Zen Talking

#Post(s) in Question

Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/1ehq0kj/why_sutras_are_not_zen/

三十八 牛過窗櫺

• Thirty-eight: The Buffalo Passes Through the Lattice

五祖曰。譬如水牯牛過窗櫺。頭角四蹄都過了。因甚麼。尾巴過不得。

• The Wuzu said, "Consider a water buffalo passing through a window latticed frame1. Its head, horns, and four hooves have all passed through. Why then can't the tail pass through?"

【無門曰】

• Wumen says,

若向者裏。顛倒著得一隻眼。下得一轉語。可以上報四恩下資三有。其或未然。更須照顧尾巴始得。

• "If in this matter, you can gain one eye by turning things upside down and articulate a phrase that turns it around, you can repay the four kinds of kindness2 above, and help the three realms below. If not, you must still take care of the tail before you can succeed."

【頌曰】

• The verse says,

過去墮坑塹 回來卻被壞 者些尾巴子 直是甚奇怪

• "Having passed through, it falls into a pit; coming back broke his tail. This tail, indeed, is most peculiar."

1An wood lactice boarder around the inside of a window with no glass, decorative, making the window smaller.

2Metta (good will) , karuna (compassionate helpfulness), mudita (joy in others' success), and upekkha (acceptance).

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#What did we end up talking about?

Yamada "latticed window" and JC has "window frame". It's not a metaphor. It's a double entendre, in which the metaphor for enlightenment depends on the very realistic scenario of a cow trying to go through a large picture window. How does the poem make sense? Because it totally does, it's simple.

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Add a comment if there is a post you want somebody to get interviewed about, or you agree to be interviewed. We are now using libsyn, so you don't even have to show your face. You just get a link to an audio call.

#Post(s) in Question

Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/1ecn2kw/zen_irl_if_you_cant_win_an_argument_you_arent/

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Buymeacoffee, so I'm not accused of going it alone:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/ewkrzen

#What did we end up talking about?

Is ignorance why people lose arguments? If you don't like broccoli, is that really ignorance?

Types of losing: facts, (their) irrationality, (your) confusion/doubt

Why is winning the focus of Zen historical records?

#You can be on the podcast! Use a pseudonym! Nobody cares!

Add a comment if there is a post you want somebody to get interviewed about, or you agree to be interviewed. We are now using libsyn, so you don't even have to show your face. You just get a link to an audio call.

#Post(s) in Question

Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/1eby2r6/if_words_confuse_you_that_means_you_cant_pass/

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#What did we end up talking about?

"Because he was asked" is a historical record

Zhaozhou says "no particular intention" so why did Bodhidharma take a long (intentional) boat ride.

What does this "tree" thing mean?

Can you know what a tree intends? How can we know what Bodhidharma intended?

What does it mean to have no intention?

Somebody says "responding to conditions as they arise" is intentional, but not intended.

How to read a koan:

1. Assume the zen master is answering the question (and not confused, mishearing, talking to someone else) 2. Understand French Club, speaking in French, answering in French Club cultural context

What makes Zhaozhou's answer "Zen Club sytle"?

No Buddhas. No other King.

Jesus was never born. He is not coming again.

Help being recieved, and how we all see the world that way.

Types of directions: telling you where to go, telling you a fantasy about going, telling you how someone else was told in a reasonable way.

Where should you go?

#You can be on the podcast! Use a pseudonym! Nobody cares!

Add a comment if there is a post you want somebody to get interviewed about, or you agree to be interviewed. We are now using libsyn, so you don't even have to show your face. You just get a link to an audio call.

#Post(s) in Question

Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/1e8nefm/if_you_cant_do_what_zen_masters_do_you_are_not_a/

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#What did we end up talking about?

People who complain about zen masters being the boss of zen translation problems: shut them up BY punching them. translators doing half the job attack without warning emails from a country with no guns or bombs what satisfies you?

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Add a comment if there is a post you want somebody to get interviewed about, or you agree to be interviewed. We are now using libsyn, so you don't even have to show your face. You just get a link to an audio call.

Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/1e81i66/why_is_the_forum_called_zen_and_not_chan/ Link to all episodes: https://sites.libsyn.com/407831 Buymeacoffee, so I'm not accused of going it alone:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/ewkrzen

1. Buddhism: 8FP religions - mostly based on myths. Many texts are only presevered in Chinese translations. Originally from India. 2. Zazen: Meditation religion not necessarily based on 8FP. Created in Japan. No tradition of records. 3. Zen: Four Statements, Sudden Enlightenment, Public interview tradition. 1,000 years of historical records, mostly transcripts, called koans. Originally from India.

1. Buddhists don't admit Zazen is Buddhist. 2. Zazen Meditation religions claims to be Buddhist, does not do Zen public interview or teach 4 Statements of Zen. 3. Zen rejects 8FP Buddhism and meditation religions.

Academic progress is NOT AT ALL uniform. Chemistry, Psychology, Christianity, Buddhism, all which you can get a degree in, have widely different knowledge standards for their degrees. There is no degree in Zen anywhere in the world.

Zen and Linux: rZen was created by silent contributions, much like Linux. The internet seems to be DATA IS SACRED culture, even when that data is about Zen vs Buddhism vs Meditation.

