Is there anything in Zen?

[abaddon]

Zen is not about debating finer and finer sates, it is about achieving a spiritual state. It is really quite practical.

What do you think hermit monks experience? An endless internal debate? It is about a way of life.

What's a spiritual state?

rousseau mentioned "a reality underneath the hood of all of the human layers we usually cake onto our lives"? Is the "spiritual state" you speak of different somehow from an experience that includes that? To my understanding, that's what is "in" Zen. All those quotes about "just drop your opinions" and the repeated insistence that the realization is "nothing special"... I think they're basically saying that mundane reality is perfectly fine as it is so stop judging it and you'll stop making yourself miserable.

But "spiritual state" suggests something special and a judgment that such-n-such state of mind is better than other states of mind.

 

[steve_bank]

Zen is not about debating finer and finer sates, it is about achieving a spiritual state. It is really quite practical.

What do you think hermit monks experience? An endless internal debate? It is about a way of life.

What's a spiritual state?

rousseau mentioned "a reality underneath the hood of all of the human layers we usually cake onto our lives"? Is the "spiritual state" you speak of different somehow from an experience that includes that? To my understanding, that's what is "in" Zen. All those quotes about "just drop your opinions" and the repeated insistence that the realization is "nothing special"... I think they're basically saying that mundane reality is perfectly fine as it is so stop judging it and you'll stop making yourself miserable.

But "spiritual state" suggests something special and a judgment that such-n-such state of mind is better than other states of mind.

Exactly. Zen practice is supsed to bring you to a state that can not be reached by logical and analytical thought.

What it means can not be articulated. That segways into what is experience and perception and the ensuing philosophical threads on meaning.

I know what it is like to feel healthy after being sick and near death. I say today I feel good. You acknowledge with understanding of what feel good means to you. Yet we have no way of describing it in such a way as someone who never felt good would understand.

I say to a guy who never had sex all's you do is insert part a into part b and move it in and out, but that doe not quite describe the experinc does it?

Same with any spiritual practice. Practice the techniques and see what happens. There is no way to communicate the expedience except by analogy and metaphor.

Take Lao Tzu's ' those who speak do not know those who know do not speak'. What ever 'it' is it is not communicable with words and logic.

Music in the classical sense is the communication of emotional states and feelings. It creates an experience. Spiritual practices lead you to an experience. Yoga, mediation, Tai Chi, martial arts. The ancient Samurai sought the meaning of life by facing death.

In the old mini series Shogun there is a scene where the European Blackthorne chooses to commit suicide because of a moral issue imposed on him. As he moves the knife it wrested out of his hand. He is transported to a spiritual reality. It is raing, all he can say when he is asked how he feels is 'the rain sounds fine'. He began to understand then Samuri culture around him.

 

[rousseau]

Zen is not about debating finer and finer sates, it is about achieving a spiritual state. It is really quite practical.

What do you think hermit monks experience? An endless internal debate? It is about a way of life.

What's a spiritual state?

rousseau mentioned "a reality underneath the hood of all of the human layers we usually cake onto our lives"? Is the "spiritual state" you speak of different somehow from an experience that includes that? To my understanding, that's what is "in" Zen. All those quotes about "just drop your opinions" and the repeated insistence that the realization is "nothing special"... I think they're basically saying that mundane reality is perfectly fine as it is so stop judging it and you'll stop making yourself miserable.

But "spiritual state" suggests something special and a judgment that such-n-such state of mind is better than other states of mind.

Yea, that's pretty much it. I think we're all on the same page but coming at it with different expressions, which speaks to the exact difficulty in expression that we're discussing right now.

 

[steve_bank]

Suzuki was a known figure in the west on Zen in the 69s-70s. Look at the booklist. A few of his books were popular.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._T._Suzuki

Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis, Erich Fromm, D. T. Suzuki, and De Martino. Approximately one third of this book is a long discussion by Suzuki that gives a Buddhist analysis of the mind, its levels, and the methodology of extending awareness beyond the merely discursive level of thought. In producing this analysis, Suzuki gives a theoretical explanation for many of the swordsmanship teaching stories in Zen and Japanese Culture that otherwise would seem to involve mental telepathy, extrasensory perception, etc.

