r/zen is a reddit forum about Zen scholarship, study, and practice.

Reddit Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/11b8tog/nondiscriminatory_discriminating/

Post Summary:

You must find the nondiscriminatory mind without departing from the discriminating mind; find that which has no seeing or hearing without departing from seeing and hearing.

Zen Teaching: Dahui’s Original Shobogenzo, Foyan from Instant Zen

Post Cast Overview: Discrimination, chair as object, preferences, life death chocolate. Not sticking to your teeth and lips. Breakfast. Huangbo. Where’s my lemon.

Zen Lineage: www.reddit.com/r/zen/wiki/getstarted

r/zen is a reddit forum about Zen scholarship, study, and practice.

Reddit Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/11behbs/what_zen_master_would_you_most_want_to_meet/

Post Summary: What Zen Master would you want to meet?

Zen Teaching: the Zen Canon starting with Get Started

Post Cast Overview: Easy question to answer? Some people can’t. Thich Hahn. Ikkyu was icky. Who is your first choice? Why? What about the precepts? What can you get away with? Who is your second choice?

Zen Lineage: www.reddit.com/r/zen/wiki/getstarted

r/zen is a reddit forum about Zen scholarship, study, and practice.

Reddit Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/4us6c3/blyths_translation_of_faith_in_mind/

Post Summary:

Remaining in movement or quiescence, How shall you know the One? Not thoroughly understanding the unity of the way Both (activity and quiescence) are failures. If you get rid of phenomena, All things are lost; if you follow after Void, You turn your back on the the selflessness of things.

Zen Teaching: Faith in Mind, Blyth trans. There are a couple dozen translations out there under the title Faith in Mind, Trust in Mind, even The Trusting Mind (as I recall)

Post Cast Overview:

Zen Lineage: www.reddit.com/r/zen/wiki/getstarted

r/zen is a reddit forum about Zen scholarship, study, and practice.

Reddit Post: https://old.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/116v10p/the_revenge_of_zhaozhous_tree/

Post Summary:

Master Zhaozhou said,

This matter is clearly evident - even immeasurably great people can't get out of here.

When I went to Guishan, I saw a monk ask, "What is the meaning of the Chan founder's coming from the West?" Guishan said, "Bring me a chair." If one is a real Chan master one has to deal with people on the basis of one's own state.

At that time a certain monk asked, "What is the meaning of the Chan founder's coming from the West?"

Zhaozhou said, "The cypress tree in the yard."

The monk said, "Don't use objects to teach people."

Zhaozhou said, "I'm not using objects to teach people."

"So what is the meaning of the Chan founder's coming from the West?"

"The cypress tree in the yard."

Later Fayan asked Master Guangxiao Jiao, "Where have you come from most recently?"

Jiao said, "Zhaozhou."

Fayan said, "I hear Zhaozhou has a saying, the cypress tree in the yard. Is this so?"

Jiao said, "No."

Fayan said, "Everyone who passes through here says a monk asked Zhaozhou what the meaning of the Chan founder's coming from the West is, and Zhaozhou said, The cypress tree in the yard. How can you deny this?

Jiao said, "The late teacher really said no such thing. Please don't slander the late teacher."

Zen Teaching: Recorded Sayings of Joshu (Zhaozhou)

Post Cast Overview: three people test

Zen Lineage: www.reddit.com/r/zen/wiki/getstarted

 

r/zen is a reddit forum about Zen scholarship, study, and practice.

Reddit Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/10sebu9/antimasters/

Post Summary:

I was thinking about how to characterize Zen texts by saying the main thing the texts were against. I don't think there's a right answer, but there are answers that aren't really reasonable.

1. Zhaozhou - anti philosophy
2. Huangbo - anti Buddhism
3. Foyan - anti-teachers
4. Wumen - anti noobs
5. Yuanwu - anti lazy
6. Wansong - anti ignorance
7. Mingben - anti- conceptual

Zen Teaching: www.reddit.com/r/zen/wiki/getstarted

Post Cast Overview: Against authority, what is authority, do Masters have authority? Do Buddhas? What is rank, bridging the cultural gap, bridging enlightenment. Pho versus ignorance.

Zen Lineage: www.reddit.com/r/zen/wiki/getstarted

 

r/zen is a reddit forum about Zen scholarship, study, and practice.

Reddit Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/10xfaeg/zen_under_the_gun_just_the_hits_please/

Post Summary:

Daian (1347-1403)

 

We are at the end, and it's Daian's poetry. He does the traditional thing (unlike Wumen) and includes only one body blow per poem.

Here are the blows from three poems, minus the poems:

 

If not for my dharma-nephew, how would I open my old mouth to discuss it?

.

In the treasury, the light of the wish-granting jewel is shining bright;

Pick it up and it melts away everyone's doubts.

.

