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Post by Reefs on Sept 12, 2023 8:36:10 GMT -5
THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM (3) – Misuse of Words & Zen Propaganda
WWW: We are not helped by our own regrettable tendencies to misuse our own words. Take, for instance “meditation.” Exactly what the more qualified people who use it mean by it I do not know, but we all know what the normal man means by it. St. John of the Cross, an Enlightened Christian whose understanding is in perfect conformity with that of the oriental Masters, defines it clearly: he says, “meditation, which is discursive mental activity by means of images, forms and figures that are produced imaginatively,” and he goes on to say that it is the first thing to be got rid of. The great Masters said exactly the same, in fact that may be said to be the focal-point of their teaching, and, even if they had not said it, anyone who understands what they require of us must rapidly see it for himself. Yet, presumably because it is one of the meanings found in a Sanskrit dictionary for the word Dhyana, we are faced with practically nothing but that “method” of “attaining” enlightenment. Of course anyone can take any word and declare that he uses it to mean the opposite, but really that does not seem to be a very good idea, nor one that is calculated to help the struggling pilgrim. The real meaning of Dhyana is well-enough known, though no single word covers it in our languages; of these “awareness” is the nearest, implying a vivid state of consciousness free of all “abiding” or mentation of any kind.
Alas, there are many other such words, not least the unfortunate “Zen.” One may have the highest possible regard for the Japanese development of Ch’an, but Zen is that, and nothing else whatever. Moreover Ch’an is not dead, did not die when the doctrine was carried over to Japan; that piece if propaganda is no longer tenable now that we know of the great Ch’an Masters, including Han Shan who restored the monasteries, down to the grand old Master—Ancestor, as they call him—Hsu Yun who died last year at the age of 119. They preserved in far greater purity the teaching and methods of the T’ang Masters, and when we turn to them we find in them a revelation, and it is surely as inaccurate as it is absurd to apply to them and their teaching the Japanese term “Zen” which represents a tradition considerably different. Whatever propaganda and commerce may wish, serious students and scholars should use words in their proper sense.
As for terms such as “self-nature” that has rarely, if ever, anything to do with what we think of as “self,” for it indicates nothing personal, but subjective mind in the non-dual sense of subjectivity; the words “mind,” “One Mind,” “No-Mind,” etc. rarely have the objective meaning we normally give them, and just as wu nien does not just mean “no thought,” wu wei does not imply “inaction” but, rather, spontaneity,” so “chih” does not usually mean “knowledge,” and “prajna” does not always or even perhaps often mean what we think of as “wisdom.”
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Post by Reefs on Sept 12, 2023 22:01:20 GMT -5
THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM (4) – The Harlequinade
WWW: Perhaps our most serious handicap is that we start on the wrong foot. In the end this is likely to be fatal, and, I fear, generally is. We have a basic conditioning, probably in some form of Christian religion, of which little remains today but its ethical content, or in one of the modern psychologies, that of Freud, Adler, or Jung, or in some scientific discipline, all of which are fundamentally and implacably dualist. Then the urge manifests, and we start reading.
Every time we happen on a statement or sentiment that fits in with our conditioned notions we adopt it, perhaps with enthusiasm, at the same time ignoring, as though they did not exist, the statements or sentiments which either we did not like or did not understand. And every time we re-read the Masters or the sutras we seize upon further chosen morsels, as our own jig-saw puzzle builds up within us, until we have a personal patchwork that corresponds with nothing on Earth that could matter in the least. Not in a thousand million kalpas could such a process produce the essential understanding that the urge is obliging us to seek.