 

[abaddon]

I think we're all on the same page but coming at it with different expressions, which speaks to the exact difficulty in expression that we're discussing right now.

Yes, I see that now. More on the same page than not.

I wonder if the "ineffability" isn't so much because "being Zen" is a special state but also that experience in general can be difficult to describe. And then prescriptions of what you should do, think or feel don't exactly qualify as "freeing". I suspect teachers of Zen avoid telling "this is what I experience" because their students might get the idea "so that's what I should want too". Thus they end up trying to be someone else, trying to be what they're not. When the point seems to be different from that.

"Just be your ordinary self in ordinary life, unconcerned in seeking for Buddhahood."

"The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on earth."

"Be a master everywhere and wherever you stand is your true place."

"Those who are nothing particular are noble people. Don't strive - just be ordinary."

(Quotes are from Linji. Known in Japanese as Rinzai).

 

[rousseau]

I think we're all on the same page but coming at it with different expressions, which speaks to the exact difficulty in expression that we're discussing right now.

Yes, I see that now. More on the same page than not.

I wonder if the "ineffability" isn't so much because "being Zen" is a special state but also that experience in general can be difficult to describe. And then prescriptions of what you should do, think or feel don't exactly qualify as "freeing". I suspect teachers of Zen avoid telling "this is what I experience" because their students might get the idea "so that's what I should want too". Thus they end up trying to be someone else, trying to be what they're not. When the point seems to be different from that.

"Just be your ordinary self in ordinary life, unconcerned in seeking for Buddhahood."

"The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on earth."

"Be a master everywhere and wherever you stand is your true place."

"Those who are nothing particular are noble people. Don't strive - just be ordinary."

(Quotes are from Linji. Known in Japanese as Rinzai).

Those quotes sound like they have hints of Taoism, especially 'don't strive'.

I guess it's not as much 'don't improve', but rather 'don't let your improvements give you a sense of superiority'. The need for work and growth is essential, but believing that achievements have some kind of substance to them may be offbeat.

What's interesting to me from there is that following such realization itself in some sense amounts to striving. Maybe striving is a necessity of being a person in the world.

 

[abaddon]

Striving to 'just be' is a conundrum, similar to "hurry up and relax!" That's the irony in both Taoism and Zen, you have to do something to attain the goal though the goal is to let go of goals and just be. If you are always "on your way" then you're never "there".

 

[rousseau]

I'd think the paradox can be resolved by removing the ideas from the domain of religion and into philosophy, where they turn from vehicles of transcendence into helpful perspectives. Not as romantic that way, but closer to reality I think.

Ancient China was an environment more subject to infusing ideas with spirituality - back then these philosophies looked a little bigger. But I would say that despite this there is still a lot to Taoism and Zen, in terms of perspective, and they may actually be more fundamental to right human action than given credit for.

 

[skepticalbip]

I think we're all on the same page but coming at it with different expressions, which speaks to the exact difficulty in expression that we're discussing right now.

Yes, I see that now. More on the same page than not.

I wonder if the "ineffability" isn't so much because "being Zen" is a special state but also that experience in general can be difficult to describe. And then prescriptions of what you should do, think or feel don't exactly qualify as "freeing". I suspect teachers of Zen avoid telling "this is what I experience" because their students might get the idea "so that's what I should want too". Thus they end up trying to be someone else, trying to be what they're not. When the point seems to be different from that.

"Just be your ordinary self in ordinary life, unconcerned in seeking for Buddhahood."

"The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on earth."

"Be a master everywhere and wherever you stand is your true place."

"Those who are nothing particular are noble people. Don't strive - just be ordinary."

(Quotes are from Linji. Known in Japanese as Rinzai).

Those quotes sound like they have hints of Taoism, especially 'don't strive'.

I guess it's not as much 'don't improve', but rather 'don't let your improvements give you a sense of superiority'. The need for work and growth is essential, but believing that achievements have some kind of substance to them may be offbeat.

What's interesting to me from there is that following such realization itself in some sense amounts to striving. Maybe striving is a necessity of being a person in the world.

