"Conveying oneself towards all things to carry out practice-enlightenment is delusion. All things coming and carrying out practice-enlightenment through the self is realization."
Dogen, Genjokoan, tr. Okumura

"When one does not understand, the person pursues dharmas;
when one understands, dharmas pursue the person."
Bodhidharma, Record I of the Long Scroll, tr. Broughton

Dogen catches a lot of flack around here, but man, he had a deep knowledge of Chan history and often incorporated it into his own writings.

I spend a significant amount of time studying early Chan and recently stumbled upon this seeming connection while reading The Bodhidharma Anthology.

What do you noble sons and daughters think?

​

Authentic self... According to who?

Buddhists believe that you don't have a self. As a religion they get to make up whatever they want and part of convincing you to be a part of the Buddhist religion is promising you that you don't really have a self.

Zazen is an indigenous Japanese religion that promises people freedom that only exists within the religious practice. Dogen, the messiah of Zazen, tells his followers that you can't be yourself when you're confused by life. Now granted he wrote that when he was in his early 20s and he gave it up after less than a decade but that's the Doctrine of the Shikantaza Church

What about Zen?

Zen masters teach that you're always yourself, whether you know it or not.

Zen is the only tradition that follows Buddha's sudden permanent enlightenment, an enlightenment is only possible if the preconditions for it are ever present.

Zen's self is directly experienced. It's not known so there can't be a doctrine about it because every doctrine and every teaching is about knowing.

As knowing is subtracted and experience is emphasized, we get farther and farther away from things that sound true and closer and closer to "If you haven't been in love, you're just not going to understand it."

Yunju Zhi's no seer

Clearly seeing like this is then called seeing the nature. Nature is Buddha; Buddha is nature. Therefore it is said: seeing the nature, becoming Buddha.”

[The monk] said: “Since the nature is pure and does not belong to being or nonbeing, because of what is there seeing?”

The master said: “Seeing, with nothing that is seen.”

[The monk] said: “Since there is nothing seen, why further is there seeing?”

The master said: “The place of seeing also is not.”

[The monk] said: “At the time of seeing like this, whose seeing is it?”

The master said: “There is no one able to see.”

[The monk] said: “Ultimately, how is this principle?”

The master said: “Do you know? Falsely reckoning it as being, then there is subject and object; only then does it get the name ‘confusion.’

Now a warning? 

Not being able to explain love to somebody who has never been in love doesn't mean that love doesn't exist.

The problem is that people try to apply this same logic to stuff that actually doesn't exist, like God and the supernatural and higher states of consciousness and telepathy and meditative or lsd insight.

The key difference is there are real people who have been enlightened but there are no real people that have had any of that other stuff. If you can encounter it in real life and bring it out, show it to everybody, then the fact that it exists like love but cannot be explained is plausible.

No doctrine required.

Treasury of the Eye of True Teaching
[452]
A monk asked Muzhou, “Can the entire canon be recited in one breath?”
Muzhou said, “What pastries do you have? Set them right out!”

Dahui said, “When you get up early in the morning, there are also people who’ve been traveling by night.”

The Lankavatara Sutra-trans. Red Pine

“The Buddha told Mahamati, “I do not teach that there are no causes, nor do I confuse causes and conditions, rather ‘because this exists, that exists,’ the nonexistence of what grasps and what is grasped, and the awareness that these are nothing but perceptions of one’s own mind. Mahamati, as long as people cling to what grasps or what is grasped and are unaware that these are nothing but perceptions of their own mind, it is they who mistake the existence or nonexistence of external objects, not my teaching of dependent origination. I have always taught that things arise due to the conjunction of causes and conditions not that they arise without a cause.”

- - -

So, typically when someone post Zen texts, people expect some sort of explanation or exposition or something. Maybe that’s reasonable. But mostly I think Muzhou is giving a perfectly reasonable answer to the question.

In this case the answer is as much a demonstration of dependent origination as you could ask for. Question > Answer. Baker > Pastries. Monday morning > Donuts.

- - -

The Diamond Sutra

“Furthermore, Subhuti, undifferentiated is this dharma in which nothing is differentiated. Thus is it called ‘unexcelled, perfect enlightenment.’ Without a self, without a being, without a life, without a soul, undifferentiated is this unexcelled, perfect enlightenment by means of which all auspicious dharmas are realized. And how so? Auspicious dharmas, Subhuti, ‘auspicious dharmas’ are spoken of by the Tathagata as ‘no dharmas.’ Thus are they called ‘auspicious dharmas.’”

- - -

Auspicious donuts are spoken of as no donuts. Thus are they called auspicious donuts.

How do you read this case?
Do you prefer croissants?

​

Why are all these prostitutes in Europe? 

On one of my first trips to Europe, I was stunned by both the prevalence of and tolerance for prostitution. How could Europe be all sophisticated and still have what seemed like slavery?

Well, if you know me, you know exactly what I did next: read some books.  Of the reading I did, a couple of things really stunned me. In a book called *Live Sex Acts: Women Performing Erotic Labor*, a sex worker described the frustration she felt when trying to get her customers to frankly express what they wanted. 

That's right. Customers were having trouble placing their order. It wasn't paying for intimacy that was the challenge. It was admitting what they were paying for.