We are required to do exactly the opposite of all that. We are required to “lay down” absolutely everything that is “ours,” and which is known as “ignorance”—even though we regard it as knowledge. It is like stripping off clothes that have become personal. Then naked, but in a nakedness that does not recognize itself as such, we should go to the Masters, who will clothe us in the garments of the knowledge or understanding that we really need. It is their jig-saw we must complete, not “ours,” for their “doctrine,” what they have to reveal to us, is one whole and indivisible, and the statements and sentiments that we do not at once understand, rather than those that we think we do, are the ones that matter. One by one as we re-read, and finally all at once, their meaning will become manifest, and we shall at last understand what the Masters have to tell us. Then, and only then, can we acquire their understanding, which is the fulfillment of the urge.
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Post by Reefs on Sept 14, 2023 0:27:54 GMT -5
THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM (5) – Busy Little Bees
WWW: As busy little bees, gathering honey here and there, and adding it to their stock in their hive, we are wasting our time, and worse, for we are building up that very persona whose illusory existence stands between our phenomenal selves and the truth of what we are, and which is what the urge in us is seeking. That “laying down” of everything that is “ours” has always been insisted upon by the Masters, but we affect to ignore it, precisely because that very notion of “self” which is the center of what we have to “lay down” seeks to take charge of the operation, and generally succeeds in doing so, thereby frustrating from the start any hope of fulfilling the urge. Is there any wonder that we so rarely get anywhere at all?
It is interesting to note that in the recently discovered collection of sayings of Jesus there is one in which he formally adjured His disciples to divest themselves of all their “garments.” It is understandable that such a statement should have been omitted by those later compilers who had no idea what such a requirement could mean. But to us it should be a commonplace. As far back as Chuang-tse we find the story of the old monk who, in despair of knowing enlightenment before he died, went to see Lao-tse. On arrival Lao-tse came out to meet him, welcomed him, but told him to leave his followers and his baggage outside the gate, for otherwise he would not be admitted. The old man had no followers, and no baggage, but he understood, went in and found his fulfillment.
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Post by Reefs on Sept 14, 2023 21:42:03 GMT -5
THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM (6) – The Eternal Reemergence of The Mirror-Polishing Doctrine
WWW: Since Bodhidharma, the recurrent menace that has overshadowed the Supreme Vehicle has been man’s infatuation with himself. Whenever the succession of great Masters weakened in power or in quality the self-flattering mirror-polishing doctrine re-emerged.
Hui Neng and Shen Hui rescued the doctrine, but today it needs saving again, for, in the West at least, we are nearly all busy polishing our mirrors, or perfecting the hansom-cab as I have termed it, instead of understanding that neither the polisher nor mirror, perfector nor cab, has ever or could ever exist.
What we need is another Bodhidharma, firm as a rock, fierce as a tiger, merciless in his “grandmotherly kindness,” and not afraid to tell Emperors of China that they are talking through their hats. And if we cannot hope for a Bodhidharma, then at least we need desperately a Hui Neng. Otherwise, though Buddhism may survive, the Supreme Vehicle will surely be lost.
And only the Supreme Vehicle ultimately matters, for self-exalting Buddhism is pseudo-Buddhism, for it is a contradiction in terms, a soothing syrup or a drug: only the Supreme Vehicle carries the full and final message of the Tathagata.
As long as we do not perceive the fatuity of a phenomenon telling itself how marvelous it is, we will ever come to the knowledge of that which we are when we have understood that, as phenomena, we are not.
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Post by Reefs on Sept 15, 2023 22:23:46 GMT -5
He Who Gets Slapped
WWW: When I was a child I was taken to the circus. There I saw a long series of entrancing performances that caused men and animals to execute every kind of astonishing and unexpected maneuver. And throughout, but particularly when the scenario and its appurtenances were being changed, there appeared a grotesque personage, vaguely resembling a human being, who interfered with everything but effected nothing. He fell over the carpets, bumped himself against every object, was slapped and kicked, and then took all the applause as though he were responsible for everything. We thought him very funny and laughed at him like anything.
