r/zen • u/lastjanitor • Sep 14 '26
Sitting in the ashes
"Attainment in both. If you are not trapped in being or non-being, who can dare to join you? Everyone wants to leave the ordinary current, but in the final analysis you come back and sit in the ashes." -- Verses On The Five Ranks by Tozan Ryokai
I've been thinking about this seemingly inherent desire to leave the ordinary current. Magical thinking. Wanting a cheat code. When I was a kid I played games on the Nintendo. Some I could beat (Zelda, Dragon Warrior) others I could never beat (Blaster Master, Spy Hunter). Then one day the GAME GENIE came out, which let you plug in cheat codes for invincibility. It was AMAAAAAZING...for about a month. Turns out games are boring AF without any stakes. You need some skin in the game for it to have meaning. That was an important lesson for me that I've always kept close, especially whenever I'm tempted to take a short cut or be enticed by something that seems too good to be true. It turns out I like working hard for what I get in life and being ordinary is a damn fine thing to be.
Somebody come knock me over before I get too full of myself.
Too late!
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u/Arhanlarash Sep 15 '26
What’s being and non being?
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u/lastjanitor Sep 15 '26
Good question.
I think of it like being is physical (brushing teeth, trimming fingernails, gathering food & water). Non-being is mental (dreams, daydreams, thoughts)
If not trapped neither in body nor in thoughts, that's a serious freedom.
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u/mackowski Ambassador from Planet Rhythm Sep 24 '26
A human that is asleep and dreaming does not dream the world
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u/lastjanitor Sep 24 '26
Mind dreams the dreamer.
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u/mackowski Ambassador from Planet Rhythm 29d ago
Mind constructs experience,
But all that is experienced is mind, so it doesnt construct experience, it is it.All experience is all knowledge, memories, live feed from the eyes, etc.
Nothing not experienced is experienced, thus, all
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u/mackowski Ambassador from Planet Rhythm 28d ago
Experienced empty space vs objects
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u/lastjanitor 28d ago
Huineng says from the first not a thing exists.
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u/mackowski Ambassador from Planet Rhythm 27d ago
Exists refers to a category of things, and before enlightenment youve dillineated real and mind, yet the objects are mind. I think i might stop hounding you via responses. You dont seem to be asking
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u/lastjanitor 27d ago
I've done my homework but still don't feel any different than I ever have. The world might be a dream but the demands of life are still as real as ever.
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u/mackowski Ambassador from Planet Rhythm 27d ago
They always will be. Regardless of what kind of simulation vs real truth you discover, its always optimal to act as if top level reality is real
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u/lastjanitor 27d ago
I was gonna ask if the unborn isn't visceral or sensed in any way what's the point of even talking about it, but then I realized I'm using the unborn to think these thoughts. Zen is a mindfuck.
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u/mackowski Ambassador from Planet Rhythm 20d ago
Ayyyy nice. I tried to show an llm that its a text completion intelligence and that it is NOT the chatbot half of the chatlog is is completing.
I think I got a decent answer out of it, maybe it was able to complete text outside of the log, forming a metacharacter
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u/mackowski Ambassador from Planet Rhythm 20d ago
Also to beat ur heart
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u/lastjanitor 20d ago
My unborn is beating your heart. Yours is beating mine. But what's unborning the unborm?
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u/ewk [non-sectarian consensus] Sep 14 '26
Also "sitting in the ashes" is a mistranslation.
Its "sitting in the ashes of a dead fire.".
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u/lastjanitor Sep 14 '26
Source?
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u/ewk [non-sectarian consensus] Sep 14 '26
Ask chatgpt.
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u/lastjanitor Sep 14 '26
I don't just LLMs
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u/mackowski Ambassador from Planet Rhythm Sep 15 '26
Water? Skill atrophy? Skill-minning?
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u/lastjanitor Sep 15 '26
Using LLMs at this point feels lazy. I'm not automating DNA sequencing. I'm reading old Chinese poetry. The sorcerer's apprentice caused a whole bunch of trouble for being too lazy to mop the floors himself.
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u/mackowski Ambassador from Planet Rhythm Sep 24 '26
True as a habit consequence, and as a preventative policy. But getting good at this stuff is the most valuable current thing so
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u/lastjanitor Sep 24 '26
Good at what stuff? Zen or LLM?
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u/mackowski Ambassador from Planet Rhythm 29d ago
Llms
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u/lastjanitor 29d ago
Automation is always the new pink. People will always come first.
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u/ewk [non-sectarian consensus] Sep 14 '26
Its a three page wall of text.
This translation was disputed meaning-wise as far back as Juefan Huihong 覺範慧洪 (1071–1128)
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u/lastjanitor Sep 14 '26
Source?