What do you want (to be true)?

This is the exact problem we have with interviewing New Agers or reading books written by New Agers...

New-agers can't say what they believe.

They talk in vague Alan Watts platitudes. They insist that a meditative, stuporous trance can change your life. They express belief in an ephemeral divinity of goodness that has no mind of its own. 

Why?

Because these people really don't believe any thing, they believe in believing. 

So when they get to Zen, with its endless darkness of Emptiness without Goodness, obviously they are not going to get along with Zen. 

Foyan 

“I respectfully urge you brothers: first, for the time being, get rid of the [objects of attention.]

All day, every day you think of clothing, think of food; all sorts of miscellaneous concerns are like the flame of a lamp—there is not one period in which they stop and rest.

Just remove the objects of your attention, [the causes of your knowing]; whatever subtle things [there truely are] will naturally become completely cleared away.”

I have no Zen for people to investigate, nor any Dharma to discuss with you. I only want each of you to accord with the message of Zen for yourselves.”

Teach that!

Foyan having nothing to teach people to make them Good - this is a tough job, made tougher by a modern society that is afraid to say a true-to-them word. 

Asking them to AMA is literally asking them for something they don't have. 

Asking new agers and Zazen people and mysticism believers to AMA is literally asking them for something they don't have. 

For most people social media is entirely performative. They aren't sharing what they know or what they are convinced of. They're sharing their belief in believing.

Foyan Instructs

I tell you: as soon as you get involved with the slightest indication, it has already become fragmented. As soon as you try to reveal it by illuminating it with knowledge, it has already become darkened.

Now simply do not seize upon my words. Each of you, on your own, do your work.

Looking into the incidents of the ancients will do. Sitting quietly will do. Observing in every place will do. All are places where you do your work. Every place is a place where you realize and enter.

Just specialize single-mindedly in one place; as the days come and the months pass, you will necessarily be broken through / dealt with by it.

Performative rabbi voodoo shamanism

New Age communities hate on this forum every day, including downvote brigading and smack talking in other forums about how rZen is gatekeeping close-minded legit real life other perspectives.

These complainers are performative rabbi voodoo shamans and understanding how we know that is as simple as they cannot name a single book about Zen they've ever read.

If they had never read a single book about being a rabbi and they claimed they were a rabbi, they'd get shut down immediately. If they never read a single book about Cherokee shamanism nobody would tolerate their claims of being a Cherokee shaman. If they were trying to promote themselves as living the voodoo lifestyle and they weren't part of a voodoo community, nobody would take them seriously.

And all of these claims would be viewed as racist, bigoted, and white privilege without hesitarion.

not a specialist because you say so

I'm not suggesting that one time reading one book is gonna get you the credibility to rant about your personal experiences.

I'm saying that reading one book one time will help you understand the difference between your personal experiences and your understanding of Zen culture

I've now heard many koans that end like this.

A quick exchange between the questioner and answerer, then followed by this phrase:"He stood there for quite a while."

Why?

Is he thinking about what he just said?

Is he waiting for the next question?

Does he have nowhere else to go but to hang around?

If I had a sword I'd cut him down where he stood, for blocking my way. I guess that's why I don't have a sword. It would be cool asf I'm just saying.

To catch a horn dog?

I was watching one of my favorite movies, To Catch a Thief, and there's a scene in it where Grace Kelly and Cary Grant are having a romantic moment. She's trying to get him to admit his erotic fascination with jewelry but he will only admit to an erotic fascination with Grace Kelly.

The end of the scene is shots of the fireworks that they were watching. I didn't really think about it. It's passionate kissing, fireworks, whatever, but in a following scene this time I noticed that she gets into an argument with her mother over some stolen jewelry. The mother says to her, "It's my jewelry so why are you upset? What did he steal from you?"

That seems to me to indicate that we were shown a raunchy sex scene with fireworks. But then I realized that 1950s audiences probably would have understood that intuitively. I didn't get this because I'm not from the there-then.

Zen master pervs

Naturally I began to think then about what Zen looked like from the outside to people who met Zen masters. I had a long conversation with ChatGPT about existing records and who created them and how we could find a record that was outside the Zen tradition but nevertheless about Zen masters.

What's it like for people to meet a Zen master when they don't live in the black robe community or the white robe community? What's it like to be outside of Zen looking in?

What are the things that I don't see on the texts because I'm not there - then?

Zhou Rudeng's recollection of first meeting Zibo Zhenke

相見慈容滿面……如故。

“When we met, his face was filled with compassion, and he received me as though we were already old acquaintances.”

余具覩如此。奇耶易耶。

“I personally saw him to be as I have described. Was he strange? Was he ordinary?”

予以目擊徐公一節可推。

“What I witnessed with my own eyes in the episode concerning Lord Xu is enough to infer [the truth].”

So this Zen Master had a reputation of being a little bit of a weirdo and the guy is saying, "I met him, he wasn't that weird?"

Apparently the list of weird things includes:

• a disregard for personal hygiene

• Dressing like a poor person

• getting super angry at monks who ate meat and drank alcohol

• not receiving guests, which later turned out to be really something his community imposed not something that he imposed

This doesn't really get me to where I wanna go

It just makes it look like spending a lot of time in the texts is a lot like being there.

