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Zen?

  
  

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We're The Great Old Ones Now
14:15 / 16.10.02
Jennings, it's not that there isn't Zen to be found in this conversation, it's just that there's a great quantity of arse being talked as well. Zen - and the Dao - are ubiquitous. Like postmodernity, they cast doubt on analysis as a way of getting to truth, reject the notion of language as flawless communication. They are about experience and immanence, rather than discursive dissection.

Much that is scholarly may be said about Zen and Daoism, but that discussion has the same value in perceiving what they are actually about as the rather slap-happy jokes this thread has devolved into. In case you hadn't realised, the answer to whether a cow has a Buddha nature is supposed to be 'Mu' - meaning 'neither yes nor no' - obviously also the English phoneme for a cow noise.

The intention of all this malarky is to crash the student out of preconceived notions of the world and ruts of thinking. Part of enlightement would seem to be a permanent state of thinking outside the box, of never slipping into received understanding, always paying attention to what is there, not what is assumed - doing this without straining, it being a natural thing.

Talking about enlightement is just as hard as talking about Zen - and of course, I've never been there properly. Everyone has moments, but staying there is a bit harder.

But I'm curious - are you peeved by the spectacle of others playing Wise Master or are you annoyed by the notion of Zen - or the Dao?
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
14:21 / 16.10.02
"Zen is going to sound just as fatuous as discordianism, Robert Anton Wilson or any other clever-by-numbers act of Western self-affirmation.."

RAW, fatuous? Wash out thy mouth!

For those interested in sufism and its 'koan equivalents', the tales of Nasrudin are always amusing and good at shifting the old assemblage point.
 
 
The Natural Way
14:27 / 16.10.02
Probably should've pointed the finger Shah's way. Thanks Mu.
 
 
grant
14:56 / 16.10.02
An essay on Mu.

Includes this:
Chao Chou's response is to answer neither yes-nor-no: To answer Mu. Mu is not as unusual as it first seems. There are many everyday questions that we would not want to answer either yes or no to. Consider the question: "Have you stopped beating your dog yet?" Now it is notoriously easy to invent a situation in which either a positive or a negatively answer to this question is misleading. Either answer will mislead if I ask the question of a devoted animal lover, someone who would never mistreat any animal. If I was to demand a yes or no answer from an such a person they would be in a situation equally perplexing as Chao Chou's: any response they make will be misleading. A positive answer has the implication that the mis-treatment once took place and has now ceased. Whereas a negative reply implies that this non-existent mistreatment is still continuing.

The difficulty with answering this question for a pet lover is that the question itself set up a misleading picture of things. The question implies the existence of something that has never taken place and any response only seems to place one more firmly within that view of things. The correct response is to question the question: To ask for an alternative way of picture things. This is also implicit in the notion Mu. To answer a question with Mu (to say neither yes-nor-no) is to deny the validity of the question itself. The reason the answer is neither yes-nor-no is because the question sets up misleading categories, similar to Avyaakata in the sutras, that which do not apply to the situation being examined. Mu is a call for the question to be unasked. A call to look beyond the limiting conceptualisation implicit in the question. In fact, Mu is more extreme than this: It is a call to move beyond the limiting perspective of conceptualisation itself and to a directly contact with ultimate reality via pre-reflective awareness.


And a nice story about cows.


Zen is popular in the West because it's fast. You don't have to die first.
 
 
Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero
15:24 / 16.10.02
I've been interested to watch the thread rapidly descend, to my shallow Western eyes, into a morass of in-jokes, babbling, shouting, and the odd quote from somebody who was very enlightened (and so forth)

Yeah, but that's really nothing new.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
15:46 / 16.10.02
But I'm curious - are you peeved by the spectacle of others playing Wise Master or are you annoyed by the notion of Zen - or the Dao?

Ha. What small motives you impute. None fo the above, really; I don't know enough about the notion of Zen or the Tao to take against them, and a cursory examination would demonstrate my lack of interest in being or listening to wise masters.

What "peeves" me about this thread is that it is choked with half-arsed wankery, self-important one-liners and the aforementioned fatuity, and, while all this japery is justifable in terms of all being terribly Zen, no doubt, I have a feeling that it is likely to encourage people, particularly some of the newer members, to be just as half-arsed, self-loving and lazy in other threads. Which would be a long way indeed from Satori.

However, while it has the possibility of actually being remotely relevant or useful, I see problems in the argument for shoving it over into the Conversation or the Magick, where folks are more receptive of people who read a book once telling everyone how enlightened they are.

(Only joking, reader - I love them all, the gorgeous bastards).

And yes. I got the joke. Very good, but I'd heard it before.
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
17:19 / 16.10.02
What small motives you impute.

Ahem. You entered this thread by taking a swing at it - or me, depending on how one unpacks the post. You've since amended that somewhat, but I don't know that it's entirely appropriate to take me to task for seeking the source of your contempt. I was actually curious to know whether you had an objection to the philosophies or to seeing the posters here mess about with Zen gags - futile until one of them says something which completely rocks another person's world, however trivial it may seem. Tom once did it to me by pantomimiming his Zen Master-stylee beard. Zen and Dao don't have a problem with the sublime emerging from the ridiculous.