Now that I am no longer a child he seems to me to be a perfect image of the I-concept, whose function is apparently his, and whose performance corresponds in all respects with that of the clown, in the circus which is our life. In all respects but one: we laughed at the clown in the circus, but we take seriously the clown in the circus of life, although the one is as ineffectual as the other. We even believe that he is responsible for the performance, whereas as children we could see that he was responsible for nothing that happened, that his “will” was totally ignored by the circumstances to which he was subjected, and that in every event he was an unnecessary nuisance.
In one respect, however, our attitude is unchanged: in both the circuses we love the clown dearly and consider him more important than anything else in the show.
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Post by Reefs on Mar 5, 2024 11:45:04 GMT -5
The Big Joke (1)
WWW: As long as there is a “you” doing or not-doing anything, thinking or not-thinking, “meditating” or “not-meditating,” you are no nearer home than the day you were “born.”
However many years you may have been at it, and whatever you have understood or have not-understood, you have not yet started if there is a “you” that is still in the saddle.
As long as you do anything as from a “you,” you are in “bondage.”
Here the word you stands for any object that appears to act or not to act, that is any phenomenon as such. “You” stands for any such object which believes that it acts volitionally as an autonomous entity, and is thereby bound by identification with a phenomenon.
Let us say it again: as long as there is a pseudo-entity apparently doing or not-doing anything, thinking or not-thinking, meditating or not-meditating, that phenomenon is no nearer home than the day it was apparently born.
However many years a phenomenon may have been at it, and whatever it has understood or not-understood, it has not yet started if there is a pseudo-entity that is still in the saddle.
As long as a phenomenon does anything as from a pseudo-entity, it is in “bondage.”
The difference is between what you are and what you think you are but are not, “bondage” being identification of the former with the latter.
Again: the difference is between This which every phenomenon is and That which no phenomenon is, “bondage” being identification of the former with the latter.
That, in very simple language, is the pseudo-mystery, the so-called insoluble problem, the joke that made Lazarus laugh.
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Post by inavalan on Mar 5, 2024 13:31:34 GMT -5
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Post by Reefs on Mar 7, 2024 5:56:17 GMT -5
The Big Joke (2)
WWW: Treating this matter in the first person singular, it becomes a question of what we mean when we say “I”.
If in saying “I” we speak as from a psycho-somatic phenomenon that believes itself to be an independent entity acting or not-acting autonomously as a result of its own volition, then no matter what we may know or ignore, what we may have practised or not-practised, we are well and truly in bondage.
If in saying “I” although we may speak as from a phenomenon that appears to act or not to act (as observed by other phenomena and by “itself”)—we do not regard that phenomenon as possessing of its own right and nature any autonomy or volition, and so is properly to be regarded not as “I” but as “it,” then since such phenomenon is not “in the saddle” I am not identified with it, and I am not in bondage.
In this latter case the word “I” is subjective only, as the word “je” in French, and for the accusative (or objective) case the word “me” is necessary, as is “moi” in French, even after the verb “to be,” for “I” have no objective quality what-ever, and all that could be called “me” can never in any circumstances have any subjective quality, so that what I am as “I” is purely noumenal and what I appear to be as “me” is exclusively phenomenal. So that in saying “I,” if we speak or act as from what we are—from impersonal noumenality, with the spontaneity that is called “Tao,” there is no longer any question of bondage, for there is no longer any supposed entity to be bound.
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Post by Reefs on Mar 8, 2024 4:52:51 GMT -5
The Big Joke (3)
WWW: There is a further stage of fulfillment, in which complete reintegration takes place. Therein “I” and “it,” “I” and ”you,” subject and object, lose all elements of difference. Of this stage only the fully integrated can be qualified to speak with authority, for herein no differentiation any longer is possible.
I am you, you are I, subject is object, and object subject, each is either and either is both, for phenomena are noumenon and noumenon is phenomena.
This is the end of the big joke, the final peal of laughter, for it, too, is so simple and obvious that only the blindfold should fail to see it, or could see it in any other manner.