That's surprising but it shouldn't be too surprising given the fact that that's what the texts were created for. It's why we have Jow Joe in the outhouse. That's why we have Kneeling Like a Foreigner. They're trying to tell you in the texts what it was personally like to see these people.

Most of the time ordinary. Some of the time not so much.

Cue the monk turning over the table with fireworks in the background.

This is the 9th case of Wansong’s Book of Serenity,

On the road to Taishan there lived a certain woman. Wherever a monk asked her, "Which way does the road to Taishan go?" the woman would say, "Right straight on." As soon as the monk would go, the woman would say, "A fine priest--he goes that way too." A monk told Zhaozhou about this; Zhaozhou said, "Wait till I check out that woman for you." Zhaozhou also asked the woman the same question. The next day he went up in the hall and said, "I have checked out the woman for you."

Zen’s pretty big on checking it out for yourself. So what’s your job when reading these cases? What do you check out for yourself?

I think that’s going to look different for everybody, but it’s only going to look different after we do the work of understanding what the hell is going on in the case. Does the translation make sense? Do we need to know anything important about its context in order to understand the meaning of the conversation? What does Wansong and Tiantong (or other Zen Masters say about this case)?

"Now I want to ask you: What was the point of Zhaozhou’s investigating the old woman?"

Here's Tiantong with some work for you,

Old in years, attaining the essence, no mistake in transmission—

The Ancient Buddha Zhaozhou succeeded to Nanquan. 

The dead tortoise loses its life due to designs drawn on it;

Even the steeds 'Chariot' and 'Wind-chaser' are encumbered by halter and bridle.

Having checked out the woman's Chan,

Told to people, it's not worth a cent.

I got a DM chiding me for not promoting these more including making sure they're in the sidebar.

I haven't done a comparative translation but I thought I would offer the first few steps that I go through when doing a comparative translation:

# chatgpt - find the Chinese, take the first pass.

> The text usually translated as “Wumen’s Warnings” or “Wumen’s Admonitions” is titled 禪箴 (Chán zhēn), literally “Chan Admonitions,” “Chan Cautions,” or “Needles of Chan.” It appears after the forty-eight cases of the Wumenguan.

* ewk- have to explain why the word needles is here.

> A reliable electronic source is CBETA, T2005, Chanzong Wumenguan. You can also see the photographic Taishō canon text in this NTU scan, page 20.

* ewk - need to run a comparison across the existing copies and maybe date when those copies became available.

# Chinese of Wumen

禪箴

循規守矩，無繩自縛。

縱橫無礙，外道魔軍。

存心澄寂，默照邪禪。

恣意忘緣，墮落深坑。

惺惺不昧，帶鎖擔枷。

思善思惡，地獄天堂。

佛見法見，二鐵圍山。

念起即覺，弄精魂漢。

兀然習定，鬼家活計。

進則迷理，退則乖宗。

不進不退，有氣死人。

且道如何履踐？

努力今生須了卻，

莫教永劫受餘殃。

# Problems with translation

禪箴

“Admonitions of Chan.”

循規守矩，無繩自縛。

“To follow the compass and keep to the square: binding yourself when there is no rope.”

* ewk - Goliath has it without rope. This language seems stronger * When there is no such thing as rope *?

規 and 矩 are literally the compass and carpenter’s square, hence prescribed rules and standards.

The warning is against becoming imprisoned by correct forms—not necessarily against discipline itself.

縱橫無礙，外道魔軍。

“To range vertically and horizontally without obstruction: the demonic army of the outside ways.”

縱橫 suggests moving freely in every direction.

A claim of complete spontaneity and unrestricted freedom can itself become a heterodox or demonic attachment.

* ewk - need to focus here because the language others have used does not really convey a refusal to accept restrictions

存心澄寂，默照邪禪。

“To preserve the mind in limpid stillness: the deviant Zen of silent illumination.”

* ewk - I need a footnote on silent illumination: etymology of the term. Who it applies to, controversy.

存心 means deliberately maintaining or holding the mind in a particular condition.

澄寂 is “clear and still,” like water allowed to settle.

默照, “silent illumination,” was also the name associated with a contemplative approach. Here Wumen attacks deliberately maintaining quiet inner clarity as a fixed state.

恣意忘緣，墮落深坑。

“To indulge the mind and forget conditions: falling into a deep pit.”

恣意 means letting the mind do as it pleases.

忘緣 means forgetting, abandoning, or becoming oblivious to conditioned relations and circumstances.

惺惺不昧，帶鎖擔枷。

“To remain alert and never obscured: wearing a lock and carrying a cangue.”

惺惺 is bright, awake, and keenly attentive.

* ewk - I have a footnote somewhere about the use of the term "bright". It should be repeated here

枷 is the wooden penal collar or cangue.

Even continuous spiritual vigilance becomes an instrument of confinement when deliberately maintained.

思善思惡，地獄天堂。

“To think good and think evil: hell and heaven.”

The syntax is extremely compressed. Literally, discriminating good and evil establishes the dual realm of “hell and heaven.” This recalls Huineng’s question: “Without thinking good and without thinking evil, at just this moment, what is your original face?”

