Zen Talking

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

Reddit Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/147yhqd/what_if_im_not_good_enough/

Post Summary: Foyan:

There is another type of Zen teacher who tells people not to make logical assessments, that they lose contact the minute they speak, and should recognize the primordial.

This kind of "teacher" has no explanation at all. This is like sitting on a balloon— where is there any comfort in it? It is also like the croaking of a bullfrog. If you entertain such a view, it is like being trapped in a black fog.

I am exhorting you in utter seriousness; I am not lying, I am not making up rationalizations to trap people, I will not allow people to oppress the free.

Zen Teaching: Foyan's Instant Zen

Post Cast Overview: Intelligence, IQ, Charm, lost records, devotion and will power, bunch of Zen Cases and devotion. Kinds of satisfaction. What's good enough? The Secret Ingredient. It's like… not a real thing. Magic.

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/13rnwho/observing_without_making_a_nest

Post Summary:

Just being the way you naturally are – whether you're talking or keeping quiet, moving around or sitting still – and not ornamenting it with lots of branches and leaves: this is the great gate to freedom. But to ford that river your idealist philosophies must be dead, your familiarities forgotten, your dispositions vanished, your opinions withered away. Somebody with half a speck of an idea of his own mind can't get there. -Mingben

Then there's these two passages from Huangbo:

It is better to make offerings to a spiritual man who is free from mind-attachment' than to make offerings to all the Buddhas in the ten quarters. Why? Because to be free from mind-attachment means to be free from all forms of imagination.

Zen Teaching: Amazon has Illlusory Man and Huang-Po

Post Cast Overview: The itch to attain. What about people who experience life differently. What sort of difference. How do people bridge the differences gap. Itch after enlightenment. Satisfaction vs itch to interview.

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/13wpglm/joshu_and_intellect/

Post Summary:

A monk asked, "Usually when there are questions and answers, the intellect is involved. Without being involved with intellect, how will you respond?"

The master said, "Ask a question.

"The monk said, "Please say something.

"The master said, "Don't bring good and bad here."

Zen Teaching: Green trans. Recorded Sayings of Zen Master Joshu

Post Cast Overview: What is happening in this Case? Is "good-and-bad" a reference to Huineng's Mountain Pass teaching. Where can you insert yourself into the Case. What if you can't think. Are Zen Masters satisfied with their own answers. Why doesn't the monk ask another question? What is intellect?

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/13th9am/zens_dharma_interviews_a_test_we_can_all_agree_on/

Post Summary:

Accordingly, the Master said, "I don't inquire about the realm of the Buddha or the realm of the Path; rather, what kind of person is he who talks thus about the realm of the Buddha and the realm of the Path?" When, after a long time, Ch'u had not responded, the Master said, "Why don't you answer more quickly?"

Zen Teaching: Dongshan's record, Recorded Sayings of Tung-shan, also www.reddit.com/r/zen/wiki/famous_cases

Post Cast Overview: Rules of game. He's dead, Jim. Why the old monk died. Shame. Ewk makes up a fake church. What rules exactly? Intelligible verse reasonable.

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/13u4qg3/dont_lose_your_head_34/

Post Summary: Nanquan has never been translated before! Now on Reddit!

汝心若是。If your Mind is,佛亦何用。what use is Buddha, also?非他有無形相。It is not that [one or] the other 'has' or 'doesn't have' form.以何是道。With which is the Way?

Zen Teaching: Record of Nanquan

Post Cast Overview: Yajñadatta lost his head. Crazy from the outside. History of glass. Nanquan vs Mazu. Nanquan takes a road trip. Relying on the sayings of others. What is understanding? Reading? Internalizing? What is being yourself? Social media, what is it. Fox News as social media, not professionalism. Professionalism or entertainment as a choice of perspectives.

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/133u9q3/huangbo_the_self_and_perceptions/

Post Summary:

Huangbo: It is that which you see before you—begin to reason about it and you at once fall into error. It is like the boundless void which cannot be fathomed or measured.

Zen Teaching: Zen Teaching of Huang Po (Huangbo)

Post Cast Overview: six senses, sunny days, perspective, moving in and out without losing, no mind outside of Buddha, r/zen, im a teacher

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/132fq1r/bos_case_10_the_women_of_taishan_wtf_old_lady/

Post Summary:

Case: On the road to Taishan there lived a certain woman. (A rabbit on the road between the neighboring city and the farmhouses.) Wherever a monk asked her, "Which way does the road to Taishan go?"(Traveling for a whole lifetime, you don't even know where you're going.) the woman would say, "Right straight on."(This is not yet quite good-hearted.) As soon as the monk would go,(having run into a thief without realizing it.) the woman would say, "A fine priest--he goes that way too." (you're already a swindler.) A monk told Zhaozhou about this; (When people are even, they don't talk.) Zhaozhou said, "Wait till I check out that woman for you. (When water is level it doesn't flow.)" Zhaozhou also asked the woman the same question. (A trap to fell a tiger.) The next day he went up in the hall and said, "I have checked out the woman for you."(I'm an even bigger swindler.)

Zen Teaching: Recorded Sayings of Zen Master Joshu, Green's translation of Zhaozhou's record.

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/12vjwjw/a_man_whose_head_is_on_fire/

Post Summary:

A monk asked, "Asking for help like a man whose head is on fire - what is that like?" Joshu said, "Be like him." The monk asked, "In what way?" Joshu said, "Do not put yourself in his place."

Zen Teaching: Green's translation of Zhaozhou, Recorded Sayings of Zen Master Joshu

Post Cast Overview: Effectiveness, Precepts. Alcohol works. Urgency. Zen conversation. Agreeing on context.

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

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

Reddit Post: Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/12sfpyz/what_do_i_do_now_that_im_originally_a_buddha/

Post Summary:

You people, each of you has an ancient mirror. All the myriad forms-long, short, square, round-each and every one appears in it. If you go to the longness or shortness to under­stand, in the end you'll never be able to find it. This is why Hsueh Tou said, "When the bright mirrors are on their stands, the range of images differs." Instead you must "All face south and see the northern dip­per." When you're facing south why are you nevertheless to look at the northern dipper?

Zen Teaching: Blue Cliff Record

Post Cast Overview: (under construction)

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/12fpy5e/thwarting_the_grind/

Post Summary:

I'm at an age where I'm certainly not old, but old enough that the reality of how limited our time on earth can be has really set in. Especially this year.

This has led to stress when it comes to Zen study. I feel like if I'm not studying in some way 24/7 then I'm wasting time. It's actually gotten to the point where there can be a week at a time when I don't pursue my usual leisure activities at all when I have time and instead force myself to grind out more cases in whatever book I'm reading on Zen

Zen Teaching: Foyan in Instant Zen, among others.

Post Cast Overview: Attainment on a timetable. Practical application of study. How to study. Different kinds of study. When Foyan (or anyBuddha) is in the next room. Self and change. Living well. Death. Jogging with Zen Masters.

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