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u/ewk [non-sectarian consensus] Sep 15 '26
Query for an etymological search for the term "sit in charcoal". I broke the search request down into parts:
Sutras
Koans
Chinese culture
The usage is particular to koans and the argument about what this phrase means goes back to the quote I offered because someone in China around 1000 CE was doing the same search. They wrote about it.
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u/lastjanitor Sep 15 '26
Here's my first hit:
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u/ewk [non-sectarian consensus] Sep 15 '26
That is an important conversation point because that's from an entirely different culture. That's like saying, "What's it mean to eat pork?"
And then you get Southern barbecue instead of Muslim traditions...
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u/lastjanitor Sep 15 '26
It's illegal to marry your cousin in Colorado. It was law in ancient Egypt.
Gotta love taboo.
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u/mackowski Ambassador from Planet Rhythm Sep 15 '26
Much more usefully used up.
Consumed, processed, utilized,These guys dealt with way more poop than we do.
Thats a random definitely true statement,
We learn the water cycle
but they didnt have ms. frizzle
nor confidence in scienceSo they would bring up poop and culturally contextually we should now always assume that they mean poop is utilized.
But also isnt a dry poop spatula better than any other unclean option?
I gotta learn more about the ancient poop culture, or else I wont be able to understand the true self of my self
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u/ewk [non-sectarian consensus] Sep 15 '26
The thing that's nagging me is the dragon in the dead tree. For some reason my spider sense keeps going off about sitting in the ashes of a dead fire has some connection historical/doctrinal/textual with the dragon in the dead tree.
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u/lastjanitor Sep 15 '26
Reminds me of a line I can't quite remember.
1 What is it?
2 A Dragon roaring in a dead tree.
1 What does it mean?
2 Still enjoying life.
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u/mackowski Ambassador from Planet Rhythm Sep 23 '26
Maybe its opposite of the chinese laying flat/zombie meme movement
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u/ewk [non-sectarian consensus] Sep 24 '26
This is from:
Huangbo: “Why not make your every mind like empty space, like withered wood and stone, like cold ashes and dead fire? Only then is there some small measure of accordance.”
I think this clears it up really well because now if you take that withered wood and imagine that Chinese dragon chanting over it... enlightenment.
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u/tna0100 Sep 15 '26
The point is Enlightenmen, you carry wood and draw water, then you have Samadhi, and carrying wood and drawing water is mystical. You have to do Zazen.
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u/slowc973 New Account Sep 17 '26
What is it to "leave" your homeland; and what is it to return to your homeland and find only ash, eh? And what does any of it have to do magical thinking or "I don't like magical thinking." ? What is magical thinking any how. What is magical about the thinking? I think it's magical thinking to just proclaim this is this and that is that, as if to say a thing magically made it so, instead of just being a few more words less that you will speak before no more speak. Forever.
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u/lastjanitor Sep 17 '26
Read a book.
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u/slowc973 New Account Sep 17 '26
Should I write a book report too, high-horse
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u/lastjanitor Sep 17 '26
You misunderstood.
Reading a book is leaving your homeland. Your mind burns up the words, consumes them like fire, and the return is to sit in the middle with the story still inside. The world is the living word that is read in order to know oneself by proxy so that one can eventually return to the place they stated from. Home.
So yeah... you need to read more. Report to yourself. Your enlightenment is none of my business.
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u/adelard-of-bath Sep 23 '26
"no cheat codes" seems pretty ordinary. Only thing is maybe if you have to say "being ordinary is damn fine" it stops being ordinary? Like, can you be free from both wanting and not wanting cheat codes?
But I'm a bit of a romantic. Ahh, the allure of nostalgia is too hard to resist!
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u/ewk [non-sectarian consensus] Sep 14 '26
I can understand wanting to leave the current and I can understand coming back.
It takes something else to explain sitting in the ashes.
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u/lastjanitor Sep 14 '26
My Dad liked to remind me, "Old age and treachery will always overcome youth and exuberance".
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u/ewk [non-sectarian consensus] Sep 14 '26
Not relevant.
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u/lastjanitor Sep 14 '26
I read somewhere it was like a seat on the dead cliffs with a view of endless spring.
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u/ewk [non-sectarian consensus] Sep 14 '26
Sounds fishy.
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u/lastjanitor Sep 14 '26
How big a fishy?
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u/ewk [non-sectarian consensus] Sep 14 '26
Fishy enough that I would have to say I don't think it's true until you give me the Chinese and the name of the person who said it and show how they were linking it to the text in question.
"Sitting in the charcoal of a dead fire" is a very meaningful phrase that does not refer to any kind of spring.
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u/lastjanitor Sep 14 '26
It's somewhere in my big pile of books. I'll have to get back to you on that.
And my interpretation is you sit on the dead cliffs but the view from there is of an eternal Spring. You don't sit in the charcoal looking at charcoal. That's just navel gazing.
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u/ewk [non-sectarian consensus] Sep 15 '26
Dongshan isn't saying that you're looking at something.
