilements], for the sake of solitude, for the sake of simplicity, is the foremost, the best, the preeminent, the supreme, and the finest of these five kinds of forest dwellers.

I do think something's missing if personal cultivation is not linked with a broader aim of helping others. That's where Confucianism is so good.

In the Pali canon, there is the simile of the acrobats - "if we both do our jobs well then we will be able to work well together", but its not enough.

>helping others
helping others does not exist, it is somebody who is helping others to do something. NOrmies want to ''help others'' by giving them universal income and some shelter, because normies believe it is unworthy of a human being to be a hobo, while feeling good about it, because ''only the good intention matters, for good karma'', while doing nothing beyond material goods and telling people they are already nice.
This behavior does get normies awakened nor does it get ''others'' awakened.

And normies do not even get karma points, because the karma points are gotten by giving to somebody who is already awakened, which means that between a normie hobo and awakened hobo, then normies who cling to compassion and ''helping others'' must give to the awakened hobo.

As usual, normies are all wrong.

>does get
does not get

I don't think there is any school of Buddhism in which the only actions that count karmically are those done in relation to awakened individuals.

My personal feeling is that sitting in a cave until you die is not to be respected or admired. It's only through personal interaction that you can test the insights you have gained or improvements that you have made. Isolation breeds self-deception.

My personal feeling is that personal interaction until you die is not to be respected or admired. It's only through isolation that you can test the insights you have gained or improvements that you have made. Social interaction breeds self-deception.

Not sure if youre still here but ive struggled with psychosis and obsessive paranoia following drug use as well. Ive only taken mushrooms and those havent caused it for me but marijuana has. Its difficult to live with not knowing if your anxiety is rooted in reality and knowing that it often isnt.

Anyway my advice is to not worry about "spiritual advancement" or if youll "GET THERE" or not. There is here, its a process not of moving away but of coming closer to what is happening now.

Youre okay, you took very powerful drugs and you freaked out. You feel cloudy because it was traumatic, not because anything is wrong with you.

Cheers nigga

can you explain what you mean by the 'now'? does that even exist?

human existence is like living in free-fall. focusing on the immediate doesn't help much with anything beyond short-lived emotional relief.

Zen does not mean what you mean by "now." In Zen, "now" refers to the Eternal Present, Reality-here-and-now. You're using "now" to refer to the present moment. The Eternal Present is timeless (or rather, beyond/prior to time). Usually we can't see Reality even though it's right in front of our faces! It's right there, but we "add to the stream of life" with our karmic consciousness, ourselves veiling it from our own view. Zen asks that you still your mind to meet the moment entirely in the moment, rather than coming to it with preconceived notions.

So when Zen says "now", it doesn't just indicate some simpleton attitude of "living in the moment", it's asking you to get out of your own way and just be right HERE for once. Our heads are always off somewhere else, our bodies are always desiring something else. Our mind and body pull us this way and that, never giving us a moment's rest. Collect your thoughts and just be right here for a little while. Then you'll find within your heart the capacity to act fully, naturally.

hes trolling dude

no I wasn't

I think they have different specialties even though they both lean towards reification.

Thankfully, Wang Wei isn't quite so dull.

"I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."

dumb animeposter

>this man said x so I said not-x
Again, this descends into semantic word games. Part of Zen is escaping from the illusion of the world built in words, but not all. Language it sometimes helpful, but to describe Zen as a system of argument is exactly the problem I was saying in the first place. It's a system of changing consciousness, not ideas.

Specifically to you OP, but for all interested in Zen as well. Not having a teacher is a real stumbling block. If you were pulling this shit a thousand years ago you would have been killed by your master, if not horribly maimed. Worse, they might have even let you continue on this path with their encouragement ever ready. Upaya.

My Zen friend spent several years of weekly practice at the Barcelona Zen center. He sat lotus like a Western poser, and the master complimented his posture at every opportunity, despite my friends complaints. Fast forward to a year ago, he's at the rishi temple in our city, being scolding by the American roshi regarding his form. "Don't sit that way, I just had surgery on my knees to correct the damage I've done from sitting just like that." As long as you're willing stare into the sun, a true friend won't stop you short of blinding yourself.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that you're definitely on to something here. Albeit, we don't understand you because we aren't you. In the same way you can't experience being a hermit without being a hermit, we cannot experience concepts defined by others and ourselves without first ripping down most of our "humanity". "The Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao". Unless..."I cannot come out, my horns won't fit through the door".