Zen would teach not to strive but to do. As I understand, the idea is to be 'mindless' or intuitive... sorta like reaching for a glass of water is done without thinking out the process but simply doing it without thinking through all the muscle actions required.

Many Zen stories stress this idea. In archery, the Zen student is scolded for thinking through considering aim, how much elevation to use, draw length, etc. and is told to 'become the arrow'.

 

[steve_bank]

Those quotes sound like they have hints of Taoism, especially 'don't strive'.

I guess it's not as much 'don't improve', but rather 'don't let your improvements give you a sense of superiority'. The need for work and growth is essential, but believing that achievements have some kind of substance to them may be offbeat.

What's interesting to me from there is that following such realization itself in some sense amounts to striving. Maybe striving is a necessity of being a person in the world.

Zen would teach not to strive but to do. As I understand, the idea is to be 'mindless' or intuitive... sorta like reaching for a glass of water is done without thinking out the process but simply doing it without thinking out all the muscle actions required.

Many Zen stories stress this idea. In archery, the Zen student is scolded for thinking through considering aim, how much elevation to use, draw length, etc. and is told to 'become the arrow'.

Nice summary.

 

[steve_bank]

In the movie Enter The Dragon Bruce Lee is instructing a student. He does a technique with the student and asks how it was. The student says 'Let me think' after which Lee wacks him on the head saying 'Don't think, feel'.

He then says 'It is like a finger pointing to the heavens' pointing a finger to the sky. The student looks at the finger saying 'I see'. Lee wacks him again saying 'Don't foucus on the figure, you will loose all that heavenly glory'. Or something close.

Pure Zen.

React naturally without going through conceptual layers. Knower and object become one with no intervening translation.

It was part of his combat philosophy. Looking at combat through a limited style of fixed responses and strategies was limited. It put him at odds with the Chinese martial arts community and resulted in his fighting a serious challenge fight.

Zen's evolution is linked to Samurai philosophy.

Here is the scene.

https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/...edfe96ac372069649014889542d2f45c&action=click

 

[steve_bank]

Zazen. When practiced in a group if onus's concentration wavers one bends forward and is stuck with a stick. I expect understanding the whole system and being able to teach is the equivalent of a PHD.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zazen

Zazen (literally "seated meditation"; Japanese: 座禅; simplified Chinese: 坐禅; traditional Chinese: 坐禪; pinyin: zuò chán; Wade–Giles: tso4-ch'an2, pronounced [tswô ʈʂʰǎn]) is a meditative discipline that is typically the primary practice of the Zen Buddhist tradition.[1][2] The precise meaning and method of zazen varies from school to school, but in general it can be regarded as a means of insight into the nature of existence. In the Japanese Rinzai school, zazen is usually associated with the study of koans. The Sōtō School of Japan, on the other hand, only rarely incorporates koans into zazen, preferring an approach where the mind has no object at all, known as shikantaza.[3]


Significance[edit]

Zazen is considered the heart of Japanese Sōtō Zen Buddhist practice.[1] The aim of zazen is just sitting, that is, suspending all judgmental thinking and letting words, ideas, images and thoughts pass by without getting involved in them.[3][4]

Concentration[edit]

The initial stages of training in zazen resemble traditional Buddhist samatha meditation in actual practice, and emphasize the development of the power of concentration, or joriki[12] (定力) (Sanskrit samādhibala). The student begins by focusing on the breath at the hara/tanden[13] with mindfulness of breath (ānāpānasmṛti) exercises such as counting breath (sūsokukan 数息観) or just watching it (zuisokukan 随息観). Mantras are also sometimes used in place of counting. Practice is typically to be continued in one of these ways until there is adequate "one-pointedness" of mind to constitute an initial experience of samadhi. At this point, the practitioner moves to one of the other two methods of zazen.

 

[rousseau]

I'd think the paradox can be resolved by removing the ideas from the domain of religion and into philosophy, where they turn from vehicles of transcendence into helpful perspectives. Not as romantic that way, but closer to reality I think.