Said as we say it, however that may be, it can never be true; said as the integrated say it, however that may be—even in the self-same words—it cannot be false: for what is neither false nor true cannot be false as it cannot be true. It is what it is—and whatever it be called, that it can never be.
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Post by Reefs on Mar 10, 2024 0:00:36 GMT -5
Prajna
WWW: When contact is made, by means of a switch, the electric current flows, the wire is instantly “alive,” the resistance becomes white-hot, and there is light.
When the contact is broken, the current no longer flows, the resistance cools, there is darkness, and the line is “dead.”
The electric current is what is implied by “prajna” where sentient beings are concerned: it is the act of action, the living of life.
Nobody knows what electricity is, nobody knows what prajna is: both terms are just names given to concepts that seek to describe in dualistic language a basic “energy” that enables appearance to appear and being to be.
When contact is made we know it as “light” and as “life”; when contact is broken we know it as “darkness” and as “death.” But the source of “energy” remains intact and intangible.
Are we the hot resistance and the light, the cold resistance and the darkness—or the vital current itself?
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Post by Reefs on Mar 12, 2024 8:56:31 GMT -5
Group Egoism
WWW: We worry a lot about the I-concept of the individual, but rarely about the I-concept of the group. Families also sometimes have developed protuberant egos. And as for nations...
Nationalism is a manifestation of the ego of a group, often exacerbated to an extent that social conditions deny to the individual.
Even associations, clubs, and particularly political parties, develop an I-concept with the lamentable and ridiculous results that accompany all manifestations of this concept.
Yet there is no reality in such phenomena, other than the ultimate reality without which phenomena could not manifest.
But just as there have always been families which have escaped the development of such a concept, and associations, clubs, even parties which are merely SUCH, so nationalism is only a sporadic growth and has not always existed in our or any other civilisation.
Many people are proud of this manifestation and regard it as a virtue, just as some people cherish pride as a virtue: les primaires civilisés, les civilisés primaires.
Perhaps if we are able to transcend the ego-ism of the group we may the more easily find the way to transcend the ego-ism of the individual, for one and all are identical concepts and, one and all, devoid of reality.
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Post by inavalan on Mar 12, 2024 13:04:42 GMT -5
Group Egoism
WWW: We worry a lot about the I-concept of the individual, but rarely about the I-concept of the group. Families also sometimes have developed protuberant egos. And as for nations... Nationalism is a manifestation of the ego of a group, often exacerbated to an extent that social conditions deny to the individual. Even associations, clubs, and particularly political parties, develop an I-concept with the lamentable and ridiculous results that accompany all manifestations of this concept. Yet there is no reality in such phenomena, other than the ultimate reality without which phenomena could not manifest. But just as there have always been families which have escaped the development of such a concept, and associations, clubs, even parties which are merely SUCH, so nationalism is only a sporadic growth and has not always existed in our or any other civilisation. Many people are proud of this manifestation and regard it as a virtue, just as some people cherish pride as a virtue: les primaires civilisés, les civilisés primaires. Perhaps if we are able to transcend the ego-ism of the group we may the more easily find the way to transcend the ego-ism of the individual, for one and all are identical concepts and, one and all, devoid of reality. Without commenting on the specifics of this quote, I believe that the deterministic view that the condition of the group results from the condition of its members, and viceversa, is incorrect and leads to suffering. If you want to be healthy, think about feeling so, not about having a doctor or a blood test telling you that you are healthy. If you want to be free, happy think about feeling so, don't think that you want money, or a better boss, partner, ... If you want something now, think about experiencing it now, don't think that you want it in the future. Surely, "devoid of reality" is an oxymoron. |
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Post by Reefs on Mar 13, 2024 9:00:32 GMT -5
Group Egoism