Enter The Dragon, anyone? "Don't think, FEEEEEL". Do you think any of this would matter if you weren't you? Try to stop being you. Exercise philosophical adultery with Advaita. Who are you? Who are you? Who are you?

Fingers to the moon, start building your spaceship.

OP here. The only remotely real post, including my own so far, has been yours.

I agree. A real master would have smacked me upside the head long ago for the crap I've spewed in this thread (mine has many a time). But He never discourages me asking this question. Not once. He just answers it in a way that just questions the way I'm questioning, most of the time. But really it's only the times I've been told I'm full of shit that I go home, sit down, and think something out for myself for once. If there's anything I've learned from having a master, or more importantly having a Sangha, it's that I'm only worth my weight in neurons when I go home and reflect. When I go home and just sit with myself for a while.

Uuuh, that's what I've been fucking telling you e.g., and You just listen to because he strokes your ego while he says it.

You're full of words, maybe it's best for you to enema them out in all this bullshit.

No shit? I haven't seen you get past any mode of thought that isn't the usual, yourself. I've hardly seen a RESPONSE here, so why would there be anything where I actually put myself out there? We've hardly covered basics here, so why would I bother to go further?

But really, why should I accept the usual empty statements and hypocrisies? "There are very few of us who seem to actually have useful things to say. -- So speak!

Maybe you could provide the first response to my thread? That'd be just super!

You have already said there have been several first responses, but I suppose here is another first response for you.

I wonder what it would feel like to answer the question you've posed? My hunch is that you are chasing this feeling more than the answer. Which is fine, but you can just go ahead and feel it now if you want.

So are you saying that there's nothing beyond "no", or just that you don't care? I understand the latter, but I didn't realize that actually trying to pursue a rather academic question out of curiosity would offend people, lol.

enjoy a trigger-filled life i guess?

You are the one who seems triggered by my response. I just responded to my sense of irony in you treating the first response as the one that clearly addressed your ego, in a thread about Zen.

As to your question, it's as simple as not being able to put it into words. Often the masters need a lot more than words to communicate spontaneously in perfect response to their student in a way that points then towards the experience (which impacts the aspects of consciousness related to sense of self, and therefore must be a personalised response).

So perhaps this isn't the best medium for "doing" Zen, which is not the same thing as philosophy.

I thought that was obvious in the fact I'm fucking posting to Veeky Forums...

I'm sorry, what planet do you live on? I'm posting to Veeky Forums, just like you. We've both read a book about Zen or two or more, and maybe some other ones as well. I read some Zen one day and posted, you read some Zen around that time and responded. Nothing confusing about that.

What is confusing that you and I (and Zen itself repeatedly) keep saying that saying it doesn't exhaust it, and yet here we are puffing about how saying doesn't say it all...

So why are we both blowing so much hot air about our hot air? It's not a matter of medium at this point -- Zen masters have never been able to escape the fact that words are just air!

Are you so convinced that the hot air blows us both in the same direction? That our motivations are the same?

I saw something and responded to it. I don't think that is the same as deliberately seeking the answer to a question, though they are both obviously part of the same phenomenon.

I tend to see it as a problem when people see air and start blowing against it. The Internet seems to encourage that. All that aside, our motivations don't need to be (and probably shouldn't be) the same. So where are we going here? -- I had a question and that's certainly somewhere to go but this is a general thread and we can go elsewhere. I just don't really see that anything's being spoken of anymore...

Well it's also that the internet is a faceless communication so we are free to project enemies everywhere, as people are often want to do, and then in doing so we create enemies...

>so where are we going here?
>{it's} pressing that we move forward
Why do you want to go somewhere so bad? Where are you trying to get to? If you had a hunch it would run aground beyond dualism into ineffability, what did you really want to get out of this thread? (Not being bitter, I am genuinely curious).

I don't mean to sound confrontational (I really don't). I've just never been satisfied with the way that people often try to talk about emptiness, about reality. When I look at what the masters say, they never sound happy with what came before either. But they're not neglectful or scornful of it either. They "make it new." If the word is dead on arrival, dead on the page, there's no point in saying it.