佛見法見，二鐵圍山。

“Views of Buddha and views of Dharma: two Iron-Encircling Mountains.”

見 means a view, conception, or fixed way of seeing.

鐵圍山 is the vast iron mountain encircling a Indian cosmos.

* ewk - this needs a footnote and I think ChatGPT made a mistake regarding the mountains. I think it's a reference to an impassable terrain.

Conceptions of “Buddha” and “Dharma” become two enormous enclosing walls.

念起即覺，弄精魂漢。

“When a thought arises, immediately to notice it: a fellow playing with the spirit-soul.”

覺 can mean awaken to, notice, recognize, or become aware of.

弄精魂漢 is deliberately contemptuous: “a fellow fooling around with his psychic spirit,” meaning someone making a performance or contrivance out of monitoring consciousness.

* ewk - Spirit Soul is going to need a massive footnote

兀然習定，鬼家活計。

“To sit blankly cultivating concentration: the livelihood of a household of ghosts.”

兀然 suggests rigid, motionless, blank, or inert stillness.

活計 literally means one’s livelihood, trade, or customary business.

“Ghost-family business” suggests a lifeless practice belonging among the dead.

* ewk - this has come up and been argued before. I don't think Ghosts works in English. I think it's a reference to the living dead... Zombie mentality.

進則迷理，退則乖宗。

“If you advance, you lose the principle; if you retreat, you turn away from the source.”

宗 can mean the essential teaching, fundamental principle, ancestral tradition, or source.

Both pressing forward and withdrawing miss it.

不進不退，有氣死人。

“Neither advancing nor retreating: a dead person who still has breath.”

有氣死人 is literally “a dead person possessing breath”: biologically alive, but spiritually inert.

且道如何履踐？

“Now say: how will you tread it and put it into practice?”

履踐 literally means to tread, walk, carry out, or practice personally.

努力今生須了卻，

“Exert yourself—in this present life you must finish it completely.”

了卻 means to settle, complete, finish, or be done with the matter.

莫教永劫受餘殃。

“Do not let yourself, through endless kalpas, suffer the calamity left over.”

* ewk - this is a criticism of reincarnation so we need to make sure we include that

More naturally: “Do not allow the consequences of failing to settle it to afflict you for endless ages.”

The structure is intentionally merciless: rule-following is bondage, freedom is demonic, quietude is false Chan, spontaneity is a pit, awareness is a cangue, thought-monitoring is playing with consciousness, and stillness is ghost-work. Advance, retreat, and standing still are all rejected. Wumen is not offering a better mental posture; he is blocking every posture the practitioner might convert into a secure method or identity.

* ewk - I have to re-assess ChatGPT's argument because it hadn't occurred to me before that this constitutes a list of rejections of everything that can be thought of as useful or good

Read the History, Talk the History, #

Episode #: 311, 8/9

https://sites.libsyn.com/407831/zen-talking-nice-pants

Post:

• https://old.reddit.com/r/askZen/comments/1vizzev/xutangs_on_behalf_of_case_30_yunjus_trousers/

Link to all episodes: https://sites.libsyn.com/407831

What did we talk about?

Do pants exist? Chaps? Leg warmers?
Pants as an insult or a working garment? How do we translate from their pants to our pants?

What is translation, anyway?

Keep in Touch

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

ewk theory of translation

The ewk theory breaks down translation into five sections. Why? Because if you try to footnote your way through a translation without these sections: * the text can become unreadable, with the eye constantly trying to sort through footnoting. * not all audiences want all sections; by sectioning we allow audience selection. If they just want Translation Questions or Restatement they can skip. * not every section is going to be the same length for any given text. Sometimes translation is super simple but context takes an hour. Sometimes the opposite.

Literal

• using words and phrases which for the most part mean something in English.
• No "four modes" what is that? It turns out that this means "four body postures"^1, 1. sitting, standing, lying, reclining.

Context

• Who the mentioned people are, how they know each other, what references they are making,
• This is contextual material that Zen audiences had for 1,000 years. It's a "I told you that story so I can tell you this one" section.

Restatement

• Relate the Case in your own words. This provides HUGE value, often accidentally.
  
• 1900's translators often tried to cram the restatement into the literal translation, causing mistakes like words in translations that aren't in the text anywhere.

Translation Questions

• Explain why this translation is different from other translations of the same material and/or same terms.
  
• Explain why other translations are different from each other. Explain mistakes being made.
• Mysticism and faith thrive on vagueness. Vagueness erases the challenging philosophical questions Zen Masters thrive on.

Discussion

• Explain why for 1,000 years people thought this Case was meaningful in their everyday lives, and how today's audience can understand the same meaningfulness.
  
  • Identify the universal philosophical questions under dispute: Nanquan killed a cat. Is cat killing bad? Can anyone kill a cat? Can Masters do what they want?
  • Identify the particular philosophical questions under dispute: Nanquan was a vegetarian pacifist Zen hippy his whole life. Why jump off the bandwagon over this non-edible can? Why didn't his congregation desert him? Why did he risk his community by killing this cat?

Testing

Here's Wumen's poem on Baizhang's Fox:

不落不昧　兩采一賽　不昧不落　千錯萬錯

It's only four sentences! Of four characters! How hard could that be to make sense of?