Add a comment if there is a post you want somebody to get interviewed about, or you agree to be interviewed. We are now using libsyn, so you don't even have to show your face. You just get a link to an audio call. I was thinking about the fact that it seems pretty reasonable to call somebody up and talk on the phone about something you talk about on reddit everyday... but some people are nervous about this. Why? It's a phone call. Is it the public nature of the phone call? In a coffee shop it's public too... but it's not scrutinized. Being wrong... is that the big worry? We all have trouble saying Chinese words, remembering Chinese names, and explaining Zen concepts that the Chinese themselves were uncomfortable with. What's the standard for public conversations when it comes to knowledge? Does that standard mean less people want to talk publicly?

Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/1e6azfb/so_many_questions_about_how_this_case_is/ Link to all episodes: https://sites.libsyn.com/407831 Buymeacoffee, so I'm not accused of going it alone:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/ewkrzen

Translation questions

Ghosts vs spirits vs east vs west vs ufos

when you explain yourself

who are you now versus later, and are both you?

why do people have questions?

Add a comment if there is a post you want somebody to get interviewed about, or you agree to be interviewed. We are now using libsyn, so you don't even have to show your face. You just get a link to an audio call.

Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/1e3shwu/zen_has_no_private_understanding/

Context of Mazu, Case 27, 33, and the Case of Zhaozhou's enlightenment

ewk confused, but it gets resolved

Problems with meaning of "wisdom": Catholics/Buddhists say wisdom is "right thinking".

new agers think wisdom is supernatural knowledge through emotion (topicalism)

Zen and Philosophy (especially Natural Philosophy aka Science) see wisdom as knowledge of objects

Including objects of thought.

Lots of education required:

20th century failures: Catholics/Budddhists have contextual assumptions, Chinese and English have linguistic assumptions, Zen is a whole different context... with it's own culture and assumptions.

Trusting Nanquan's advice to be sincere and useful versus Trust in Mind.

Trust in mind, not trust in emptiness, no, negation, or sinlessness.

Pilgrams, Footloose, Latin dancing, Along Came Polly, express your feelings with your hips.

Yogi Berra Astroemi: The only way to do it is to do it.

New Age Mysticsm is private understanding that can't and won't justify itself publicly. Zen is private understanding that is only understanding when justified in public.

Pang, Xiangyan, enlightenment is private, DEMONSTRATION IS ALWAYS ONLY PUBLIC

Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/1e0k1t7/zen_doesnt_have_a_fixed_doctrine/

This Case involves four contexts:

1. Full mazu case 2. plumb mountain case 3. nanquan teaching not given 4. wumen partial case, discussion of giving only part as sufficent

With that in mind: Restatement

wumen: here is the middle part of a famous koan, and you only need to understand this one piece to know the whole

wumen poem: when you meet someone, discuss what you both know, don't discuss the part (of the teaching or Case) they haven't heard/understood.

Zen Masters: here is some medicine to cure the sickness of the other medicine we gave you.

and now for a bit about holidays...

Mr. Smoketoomuch: I'm fed up with being treated like a sheep, I mean what's the point of going abroad if you're just another tourist carted round in buses, surrounded by sweaty, mindless oafs from Kettering and Boventry in their cloth caps and their cardigans and their transistor radios and their 'Sunday Mirrors', complaining about the tea, 'Oh they don't make it properly here do they not like at home' stopping at Majorcan bodegas, selling fish and chips and Watney's Red Barrel and calamares and two veg and sitting in their cotton sun frocks squirting Timothy White's suncream all over their puffy raw swollen purulent flesh cos they 'overdid it on the first day'! And being herded into endless Hotel Miramars and Bellevueses and Bontinentals with their modern international luxury roomettes and draft Red Barrel and swimmingpools full of fat German businessmen pretending they're acrobats, forming pyramids and frightening the children and barging in the queues and if you're not at your table spot on seven you miss the bowl of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup the first item on the menu of International Cuisine and every Thursday night the hotel is a bloody cabaret in the bar featuring a tiny emaciated Intalian with nine-inch hips and some bloated fat tart with her hair Bryl creemed down and a big arse presenting Flamenco for Foreigners. And adenoidal typists from Birmingham with flabby white legs and diarrhoea trying to pick up hairy bandy-legged Spanish waiters called Manuel and once a week there's an excursion to the local Roman ruins to buy cherryade and melted ice cream and bleedin' Watney's Red Barrel, and one evening you visit the so-called typical restaurant with local colour and atmosphere and you sit next to a party of people from Rhyl who keeps singing 'Torremolinos, Torremolinos', and complaining about the food, 'It's so greasy here isn't it!' and you get cornered by some drunken greengrocer from Luton with an Instamatic and Dr Scholl sandals and Tuesday's 'Daily Express' and he drones on and on and on about how Mr Smith should be running this country and how many languages Enoch Powell can speak and then he throws up all over the Cuba Libres. And sending tinted postcards of places they don't realise they haven't even visited, 'to all at number 22, weather wonderful our room is marked with an "X". Food very greasy but we found a charming. little place hidden away in the back streets, where they serve Watney's Red Barrel and cheese and onion crisps and the accordionist plays "Maybe its because I'm a Londoner".

Post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/1dxf89u/gradual_practice_is_not_the_way/

Discussed?

Zen master buddha versus 8fp buddha

Ssking about zen business as a non-zen student

Dharma throne, zen chair, the only furniture in the room

Horses aren't afraid of whips

Why do we have to answer quickly in Zen?

Why is it dangerous to only get one question?

Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/1dxz45x/you_can_understand_these_conversations/

Scooby-doo eyebrows

Dogen sunday school

Prerequisites: Critical reading, skeptical questioning

Or: scope of records, india to china: concepts in translation, buddhism not a thing