I wanted to start a general Zen thread, but at the same time, I felt that there must be some better way to talk about emptiness than just "no", since emptiness is not a nihilistic doctrine (quite the opposite). But the logical form behind: the emptiness of `x' can be expressed by `not-x' is really problematic to me for those reasons. I've asked this question a couple times now and I'm genuinely surprised at how much opposition it usually gets. For surely there's a better way to speak about reality than "no"!

Buddhists know how to party

bangkokpost.com/news/general/1198961/monk-caught-at-love-motel-with-woman-drugs

> Soldiers and local officials inspecting nightspots and hotels for misbehaviour on Tuesday, saw a saffron robe and a monk’s bag left in a Honda car parked outside a motel room in tambon Teng Sanam of Muang district around 11.30pm.

> They knocked on the room door. It was opened by a man with a shaven head and wearing saffron pants.

I'm surprised that you're surprised about the opposition at literally asking people to tell you how to talk about the ineffable.

You can only point.

Zen is an action method, not a semantic discourse. Ideally the pointers would be tailored to you personally in a spontaneous encounter, often they would shock you so as to circumvent your cognitive tendency to want to label experiences automatically with word-driven thought. Because reality as a whole is ineffable, explanations with words (even unconscious internal dialogue) often reduces it into a hollow experience and robs you of your chance to witness reality directly. A direct experience is what is beyond duality, because duality is created from concepts.

At best we have openings, usually spontaneous, and Zen masters attempt to create openings out of the phenomena in the present moment, tailored to the "problems" brought to them by the student (though they are not really problems at all, because it doesn't really matter what happens, because it is all happening anyway).

I'm just asking if there's something better than "not." Why is that so controversial, really?

I'd call what I'm asking about "indefinite." It's just that
"not" isn't the whole picture. Neither is affirmation AND negation. But the truth is beyond yes or no, and beyond either (and I've already mislead you withmy "ands" and "ors").

All I'm asking is if someone's been to a place beyond yes or no. Like my cat is all the time.

I feel bad for the guy; he just wanted to party some.

Still, if you're gonna misbehave, the rule is to not get caught.

>Why is that so controversial, really?
You seem to want it to be controversial, as opposed to just a fruitless question.

>I'm just asking if there's something better than "not."
Better for what? For describing the true nature of reality? It is a geese, it is planets, it is fear, it is greed, it is companionship, it is dirt, it is water, it is space, it is spirit, it is rocks.

But ALL of it? That is all, that is everything, that is Kosmos, One, Tao, etc., etc., etc.

What are you actually seeking?

I just love how it's: (1) cop notices saffron top in car. (2) monk answers door in saffron pants with naked hooker behind him

>All I'm asking is if someone's been to a place beyond yes or no. Like my cat is all the time.
Yes.

You say fruitless, but why are you calling it fruitless if you're not (as I assume you aren't) saying that nihilism is the entire picture?

Dismiss it all you like. Your "nos" are exactly the kind of thing that I'm asking about. If "no" isn't the picture, what is? But also since Buddhism is so careful about reification, what is?

With the "Middle Way", it's hard to say!

Exactly.

But you're just recycling old words. Can you speak for yourself?

>You say fruitless, but why are you calling it fruitless if you're not (as I assume you aren't) saying that nihilism is the entire picture?
Good point, but as far as I can see the fruit has grown from the "no" to your form of the question.

>If "no" isn't the picture, what is?
>it's hard to say
Exactly.

Hence:
>Zen is an action method, not a semantic discourse. Ideally the pointers would be tailored to you personally in a spontaneous encounter, often they would shock you so as to circumvent your cognitive tendency to want to label experiences automatically with word-driven thought. Because reality as a whole is ineffable, explanations with words (even unconscious internal dialogue) often reduces it into a hollow experience and robs you of your chance to witness reality directly. A direct experience is what is beyond duality, because duality is created from concepts.
>At best we have openings, usually spontaneous, and Zen masters attempt to create openings out of the phenomena in the present moment, tailored to the "problems" brought to them by the student (though they are not really problems at all, because it doesn't really matter what happens, because it is all happening anyway).