Ancient China was an environment more subject to infusing ideas with spirituality - back then these philosophies looked a little bigger. But I would say that despite this there is still a lot to Taoism and Zen, in terms of perspective, and they may actually be more fundamental to right human action than given credit for.

Those quotes sound like they have hints of Taoism, especially 'don't strive'.

I guess it's not as much 'don't improve', but rather 'don't let your improvements give you a sense of superiority'. The need for work and growth is essential, but believing that achievements have some kind of substance to them may be offbeat.

What's interesting to me from there is that following such realization itself in some sense amounts to striving. Maybe striving is a necessity of being a person in the world.

Zen would teach not to strive but to do. As I understand, the idea is to be 'mindless' or intuitive... sorta like reaching for a glass of water is done without thinking out the process but simply doing it without thinking through all the muscle actions required.

Many Zen stories stress this idea. In archery, the Zen student is scolded for thinking through considering aim, how much elevation to use, draw length, etc. and is told to 'become the arrow'.

That highlights the problem abaddon and I were addressing - by teaching us not to strive, we're striving to not strive.

So not striving would be fundamental to the practice of Zen, but we can't get away from the fact that our attempting the practice is itself contrived. Which, if you want to call it that, is the lie of these religions. The only way to truly 'not strive' is to literally be a person who doesn't strive.

But interior to our striving, the practice of something like wu-wei and zen would still be useful.

 

[rousseau]

While I haven't really studied the two practices extensively, I think it'd be also helpful to put some distance between wu-wei and zen.

Not striving seems to have more of a relationship with wu-wei, where the idea is more related to acquiring skill until behavior flows effortlessly, rather than a philosophical 'do not try'. Whereas Zen seems to be more of a 'be without thought', meditative state.

 

[skepticalbip]

Zen would teach not to strive but to do. As I understand, the idea is to be 'mindless' or intuitive... sorta like reaching for a glass of water is done without thinking out the process but simply doing it without thinking through all the muscle actions required.

Many Zen stories stress this idea. In archery, the Zen student is scolded for thinking through considering aim, how much elevation to use, draw length, etc. and is told to 'become the arrow'.

That highlights the problem abaddon and I were addressing - by teaching us not to strive, we're striving to not strive.

So not striving would be fundamental to the practice of Zen, but we can't get away from the fact that our attempting the practice is itself contrived. Which, if you want to call it that, is the lie of these religions. The only way to truly 'not strive' is to literally be a person who doesn't strive.

But interior to our striving, the practice of something like wu-wei and zen would still be useful.

I see your point... and it is a bit of a conundrum. But then that conundrum may be more a matter of language than a real conflict.

I see Zen as more a way of seeing the world, different than the analytical method we are taught. But then much of how we see the world is still zenlike. For example, a toddler learning to walk is not taught the physics of balance and locomotion so they can understand how to walk. We learn to walk by walking, without ever thinking of the details of how we are doing it. This is mastering a skill 'mindlessly" and almost everyone does it excellently. Analytically, programming a robot to walk has been a long, long uphill battle and robots are still not as deft at it as a normal three year old kid.

 

[abaddon]

Yes to what skepticalbip said. The Zen way of seeing the world involves a change of emphasis. The baby is a great analogy. She doesn't do it to "strive to walk". She's enjoying it now, in the moment. She's perfect as she is even if she needs a bit of improvement.

Dogen advises sitting in zazen not to eventually become a buddha. Rather, by sitting in zazen you ARE a buddha.

I think this resolves the conundrum. The practice is the goal, and the achievement happens by itself if at any step of the way you're already there.

“Each of you is perfect the way you are ... and you can use a little improvement.” ~Shunryu Suzuki (click the link for other quotes by him, they all have something intriguing in them).

 

[steve_bank]

This is taking me back a ways. wu-wei is being in a non reactive state of being. Not having thoughts working against each other or relaxed physical motion. Much easier to look at all of it from a modern psycho-physical view. The ancient PR actioners were observers, experimenters, and practical psychologists. You could say Tai Chi is wu-wei for a practioner. Effortless continuous motion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_wei

Buddhism, Taoism, Yoga, Zen are all essentially the same thing with minor variations and different terms. The zazen link mentions the Chinese term tandien. In Indian traditions it is a shakra. Tandiren is a spot just below the navel. In one mediation one concentrates on it building chi, or the life energy you feel. Learned it in martial arts circa 1970.