WWW: We worry a lot about the I-concept of the individual, but rarely about the I-concept of the group. Families also sometimes have developed protuberant egos. And as for nations... Nationalism is a manifestation of the ego of a group, often exacerbated to an extent that social conditions deny to the individual. Even associations, clubs, and particularly political parties, develop an I-concept with the lamentable and ridiculous results that accompany all manifestations of this concept. Yet there is no reality in such phenomena, other than the ultimate reality without which phenomena could not manifest. But just as there have always been families which have escaped the development of such a concept, and associations, clubs, even parties which are merely SUCH, so nationalism is only a sporadic growth and has not always existed in our or any other civilisation. Many people are proud of this manifestation and regard it as a virtue, just as some people cherish pride as a virtue: les primaires civilisés, les civilisés primaires. Perhaps if we are able to transcend the ego-ism of the group we may the more easily find the way to transcend the ego-ism of the individual, for one and all are identical concepts and, one and all, devoid of reality. Without commenting on the specifics of this quote, I believe that the deterministic view that the condition of the group results from the condition of its members, and viceversa, is incorrect and leads to suffering. If you want to be healthy, think about feeling so, not about having a doctor or a blood test telling you that you are healthy. If you want to be free, happy think about feeling so, don't think that you want money, or a better boss, partner, ... If you want something now, think about experiencing it now, don't think that you want it in the future. Surely, "devoid of reality" is an oxymoron. Both approaches work. One is direct, the other is indirect. It's only an oxymoron if you don't understand context and definition of the term 'reality'. The short version is this: |
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Post by Reefs on Mar 14, 2024 8:49:29 GMT -5
Appearance as Reflection of Reality
WWW: Unreality is every object that we perceive sensorially. Nothing that we perceive can be real, nor any attribute that we may give it. Reality is the thing-in-itself, in its Thusness or Suchness.
What we perceive is something projected by our psychosomatic apparatus, within ourselves, for nothing apparent exists outside our mind; the immanent or subjacent reality we can know only by intuition or direct cognition. But how may we comprehend that immanent Thusness?
Objects sensorially perceived, so regarded, may be conceived as reflections of real vision, revealing external aspects only (form and colour) in three dimensions instead of the within (the essence) in four.
But in real vision there is no longer duality: vision and witness of vision are one and identical. Time, being, as we have seen, the tridimensional manner in which the fourth dimension of Space is perceived, disappears automatically and inevitably in quadridimensional vision, and with it the dualism of seer and seen in no-longer-existent Space-time (for seeing and seen imply both Space and Time).
Further, the figure, or even the object, with which we identify ourselves in our dreams is no more nor less ourselves than any other component of such dream, but is merely an element therein. Awake (as we call it) the situation is doubtless the same; i.e. we are neither more nor less ourselves than we are in any other element within the compass of our minds.
The Witness of perception is all equally, and alone is real.
The act of perceiving (sensorially) is real; that which is perceived is unreal. This brief statement is more important than it appears.
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Post by Reefs on Mar 15, 2024 8:39:44 GMT -5
Logic and Superlogic
WWW: The terms “illusory” and “unreal” are traditionally applied to the artificial ego, and even to all phenomena, but it is questionable whether such terms may not be misleading to the literal mind of the modern man. Such words have only relative value here—for nothing can be absolutely unreal. Since only Reality IS, whatever exists—though it BE not—must partake of Reality. Phenomena, as has been said, are reality inaccurately apprehended—a choice expression of the translator of Huang Po.
I do not often make positive statements here, though it may not be possible or convenient to convey the tentative character of every statement made, but I am disposed to make one now:
There is no difference between Reality and Unreality, between the real and the unreal.
The apparent difference is a factor in our tridimensional apprehension. As such it exists on the plane of seeming, but it is not in Reality.
It should be salutary to bear this in mind.
In this matter we touch upon the unviability of the logic of the tridimensional mind when transcending the limits of three dimensions.
According to our logic we can say, “He is friendly,” or “He is unfriendly,” but not both together. But the quadridimensional mind can say both together, using our language, without illogicality.
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