>If "no" isn't the picture, what is?
Picture of...? Who is looking for a picture?

You want me to speak about the state beyond yes and no? For me it has been bewilderment and shortening of gaps between phenomena, so that change was fluid rather than fragmented - rather than have the shutter speed of my eyes increased, the shutter was removed entirely.

Everything made me want to laugh, though I was not thinking that anything was funny, there was pure bliss and silliness. To cut myself off from the external phenomena was to instantly experience an internal vista as vast and fast.

Behind it all was a sense of a pregnant pause, stretched out beyond all the color, like that empty bubble in your chest right before you laugh, forever.

I find myself often coming to where you've brought me now, which is something like when Dogen takes the koan about how a painted rice cake doesn't satisfy hunger and fires back that the hunger is painted, only able to be satiated by a painted rice cake. What I take him to mean is something like what I think you're getting at, which is that this kind of thinking collapses into action and that picturing is indirect (and so misses the point entirely, pointing at something other than reality).

The funny thing I've noticed about Zen is how comfortable it is operating in this space where language is at once incapable of directly pointing to the Real, and yet IS real. What kind of middle path that must be...

When the shutter is removed, what is movement like when these gaps are eliminated?

That sounds right except that Dogen clearly also means in Gabyo that "hunger" is itself a construct and so the issue of "being hungry" is itself delusional. Doesn't that suggest a way more like untying a knot than answering a question?

Well I think that is because of the personalised nature of it. It's not that language can't be helpful, I've seen people use language to deconstruct the prison of concepts. But it must be tailored to the individual, as was getting at. But more than this, it also needs to be tailored to the moment, because the structures are always changing.

So there cannot be a method in directing another that is not spontaneous - which is why the fruit of your question grows out of our collaboration over it. I answer "no" to that form because we are not seeing the same picture, if we can paint each other the same picture, then we have a chance of pointing past it for each other.

But why would we want to do this?

>When the shutter is removed, what is movement like when these gaps are eliminated?
It depends on whether I am moving also, but even clumsy bumps are like peaceful flicks of fire. Even a crash is smooth.

And I remember the movements of the curtains were beautiful...

Words are meaningful in context (language being morphemic), yes. But you and I share enough "forms of life" in common to conduct a common enterprise of physics, or politics, or horse breeding, or even literary criticism.

All I mean by this is that spontaneity does not come out of nowhere, it is a modification of what has come one's way. Things come our way and we act accordingly. Hopefully we have a clear mind when we react.

So yes, it's situational, but that doesn't mean that you can't give at least a list of better (or at least different) answers than "no", and maybe even say what situations they might be good for.

All I mean is that there can't be no answer to this, even if (as is usually the case) the real answer undermines the assumptions of the question.

>All I mean is that there can't be no answer to this
Why are you so sure of that? What is this based on? Why are you not satisfied that "there is no answer" is the answer.

Well, all I mean is that the question doesn't go nowhere. It's ESPECIALLY questions that stand on wrong ground that lead the way.

It's as soon as we open our mouths that we're trapped into blowing air. We abandon the net once we catch the fish, but what of when we wish to teach a man to fish? Can host avoid becoming guest down in the weeds? (All I mean by this is: when dealing with confusion one often gets bogged down in it.)

You saying that has already made it so. What about before it was so, before it was sayable? You've opened your mouth in order to trap others into doing so, but what let you do that in the first place??

You're opening your mouth about the place before speaking. Shut the fuck up!!

Drink your tea.

Amen.

This entire thread is incomprehensible babble and I have no idea what Zen is.

That's a fine start!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_in_Buddhism is actually a pretty decent intro article. See also: thezensite.com/ZenTeachings/Dogen_Teachings/GenjoKoan8.htm#wab0 (but really, Buddhism asks you to see for yourself).

bumpo

Nice pic related (anyone else think of Heptapod B when they see it?).