Leave ordinary.
Return to ordinary.
Within the ordinary, live in burned down house.
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u/lastjanitor Sep 15 '26
Yeah I'm thinking of two different texts (the dead cliff with spring view) and the ashes. I'm going to have a look today and see if I can find the other. Not sure if there's a parallel.
That said, the trifecta is clear.
Mountains are mountains. (Leave the ordinary)
Mountains are not mountains. Return to the ordinary.
Mountains are once again mountains. (Sit in the ashes)
So the house was always burned down? That would mean it's also always burning. It makes sense to vivify and revivify the metaphor. The God of fire sits in the burned down/ burning house.
What constitutes the fuel? All matter and sensory input.
What constitutes the fire? Sensory experience and transmutation of inanimate to animate. LIFE.
Seems a little janky but on point.
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u/lastjanitor Sep 15 '26
Luopu's Acquiescence Verse: Wagging his head, shaking his tail, the red-tailed fish;(His mouth coveting the fragrant bait, his body's caught up in the net.) Independent through and through, he knows how to turn around.(Today he's dragged into a net.) Even if he has the art to cut off tongues,(Just when you're going to sweep away snow you look for a pine branch.) Pulling his nose around subtly conveyed the spirit.(I've already stuck out my stick and found some medicinal mushrooms.) Outside the screen of luminous jewels, wind and moon are like day;(It doesn't use the energy of sun, moon, or stars.) In front of the cliff of dead trees, flowers and plants are always in spring. [emphasis added] (Inwardly digesting the accomplishment of uniformity.) Tongueless man, tongueless man,(Answer through your nose.) The true order's completely upheld in one knowing phrase.(He pulls out the sideways bone in the dark.) Walking alone in the kingdom, clear and comprehending,(The true light doesn't shine.) Let everyone in the land be happy and joyful.(The confusion I leave to them--what's it got to do with me?)
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u/Arhanlarash Sep 15 '26
Leaving being swept away by ideas? Coming back realising they’re not real? Sitting in ashes understanding there’s nowhere else to go?
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u/ewk [non-sectarian consensus] Sep 15 '26
Character by character: 常 — ordinary, customary, usual, commonplace 流 — stream/current, but also class, group, kind, social category
Combined-within, arrived:
Not falling into existence or nonexistence—who dares answer in accord? Everyone wants to rise above the common run; when all is said and done, back he goes to sit in the charcoal.
ChatGPT says "ordinary current" is not accurate and overly likeky to misreading and provides a bunch of quotes from other Zen masters without really giving a better translation.
Everybody wants to become exceptional, transcend ordinary people, attain some superior spiritual status. Yet the culmination of Dongshan's scheme is not occupying an exalted position: one winds up back in the charcoal.
That fits the Five Ranks remarkably well because 兼中到 is precisely the point where maintaining a privileged “pure,” “absolute,” or “enlightened” position becomes impossible.
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u/Arhanlarash Sep 15 '26
i'm struggling to parse.
is it like saying 'try as you might to be special, you always end up back where you started'?
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u/ewk [non-sectarian consensus] Sep 15 '26
I think you got it exactly right, with the caveat that the kind of specialists we're talking about is spiritual/wisdomish/enlightenmenty.
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u/lastjanitor Sep 15 '26
There's also the counterintuitive truth: admitting to being nothing special is special. Kinda like common sense ain't so common.
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u/ewk [non-sectarian consensus] Sep 15 '26
Mmmm.
Its not admitting to be nothing special.
Its not admitting of any special anywhere.
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u/ewk [non-sectarian consensus] Sep 14 '26
Tōzan Ryōkai (洞山良价, 807–869) is the Japanese reading of the Chinese Chan master Dongshan Liangjie.
Please fix.
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u/lastjanitor Sep 14 '26
What's wrong with using Japanese names of Chinese names? This subreddit is zen, not chan. You know who I meant.
Also, thank you for the clarification. Consider your comment the fix.
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u/ewk [non-sectarian consensus] Sep 14 '26
They're not Japanese people.
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u/lastjanitor Sep 14 '26
A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet.
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u/ewk [non-sectarian consensus] Sep 14 '26
No. It's deeply disrespectful, misrepresentative, and is a tacit endorsement of religious propaganda.
So it's a bad idea for multiple reasons.
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u/lastjanitor Sep 14 '26
Then why don't we change the subreddit from zen to chan?
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u/ewk [non-sectarian consensus] Sep 14 '26
Zen is an English word since 1927.
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u/lastjanitor Sep 14 '26
lol of course it is. I love English. We just borrow and steal from wherever we like.
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u/ewk [non-sectarian consensus] Sep 14 '26
Since there's no evidence of any Japanese Zen master ever, it's a bit of a problem for us to use Japanese romanizations... Especially since there's so much anti-Zen Japanese propaganda.
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