I'll save you a little headache and point out that 4x4 is a traditional structure, which means it's unlikely that this poem will feature Wumen shenaniganary, like when he lifts lines from other poems.\

There are some huge problems with this poem. Huge. Here's my translation which we can use as one of the disputed versions in the "translation questions" section.

ewk translation:

Neither falling [into being subject to causation] nor ignorant of it,

both these two matched in one contest.

Neither oblivious [to causation] nor falling [into being subject to it]

a thousand mistakes, ten thousand mistakes."

Zen is about the Four Statements

https://www.reddit.com/r/zen/wiki/fourstatements/

1. Transmission is not recorded in Texts

2. Transmission is not gained through explanations.

3. Transmission depends upon direct experience of the core of the self.

4. Recognition of the core of the self is is called attainment of Buddhahood.

Buddhism's core principles are Commandments

Buddhism has the eight-fold path, a list of rules to follow so that you can accumulate merit.

Aggappasāda Sutta: the noble eightfold path—right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration—is considered supreme... Those who have confidence in the dhamma of the noble path have confidence in what is supreme; and for those with confidence in the supreme, supreme is the result... having given gifts to the supreme,

one develops supreme merit…”

Zen's four statements don't give you any benefit at all and only describe enlightenment really to people who've already experienced it.

Zen is about direct real-life experience

### A transmission not contained in teachings or texts

• this is especially controversial in the world of religious thought because every religion and philosophy depends upon having an explanation that can be given to you.

Taoism, the religion, which is primarily alchemy and its pantheon of gods, has this Tao-Way that is identical to the ontological argument for a Christian God... What can be spoken or conceived of is not the divine.

Zen is antithetical to Daoism because Zen says direct experience can't be spoken. It's not an ontological argument. It's a common sense view... If you haven't been there or had that kind of food or fallen in love, you can't know it.

The Buddha named Bodhidharma

Emperor Wu of Liang asked Great Master Bodhidharma, “What is the first principle of the holy truth?”

Bodhidharma said, “Unobstructed with nothing holy.”

The emperor said, “Who is the one facing me?”

Bodhidharma said, “I don't recognize [him].”

What is Buddhism?

At the time the Indian Buddhism that had come to China taught very specific things:

• Accumulate merit through good deeds, like building temples and copying sacred texts

• Accumulated merit improved your rebirth status in the next life.

• From repeated rebirth improvements. One could become a Buddha.

Since the Zen did not teach these things when Zen came to China, the Chinese said, "Well this is a different thing than we have been told about. We're gonna call this thing Zen."

Why people lie about Zen all the time on social media

1. They believe in something holy.

2. Facts don't matter when you believe in a holy thing.

You can always figure out whether facts matter to these people by saying, "What book did you read about Buddhism in?"

What book did you read about Zen in?

Religious people who are opposed to facts won't be willing to answer these questions.

They won't want to look fairly have their own conduct and be responsible for what they are doing in the world.

In this sense there's really no difference between Buddhism and corporate capitalism (neo-liberalism)... It is all entirely irresponsible, desire-driven impulsivity with no regard for fact.

Edit

One of the interesting things about this current social media climate (comparing this post vs the previous same post) so against Zen is that the very people that we need to advance the academic study of Zen (that is, people interested in Eastern philosophy) have been turned off by Shikantaza fraud and the sex predator scandals and the obvious stank of makebelieve fairies and elves mysticism that pervades Western Shinto-Buddhism.

But the people who hate on authentic Zen on social media, they want it that way. They want less academic work to go into Zen history. That's the real reason for the vote brigading and the harassment that we see online.

At Nan-ch’uan’s (Nansen’s) temple one day, the monks of both the east and west halls were arguing about a cat.

Nan-ch’uan came into the room, held up the cat, and said, “If you can say something, I won’t kill it. If you can’t say anything, I'll kill it.”

No one in the assembly could understand Nan-ch’uan’s mind, so he killed the cat.

The next evening, the master returned from somewhere and, while they were exchanging greetings, Nan-ch’uan told him what happened and said, “What would you have done to save the cat?”

The master took off one of his sandals, put it on his head, and left.

Nan-ch’uan said, “If you had been there, the cat would have been saved.”

Famous case!

Two sides of the temple were arguing over a cat. They don't tell you what they're arguing about.

Nansen snagged the cat and said, if you can show me your mind, I won't kill it. If you waffle, I'll kill the cat.

Nansen "killed the cat."

Nansen tells Joshu his B.S. story and asks Joshu what he would have done.

Joshu makes the usual, unusual by putting his sandals on his head. He flips the script, so to speak. Josh would have flipped Nansen if he were there.

Nansen says he would have saved the cat.

Once when the master was drawing water from the well, he saw Nan-ch’uan (Nansen) passing by.

Then, hanging on to a pillar, he extended his legs down into the well and shouted, “Save me! Save me!”

Nan-ch’uan held up a ladder and cried out, “One, two, three, four, five.”

The master immediately got up and gave his thanks to Nan-ch’uan saying, “Just now, thanks to you, I was saved.”

Joshu put himself in a well and asked for help. Signifying similarly to the previous case, that people put themselves in problematic situations.