Non-binary English is fantastically difficult. Levi-Strauss and DeSaussure are helpful in explicating the difficulties in semiotic binary opposition to a greater degree than this comment is likely to capture, but there are some important considerations:

This dovetails into the LEM (Law of the Excluded Middle), and speaks to the notion of a logic that does not depend on proof by contradiction (cf. Brouwer, e.g.). Take the atomic sentence A (any claim or statement). One layer of the binary holds that A and ~A cannot be true simultaneously. This is quite rational, but fails to address the fact that truth values are always on a function of time (think of what was true a thousand years ago that is not true now, and vice-versa). Then, there's a second layer of bivalence, a consequence of which is the supposition that ~~A is equivalent to A. Again, as "obvious" as this may seem, it rests on the assumption that there is no case where something not not being something is the same as it being what it is... this does not hold, however, without disallowing any overlap between sets of things. There would have to be precise and atomic definitions for all "particles" of reality in order for it to be reflected as such, and we know that there is no infinitesimal unit on which we could base it... I mean, the plank length comes to mind, but...

Anyway, I hope this input helps the project. Everything is a useful metaphor for the truth, innit? I imagine the closest we can imagine is a logical system wherein bivalence is transcended by a superpositional state of simultaneity, wherein every statement is at once true and false, and can only be collapsed into a state of either upon its placement along a spectrum of context within the timespace continuum. Defining that context, however, is a task of increasing complexity.

You also might find this entertaining:
pastebin.com/MRy0B5p4

how do I get into zen meditation? Any books you can rec me?

Zen without Zen Masters

That's a very good one. I also like S. Suzuki's simplicity (for such an audience).

But really, don't ask about what to read in order to sit. Just sit!

Sit up, back straight (point the bottom forward or you'll hunch), chin straight, tongue on the top of the teeth, breathing steady. Just sit. Right there. That's all there is to shikantaza. (That sounds harder than it really is. Do some practice with the position until it feels like sitting default with your tongue, back, and chin like that.)

Sorry, meant to say that (S) Suzuki's book is "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind."

It has its own problems like any other text. But it's extraordinary in its simplicity and directness.

Unbeing is not, there is no "no," that is what "no" means.

Why do all problems in philosophy end up like John F. Kennedy?

Before diving into introductory Zen Buddhist books with an obvious Zen bent, can you recommend a neutral even scholarly account of Zen? That takes into account history, differing thoughts, practice, etc.

It doesn't even have to be totally neutral, because something like Kallistos Ware's book on The Orthodox Church would suffice. Just so I can get an understanding of Zen as a whole. It helps me to orient myself.

I think this is your best option:

terebess.hu/zen/mesterek/John_R._McRae_Seeing_through_Zen.pdf

Thanks, man. PDF is perfect for me too.

Before? What, do you need to read a book about a map before going outside?

That list is fine. Better yet, just read some basic shit like the Diamond or Heart Sutras. Why do you want an introduction to something you can just read for yourself, something which has specific texts for novices? The average person with a half-decent education nowadays has far more schooling than most monks ever did, it's just that we're bad at paying attention nowadays.

So just sit down and read a sutra or two, just like the monks did in the old days and still do today. Hell, it you have more questions (or, God forbid, the texts begin to speak to you) maybe even find a master. Best advice I've ever gotten was from a random Buddhist monk who saw I was in a bad place one day at the Salt Lake City airport: "perhaps you should practice more."

It's only years later that I'm beginning to realize how important just sitting and having a fucking moment entirely to myself is. That's all Buddha ever says in the original texts anyways: try it out for yourself (plus, here's a bunch of stuff my students worked on which is pretty neat). "Don't just take my word for it, try it out and just focus on what you like!"

McRae's good. But I'd start with chapter 4: ("The Riddle of Encounter Dialogue") and then read the book all the way through. It's good to take a bite of the meat before diving into the history (or as is more often the case, lack of it).

People who were LITERALLY illiterate are said to have been enlightened upon hearing these scriptures. Zen encourages you to tackle this shit with an open mind, why are you looking for podcast-type shit to tell you how to think about it before you see it for yourself? (Remember that time when Einstein read "Isaac Newton for Dummies" before he went to college to get an OBJECTIVE UNBIASED ABSOLUTE FACT OPINION?)

Just read a fucking book. I don't know why you want an intro first (if anything you ought to dive right in and read intros later). You think scholars have this shit figured out? If they do, they certainly don't know how to say it!!!

> introductory Zen Buddhist books with an obvious Zen bent

wat

Problems within Mahayana Buddhism
youtube.com/watch?v=Yj7aOCB_oaA