Well... it's hard to show this one without context:

 

In an empty house, gazing like a wall

Speaking or silent, never setting foot in the city streets

Just bringing up the seal of the patriarchs

before my own mental impulses start working

Following the secret spirit talisman the Zen patriarchs wore

In the mirror, my beard, a thousand snow-white strands

At the corner of the bench, a rattan cane, seven feet of black

My only fear is that a summons will arrive from on high

With an imperial grant of a golden robe to chase me to court

Zen Teaching: Zen Under the Gun, Cleary trans.

Post Cast Overview: Talismans… worn on the elbow, what about the seal? Huangbo’s warrior jewel, buddha born with wheel mark on his hand, used wheel metaphor to describe causality, people use wheel talisman’s to ward off bad luck. Amulets that hold written blessings from priest. Getting old versus getting famous. What it means to get a call from an Emperor.

Zen Lineage: www.reddit.com/r/zen/wiki/getstarted

r/zen is a reddit forum about Zen scholarship, study, and practice.

Reddit Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/110vec7/zen_under_the_gun_why_bother/

Post Summary:

Daian (1347-1403)

 

The Natural Real Buddha (A verse to a Buddhist layman:)

The true self in every person is the natural real buddha. Through every hour of the day and night it is always emitting light.

If you can manage to see it personally as you lift your eyebrows,

Why bother making special trips all over to pay your respects

to Zen masters?

Zen Teaching: Zen Under the Gun, Cleary trans.

Post Cast Overview:

Zen Lineage: www.reddit.com/r/zen/wiki/getstarted

r/zen is a reddit forum about Zen scholarship, study, and practice.

Reddit Post: https://old.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/10wkbwn/a_tree/

Post Summary:

A monk asked Zhaozhou, "What is the living meaning of [Zen]?" Zhaozhou said, "The cypress tree in the yard."

… don’t teach by means of materialism. I’m not. So what is the Zen Master Buddha Dharma? The tree in the front yard.

 

Zen Teaching: Book of Serenity, the Modern Soto Zen bible, by Zen Master Wansong

Post Cast Overview: The full Case. What Wansong says. What Wumen says. Wumen’s poem. What is the tree? Three trees. What’s a tree. What’s a stick from a tree. What’s Zen if Zen Masters don’t agree.

Zen Lineage: www.reddit.com/r/zen/wiki/getstarted

r/zen is a reddit forum about Zen scholarship, study, and practice.

Reddit Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/10rbpcb/zen_under_the_gun_stainless_study/

Post Summary:

In front of the hall of the ancient buddhas, there has never been any other road. In the gate of the ancestral teachers, how could there be many kinds of talk? The Buddha Dharma is not different from the human mind: all inherent functioning is the intent of the enlightened ancestors. The deviation comes because of grasping false views. Buddha said to Ananda, "Even if you go for eons augmenting your learning, it is not as good as one day of stainless study". But tell me, how do you cultivate 'stainless study'? If you say it has cultivation and realization, this is a vulgar lie. If you say it has no cultivation or realization, you are befuddled about buddha-nature.

Zen Teaching: Zen Under the Gun

Post Cast Overview: What is study? What is seeking? What is verification?

Zen Lineage: www.reddit.com/r/zen/wiki/getstarted

r/zen is a reddit forum about Zen scholarship, study, and practice.

Reddit Post: https://old.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/10if4d7/a_garuda_takes_command_of_the_universe/

Post Summary:

A monk asked Master Xingyang Pou, "A dragon king comes out of the sea, sky and earth are tranquil—how is direct presentation?"

The master said, "The garuda, king of birds, takes command of the universe—who can stick his head out here?"

The monk said, "Suppose one suddenly appears, then what?"

Xingyang said, "It's like a falcon catching a pigeon. If you don't realize, check in front of the tower, then for the first time you'll know the real."

The monk said, "If so, then I'll fold my hands on my chest and retreat three paces."

Xingyang said, "You blind turtle under the seat of Mount Sumeru! Don't wait for another scarring from a rap on the head."

wikpedia: Garuda's links to Vishnu – the Hindu god who fights injustice and destroys evil in his various avatars to preserve dharma, has made him an iconic symbol of king's duty and power, an insignia of royalty or dharma.

Verse:

The imperial decree comes down,

The commanding order's distinct:

Within the heartland, the emperor,

Outside the borders, the general.

Without awaiting the thunder to roust the insects,

How could one know the wind stops the coursing clouds?

A continuous weave under the loom--

naturally there's a gold needle and jade thread:

Before the seal is wide open emptiness--originally there's no writing.

Zen Teaching: Case 44, Book of Serenity, Soto Zen Master Wansong’s Book of Instruction

Post Cast Overview:

What’s a dragon in charge of the weather doing with a garuda in charge of heaven?

What is the reasonable interpretation of this Case?

Tranquility vs Bobby Fischer

Why there is a head on a post.

The problem of Zen: words are from the stars, lineage mares the buddha nature?

Zen Lineage: www.reddit.com/r/zen/wiki/getstarted