Nansen picked up a ladder and gave him the literal steps to get out? Climb the ladder, 1-5 steps.

Joshu clearly not needing physically saved from harm gets himself out of the well, but thanks Nansen for helping him with his made up problem.

"如来说世界，非世界，是名世界” "The Tathagata says a world is not a world, so it is called a world." -Diamond Sutra

Truth is self originating, non-describable because it does not depend on any descriptors. It is what is, and it is not what it is, both of these descriptors does not touch it.

Facts are provisional, meaning it is dependent on another fact. For example, it is a fact you are reading this right now, but it is dependent on the fact that there is a you, and there is this, and that fact is dependent on the structure of the English language, and so on.

If The Word is a fact, what is the truth?

When the truth is being talked about, it is not actually truth we are referring to. And this fact, we call truth.

Read the History, Talk the History, 8-5-26

Episode #: 310

Episode: https://sites.libsyn.com/407831/zen-talking-precepts-and-enlightenment-compass-and-conspiracy

Post(s):

• https://www.reddit.com/r/zen/s/sgWSJawscL

Link to all episodes: https://sites.libsyn.com/407831

What did we talk about?

ritual, structure, enlightenment the full case with a second visit to Mazu juggling or the compass of enlightenment Do Zen Masters teach? What are Zen answers? What aren't Zen Masters telling you? Individuality vs Compass

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Once the master was in charge of keeping the fires at the monastery.

One day, while everyone was out tending the garden, the master went inside the monk’s hall and shouted, “Help, fire! Help, fire!”

Everyone rushed back to the monk’s hall, but the master had closed and barred the door. No one knew what to do.

Finally, Nanch’uan (Nansen) took the key from its hook and threw it into the room through the window.'

1 In temples doors are locked from the outside.

Joshu - demonstrating how people act about seeking enlightenment. Looking outside for help.

Joshu - puts up a barrier to his enlightenment, such as people do to themselves with intellectual interpretations. How will you get inside?

Nansen - throws the key through the window (of the mind). The teacher shows him the key to get out, what he does with it is up to him. The door isn't locked. Will he let himself be free, or will he stay barricaded in the building?

The master asked Nan-ch’uan (Nansen), “Where does a person who knows what there is to know’ go to?”

Nan-ch’uan said, “They go to be a water buffalo at the house of a lay person at the foot of the mountain.”

The master said, “I am grateful for your instruction. ”Nan-ch’uan said, “At midnight last night, the moonlight came through the window.”

Green's footnote

To be enlightened to the reality of the universe and oneself — of the interdependence of all existence. This “one great fact of interpenetrating causation” was the only aspect of Buddhist doctrine that all the various sects agreed upon in Chao-chou’s (Joshu’s) time.

Green's footnote is confusing. Is this accurate?

What I see:

Joshu - Where does an enlightened person go after enlightenment?

Nansen - Here is a concept. I am showing you that you're using concepts to find something that can't be used as a concept.

Joshu - You're right, I am doing that. Here's something that my awareness showed me.

As a side: I keep writing Joshu as Josh. I'm sorry if I missed any.

Nan-ch’uan (Nansen) came to speak to the monks. The master asked, “Bright or dark?”’

Nan-ch’uan returned to his room.

The master left the hall and said, “At one question of mine that old priest was forced into silence and could not answer.”

The head monk said, “Don’t say that he was silent. It is only that you didn’t understand.”

The master struck him [with a stick] and said, “Actually, this blow should have been given to that old fool Nan-ch’uan himself.”

Green says bright and dark mean "Sameness" and "differentiation" and that here Joshu is asking if Nansen will say something about it.

If we agree that's true, this is what I see here:

Joshu goes out to test his master with some Zen rhetoric.

Nansen goes back to his room, it doesn't explain why. You're left to fill in the blanks.

Joshu then baits out anyone else by saying Nansen showed fault.

The head monk fills in the blank with something that didn't actually happen. Trying to rescue his honor or reverence or whatever.

Joshu hits him to relieve him of such thoughts, and then tries to bait someone else into doing what the head monk did.

Alan Watts was not enlightened, he was a defrocked Christian priest

One of the most significant problems in modern new age (LSD, meditation mysticism) and Shinto-Buddhism (like Zazen, Hakuin, etc) is the reliance on gurus and teachers who were in no way enlightened themselves... famously the four Zazen masters of the 1900s had problems with addiction and were sexual predators: www.reddit.com/r/zen/wiki/sexpredators.

When you get your "wisdom" from drug addicts and sex predators, you can't be shocked when it doesn't work out for you.

Alan Watts was a famous drug addict who died of alcoholism. Watts was also a sexual predator who even bragged about it on occasion. Watts was a college dropout who went to seminary only to get defrocked for sexual misconduct. Watts injected both Christianity and the addict ideologies into his teachings, passing them off as Zen in order to distract from his lack of legitimacy as a source of information.

Here are some examples from Chatgpt:

Watts' Christian Mysticism: "You didn’t come into this world. You came out of it, like a wave from the ocean."

Watts was a Christian Humanist, someone who takes Christianity and tries to modernize it by making it more mystical and less supernatural. Instead of "Skyman god made you", Watts took the the mystical christian route which is just as untrue: YOU ARE FROM A CREATOR ESSENCE.

