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

Reddit Post: Christmas eve ewk AMA

Post Summary: What’s up with ewk?

Zen Teaching: Wumen’s Checkpoint aka Gateless Gate

Post Cast Overview: What’s up with the supernatural? Are Zen Masters interested in God? What can we say is true?

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/zgka4q/go_fish_ft_jiashan_and_the_boatman/

Post Summary:

He also asked, "Letting down a line a thousand fathoms, the intent is in the depths. Three inches away from the hook, why don't you speak?" As Jiashan was about to open his mouth, the Boatman knocked him into the water with a pole. As soon as climbed up into the boat, the Boatman again said, "Speak, speak!" As he was about to open his mouth, the Boatman hit him again; Jiashan was suddenly greatly enlightened. He then nodded three times.

Zen Teaching: Dahui’s Original Shobogenzo, Treasury of the Eye of True Teaching

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/z8c6py/zen_is_a_system_of_thought_based_on_enlightenment

Post Summary: Zen is not random. Zen is not religion based on faith. Zen is not philosophy, based on logically proceeding from a given starting point.

Zen Teaching: All of them. The history of Zen teachings, teachings about teachings, and Zen historical records.

Post Cast Overview: Astromi has strong feelings. What is Zen? People pretending Zen is random irrational “mind ending hell”. Zen Masters talking about the same thing? Is Zen 1,000 years of discussion about one topic? Getting to a gas station. Making a puzzle. How Zen makes sense and doesn’t. Sudden vs gradual. A safe with an infinite dial, but the combination is in your notes.

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

Reddit Post: https://old.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/yqyrmw/questions_about_yuanwus_commentary_for_bcr_98/

Post Summary: User asks questions about the 98th case of the Blue Cliff Record. Most notably things that help clear up what Yuanwu is saying in his commentary when using metaphors and other literary figures. 

Zen Teaching: Yuanwu's Blue Cliff Record case 98

Post Cast Overview: astroemi and GreenSage read through the case and talk about how they understand it in order to answer as many questions from the OP as they can (they are a lot).

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

Reddit Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/za5mwr/zen_under_the_gun_answering_a_madman/

Post Summary: Dalan said:

"After the end of the summer retreat, all of you Zen worthies will go off in various directions.

"Suppose that suddenly in a village of three families you bump into a madman who asks you this: 'Eminent one, you have come from Jingshan, so tell me what did the master who founded the temple there mean when he said. "There are carp on top of the mountains, and there is scattered dust at the bottom of the well"?

"To succeed, you must answer the madman with skill in means You cannot quote ancients or moderns to him, or talk of phenomena or inner truth. You cannot shake out your sleeves and go, or spit in his face.

"If you answer him and he doesn't understand, you will earn a rebuke from him, and he will say to you. Plenty of fuel and water has been hauled in for you to use on Jingshan, eminent one, but you have never even dreamed of the Buddha Dharma."

"If you cannot answer him, you also implicate me in your failure " This is an iron hammerhead with no hole for the handle.

Dalan tapped with the whisk and said. "As all of you travel together on the road down the mountain, your eyes see for themselves the windblown mist.

Zen Teaching: Daian in Zen Under the Gun

Post Cast Overview: How are you going to answer Daian? Lots of problems arise. Why a fish on a mountain? What does the dry well symbolize? Talking to a Zen Master about what a madman says about another Zen Master.

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

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

Reddit Post: https://reddit.com/r/zen/comments/z4504a/what_you_havent_done/

Post Summary: 35th Case from BoS.

• It’s a chicken roosting in a phoenix nest. The moon in the clouds is the same. Before my eyes there is no you, no me.

Zen Teaching: Book of Serenity, Cleary

Post Cast Overview: Something, something, hooks and fish. A review of the Case and the story behind it. The difference between internet whackos, Luopu, and Jiashan, three kinds.

The chinese phoenix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenghuang is really a chimera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimera_(mythology).

Luopu thinks Zen farming is clearing a field of delusion, attachment, thought constructed dharmas, but he still doesn’t understand… he has no seeds.

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/z4yk2b/zen_under_the_gun_buddhas_defeat/

Post Summary: “Buddha’s end was a scene of defeat. In the assembly of billions, not one had the energy of a patchrobed monk.

Zen Teaching: Zen Under the Gun: Four generations of Masters

Post Cast Overview: The Cases before and after. The question of what Daian knew and when he knew it. Is alive and dead like not enlightend and enlighted? Why did Buddha say if you think I will be dead you aren’t it, or if you think I will not be dead you are not it?

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

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

Reddit Post: https://reddit.com/r/zen/comments/yze4pa/a_few_good_zen_cases/

Post Summary:

A monk asked, “What about it when practice has no end and enquiry has no end?’ Zhaozhou said, “Whether there is an end or not, in the eyes of a person of the Way it is like a drop of spit.” The monk said, “What is the fact of ‘that’ [state of mind]?” The master spat on the ground.

Zen Teaching: Recorded Sayings of Zen Master Joshu (Green), Zen Teachings of Huang Po (Blofeld)

Post Cast Overview: What is nothingness? Doubt and Truth. Confidence. Elephants. Transcendental Truth. Spit.

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/z0acq9/gaoans_conduct_and_virtue/

Post Summary:

Once when one of the monastery officers refused to make such an expenditure, Gaoan upbraided him, saying, in ancient times the founder of the Chan commune established the treasury for the sake of the aged and infirm. You are not sick and not dead.”

People of discernment from all quarters esteemed Gaoan’s personal conduct highly. When he retired from Yunju and went to Mount Tiantai, about fifty students followed him. Those who were unable to go wept as they parted with him. This is how much his virtue moved people.

Zen Teaching: Cleary’s Zen Lessons

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/yy8akj/you_arent_paying_fing_attention_get_it_together/

Post Summary: Dharma combat isn’t combat

"By still depending on teachings, you sicken your mind," said Ch'u.

"But how great is the sickness of the one who talks about the realm of the Buddha and the realm of the Path?" said Dongshan.

Again Ch'u did not reply. The next day he suddenly passed away. At that time Dongshan came to be known as "one who questions head monks to death."

They call it dharma combat, but it isn't combat at all. When Dongshan questioned that old man to death, it wasn't combat, Dongshan executed that old man. WTF? How could anybody NOT SEE THAT?

Podcast Highlights: (under construction)

Zen Teaching: Dongshan, Soto Patriarch, in Record of Tung-shan, https://www.amazon.com/Record-Tung-Shan-Classics-Asian-Buddhism/dp/0824810708

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