Later in the decade for a few weeks I got up early in the morning with Sikhs doing their yoga at an ashram in the neighborhood.

Today a lot of it is mainstream me ducal science. What the process can do is change your thought patterns, amounting to rewiring your brain in a sense.

I watched Sange Gupta on CNN do a segment from India on yoga, You would not think standing on your head would do anything. Scientifically it looks like your cardio vascular system adapting over time to the stress of the position actual improves cardio conditioning.

 

[steve_bank]

The Chan shout. Someone would jump out from behind a tree or bush and shout at a novice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katsu_(Zen)

Katsu (Japanese: 喝; Cantonese: About this soundhot3 (help·info), Pinyin: hè, Wade-Giles: ho) is a shout that is described in Chán and Zen Buddhism encounter-stories, to expose the enlightened state (Japanese: satori) of the Zen-master, and/or to induce initial enlightenment experience in a student.[1][2] The shout is also sometimes used in the East Asian martial arts for a variety of purposes; in this context, katsu is very similar to the shout kiai.[

Use[edit]

The katsu shout, insofar as it represents a kind of verbal harshness and even violence, can be considered a part of the Mahāyāna Buddhist doctrine of "skill-in-means" (Sanskrit: upāya-kauśalya), which essentially teaches that even an action or practice which seems to violate Buddhist moral guidelines—in this case, the Noble Eightfold Path's injunction against "abusive speech"[11]—is permissible, and even desirable, so long as it is done with the aim of ultimately putting an end to suffering and introducing others to the dharma, or teachings of Buddhism.

The most celebrated and frequent practitioner of the katsu was the Chinese master Línjì Yìxuán (?–866), and many examples of his use of the shout can be found in the Línjì-lù (臨済錄; Japanese: Rinzai-roku), or Record of Linji, the collection of Linji's actions and lectures:


A monk asked, "What is the basic meaning of Buddhism?" The Master gave a shout.[12] The monk bowed low. The Master said, "This fine monk is the kind who's worth talking to!"[13]

The use of the katsu stands in a tradition of antinomian methods, such as striking disciples with a stick or a fly whisk,[14] which developed within the Mǎzǔ Dàoyī (709–788) lineage.[15] Linji greatly developed and used the katsu technique. In one of his lectures, often termed as "Linji's Four Shouts"[16] he distinguished four different categories of katsu:


The Master said to a monk, "At times my shout is like the precious sword of the Diamond King. At times my shout is like a golden-haired lion crouching on the ground. At times my shout is like the search pole and the shadow grass. At times my shout doesn't work like a shout at all. Do you understand?" The monk started to answer, whereupon the Master gave a shout.[17]

 

[rousseau]

Read a quote in Suzuki's 'The Essentials of Zen Buddhism' a few days ago and liked it. Went searching for it again, could not find it, but search on Google books saved the day:

For Zen, life itself is not something to be contemplated and understood objectively. To understand is to stand aside. The objective stance is motivated by the desire to dominate and to reduce to manageable proportions the object of knowledge. Understanding, unlike love, is a one-way relationship, an act of conquest in which I maintain my own being intact and remain the captain of all I survey. One gains the whole world by thus objectifying it, but one loses the soul of things, and what profit is there in it? It is what Mephistopheles offered Faust, what Satan constantly dangles before the eyes of all men: power at the expense of reality. To be related to the world objectively is to be related to it abstractly, and one's life is then increasingly pervaded by unreality. Is not this the ultimate reason for the vacuous quality characterizing so much of modern life? Technological society is the product of a purely abstract relation to life. Its 'triumphs' are the work of intellect bent on conquest. and it is no wonder that the products of technology are in the end so deeply unsatisfying.

 

[steve_bank]

It may be out of print. Try the Guttenberg Project, they digitize books for which copyright has expired. You may find some older writings as well as Suzuki..