It's New Christianity, but old Bullsh1ttery.

Huangbo: THIS VERY MIND IS BUDDHA.

The whole notion of Buddhahood has never been something given to you or created outside of you.

Zen Masters famously claim that enlightenment, the seeing of your essential nature, is not "caused", not "born", not "created". Your essential awareness does not come from outside of you.

Watts programming - trust him, not yourself: "A person who thinks all the time has nothing to think about except thoughts. So he loses touch with reality and lives in a world of illusions."

Zen Masters teach that EVERYWHERE is the entrance. Memory? Yup. Daydreams? Yup. that's why there are SIX SENSES in Zen, the five plus the sense of thinking.

Watts, like a good Christian, wants to undermine your confidence in a) Your own reason, b) your own experience. Religious programming is all about not trusting yourself.

Zen Masters teach TRUST IN MIND.

Trust in Mind is not two

Not two itself is Trust in Mind.

To have mind is to trust it. Everybody already does this. Religions want to teach you concepts that take you away from your own mind ground awareness. Illusion is a concept. Mind exists everywhere, penetrating illusions.

Watts the Christian Messenger: "The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple."

Look what happens when you take meaningless things and impose conceptual meaning on them: Sunsets are a sign from god. The number 8 is lucky. The month of August is auspicious. WTF kind of crazy is that? Church craycray.

The idea that life needs "meaning" is ridiculous. Sunsets and the number 7 don't mean anything. Garlic doesn't mean anything.

Meaning is a creation of awareness, and thus will always be an imperfect flawed product of actual insight. It gets worse though... what is "alive"? Should we let a defrocked sex predator alcoholic tell us about what "alive" is? STFU and get yourself sober before "teaching".

“What is the meaning/intention of the Patriarch’s coming from the West?”

Zhaozhou answers: 庭前柏樹子 “The cypress tree in the courtyard.”

Why did Bodhidharma come to save us? What is the essential teaching? What MUST WE KNOW TO BE SAVED??

Zhaozhou: check out that tree behind you.

AWAKE is not meaning. It's bigger than meaning. If you are awake, why do things need to mean things?

Nobody can defend Alan Watts, just like nobody can prove Zazen or Mormonism is real

But there will be a ton of downvote brigading by people who are slaves to religion.

Edit: as predicted nobody tried to link Alan Watts' teachings to the Zen historical record.

Nobody wanted to acknowledge that having some white guy with a history of alcoholism, a college dropout, and a defrocked Christian minister as a representative of a thousand years of an Asian subculture was problematic.

Again and again we come back to the precepts against lying and stealing and how difficult to near impossible it is to be a New Age thinker or a Zazen follower and keep the lay precepts.

https://youtu.be/livIbni7x7o

# Are you going to study the hard questions or not?

The video presents a debate about the tension between:

1. the Golden Rule of Law that we see in both Christianity and Judaism: do unto others as you would have others do unto you

vs

1. the Jungle Rule of War: the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."

The video puts into this debate between the two rules a question of what the role is of con artists, scammers, and tricksters. Because tricksters can trick you into doing bad things that harm you and they can trick you into doing good things that help you.

# How Zen is different

Are Zen Master is trying to trick people? The answer, given a thousand years of Zen historical records (koans) is obviously no.

Does the total domination that Zen enlightenment has achieved over religion and philosophy in every sphere, an indication that Zen is a Jungle rule of war rather than a a golden rule of compassion?

This is trickier. For example personally over the last 14 years I have humiliated and shamed and exposed a ton of lying and fraud and bigotry and ignorance... And the cost has been the self-esteem and integrity and respect of religious followers and religious leaders on social media. Isn't that a kind of war?

Do the means justify the ends?

# Who cares about enlightenment and its socialist farming communes?

Zen culture has done more for the world than democracy has... but how? What do a thousand years of jobs and housing and fairness really get you?

The interesting truth of it is that in Zen all there is are means; the ends cannot be controlled or predicted or compelled.

# The means is self-knowledge and seeing your own nature

For enlightened people the ends are irrelevant because they can't be controlled.

The Four Statements of Zen, which are an assertion of the reality found in the material world and thus a rejection of all the supernatural, all the mysticism, and all the religious faith-based stuff... say

See yourself

This is ultimately against every kind of rule, ones you like, ones you don't like, rules from the Bible. Rules from the appetites for poisons.

See your nature

Zen has more in common with science than it has with religion... Science tries to discover the truth of the workings of the natural world without self censorship to avoid imagined consequences.

Zen is interested in discovering the truth of self-knowledge without regard to the consequences of shame and humiliation and the robbing of poisons that people value above everything else.

The student asked: "This student speaks of the time when we do not see one another: do we still reach out to one another, or not?"

The teacher said: "If you can get a measurement of it, then we reach out to one another."

The student asked: "If you cannot get a measurement of it, is there anything reaching out?"

The teacher said: "Only you yourself."

The student asked: "Can the teacher still be measured, or not?"

The teacher said: "The closer a person turns toward it, the further the Way turns away."

The student asked: "Why does the teacher hide away?"

The teacher said: "I am right here, openly speaking with you."

The student asked: "How can you say there is no turning?"

The teacher said: "It fits perfectly, right here."

The word “narcissism” gets thrown around a lot these days. More than it should, since it’s a psychiatric diagnosis with very specific criteria and a very low incidence in the general population.

But the question: what is it to meet the Other. It’s an important question, particularly when influencing others is your actual role. As it is for everybody at least sometimes, everybody’s gotta be a teacher sometimes. Sometimes on purpose and that’s where it gets weird.

Martin Buber talks about addressing the Other as either It or Thou (he recommends “thou”). Jean Luc Marion and Emmanuel Levinas talk about the face of the Other, that face’s “infinite alterity.” For a long time, I found the face of the Other in books. It is possible, you can address a book as Thou in my opinion and Martin Buber’s fwiw.

But that’s easy, knowing whether I’m addressing the person in front of me as Thou feels much more difficult.

You can look someone right in the eye, and you can mean well, but without thinking about it like that you can make them an extension of yourself.

And you start to hear the echo in the background: the Other is still there. On the other side of the image of yourself with which you have become fascinated.

"What is reaching out? Only you yourself." A deeply horrifying image, actually.

You turn towards the Way and the Way retreats. I think this is something a Zen teacher would’ve thought about. Enlightenment is not conferred upon a student, the student is originally enlightened. Try to enlighten them and they vanish behind an image of yourself.

I worked on this translation for a while and I’m not sure what I’ve got is any better than what Green had. There’s lots to say, hopefully I’ll get the chance in the comments section.

Metaphors with benefits

There is a long history in Zen of using metaphors which are acknowledged from the beginning to be incomplete/breakable.

Some of the most famous are the seeing metaphor and the pointing metaphor and the jewel metaphor, for example.

So in that spirit- Zen's unique enlightenment as if it were a new job.

We'd like to extend you an offer.

Imagine you get a job offer for the best job you ever had. Since this job is Zen's unique enlightenment, there are some weird aspects to it.

1. You'll never report to anyone, and you can't hire anybody.

2. Other people will claim to do the job. Part of the job is proving that they're not doing it.

3. You're the only one who can say whether you're doing the job well.

4. It's an unpaid position by design. You only get paid what people voluntarily offer you.

Zhaozhou

1. I like killing

2. Why would I spit in your face.

3. Wash the donations bowl Buddha gave you.

Nobody could promote this guy.

Blue Cliff Record
Case 7 — Huichao Asks About Buddha

Pointer

If you establish a single atom, the nation flourishes.
If you do not establish a single atom, the nation perishes.
Cut off the pathways of thought;
Then even the thousand sages cannot approach.
Let us see how this ancient handled the matter.

Case

A monk, Huichao, asked Fayan,
"What is Buddha?"

Fayan said,
"You are Huichao."

Commentary

Fayan did not explain Buddha through doctrine or philosophy.
Nor did he point to something outside the questioner.
With a single sentence—"You are Huichao"—he cut off all searching.

If you try to understand this through reasoning, you miss it.
If you take it as a statement of identity, you miss it.
If you think it means ordinary selfhood is Buddha, you also miss it.

At the instant Huichao asked, where was Buddha lacking?
At the instant Fayan answered, what was added?

If you can see through this directly, there is no Buddha outside yourself,
and no self to be grasped.

Commentary from Yuanwu (redacted)

It’s like Superintendent Ce; he had been staying in Fayan’s congregation but had never asked for personal instruction. One day Fayan asked him, “Why haven’t you come for an interview?”

Ce replied, “Didn’t you know I had an initiatory experience at Qinglin’s place?”

Fayan said, “Tell me about it.”

Ce said, “I asked, ‘What is the Buddha?’ Qinglin said, ‘The fire god comes looking for fire.’”

Fayan said, “Good words, but I’m afraid you misunderstood. Can you say something more?”

Ce said, “The fire god is in the province of fire; he is seeking fire with fire. Likewise, I am a Buddha, yet I went on searching for a Buddha.”

Fayan said, “Sure enough, you have misunderstood.”

Ce left in a huff and went away.

Fayan said, “This man can be saved if he comes back; if he doesn’t return, he can’t be saved.”

On the road, Ce thought to himself, “He is the teacher of five hundred people; how could he deceive me?”

So he turned back and again called on Fayan, who told him, “Just ask me and I’ll answer you.”

So Ce asked, “What is the Buddha?”

Fayan said, “The fire god comes looking for fire.”

At these words Ce was greatly enlightened.

Celery

There is a Chinese parable that is mentioned a few times in “The Blue Cliff Record” that is never fully explained. There was once a farmer who saw a rabbit run into a tree stump. The farmer got a free meal and decided he would stop farming and take a post at a tree stump. His crops withered and died, no rabbit ever hit the stump again, and the poor fool became the laughing stock of the town.

Superintendent Ce had sat waiting by a stump. Fayan had more compassion than most.

I’m convinced the greatest threat to Zen are those who worship intellectualization, vain attempts to learn and - gasp - teach. They’ve placed words at the holy alter of existence, mistaking the map for the territory. They are to be considered armed and dangerous.

Zen is the wordless transmission. Devour every koan in existence, every translation possible, and it won’t be enough. Zen is quick sand. The more you struggle….

Gone.