What "peeves" me about this thread is that it is choked with half-arsed wankery... while all this japery is justifable in terms of all being terribly Zen, no doubt, I have a feeling that it is likely to encourage people, particularly some of the newer members, to be just as half- arsed, self-loving and lazy in other threads.

As opposed to the other threads in the Head Shop and elsewhere which are devoid of half-baked notions and sloppy thinking? The signal to noise ratio in this thread may not be as good as it could be - but that's in part because the signal in this case may not be suited to this means of transmission. And you keep saying you don't know about this stuff - in which case how can you have any idea what is of value here and what is not?

Which would be a long way indeed from Satori.

I'm not sure that's true, in practice. One could argue that the somber and analytical mode embraced by more functional topics is a great deal further away. Both Zen and Daoism have a playful side which mocks academic convention and analysis' obsession with language. The flip side of this is the harshness of study and the dedication required. A master in the Zendo will strike a student whose concentration lapses with a bambo stick, and it hurts. It's not a casual tap on the shoulder. Daoism is less stratified, and very tolerant, which is why, in a way, it's the more demanding of the two. No one will hit you if you piss about with it, but you'll never get anywhere. It's possible this discussion needs someone to smack it about. I would respectfully suggest, however, that since you keep saying you don't know what the deal is, that person should not be you.

On a technical note, my 'Zen/no Zen' paradox is pretty ropey, because it's too easily resolved. It's more Daoist, probably, and its chief value is as a caution against self-conscious practice of Zen, which is self-defeating. The Mu joke has value because "Mu... is a call to move beyond the limiting perspective of conceptualisation itself and to a directly contact with ultimate reality via pre-reflective awareness." The simple 'Does a dog have a Buddha nature?' question does the same thing, but runs the risk (especially in a culture where we frequently see ourselves and hear the echo of our own thoughts playing back like narrative - "this is me doing this") of becoming and intellectual excursus - the humour is an added twist to shake the mind a bit more. An extra layer of mismatch.

To be honest, I think you need to deal yourself in, or give this thread some space to sink or swim.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
21:38 / 16.10.02
Which is just a sign of the straitjacket I clearly exist in, because all of a sudden I am all sparky and happy and feeling "Yes! Nick has communicated!" Which has built a bridge, which was really all that was at issue.

Will drop out, but continue to read with interest.

(And the sublime from the ridiculous - dude, watch "Voice from the Past" sometime. Seriously)
 
 
woodswalker
22:29 / 16.10.02
Here's a link http://www.killingthebuddha.com/
to a Buddhism site which leads to others, and others. Used to have a Zen meditation of the day site somewhere but musta lost it.
 
 
Stone Mirror
22:38 / 16.10.02
Mu asks I've always wondered why the original questions was 'dog' not 'cow'.

Because in China, the word for "Nothing" is wu, which also happens to be what dogs say there.

The dog turned into a cow when the Dharma came to Japan.
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
07:30 / 17.10.02
Jennings - why on Earth is this about me communicating? And just what do you feel I've communicated? Because what I feel mostly is that I've violated my own injunction against making noises to describe silence.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
11:08 / 17.10.02
Ah, yes, but you've also engaged. Which may not be very Zen, but, given that we are in an environment where not making noise makes one effectively invisible, I'm not sure that one *can* be Zen on Barbelith without just going away and making a cup of tea.

Which might be quite an interesting question: is the original desire here - for others to tell somebody where they can read about Zen - simply hopeless from the start?
 
 
Pepsi Max
13:13 / 17.10.02
Haus> Well, can you learn to ride a bicycle by reading a book? Or fence?

Maybe not, but you can learn something of the culture surrounding them and read anecdotes and advice from others engaging in the activity.

So not futile but limited. Perhaps a matter of checking the temperature of the water before getting into the bath.

As others have mentioned, part of the development of Zen as compared to other forms of Buddhism is a distrust of or shift away from scriptural study.

Have to agree with Kagemaru that talking to someone with some experience in this area (not necessarily a master) would be extremely useful.
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
13:36 / 17.10.02
No. It's futile for anyone to try to explain Zen. Zen just is. There are plenty of Zen sources around. You read them then you either get it or you don't. If you don't get it, you get on with it. I've only relatively recently been mates with a Donin (the lowest order of Zen monk) - the bulk of my study was from texts.

What is also a bit futile is the demand that Zen account for itself, define itself, in a way suitable for an analytical debate in the western format. Zen is positioned, quite explicitly, outside the sphere of analytical reason. You might as reasonably require reason to take the form of Zen. That's not the point of analytical thinking, any more than a verbal explanation is the point of Zen.

So yes, I've satisfied your criteria of engagement in a normal Head Shop-style discussion - really because you were asking for reasons not to discard this topic, rather than because it's appropriate to the discussion. You, on the other hand, have yet to approach any kind of engagement with Zen.
 
 
Pepsi Max
13:58 / 17.10.02
Nick> I disagree.

No. It's futile for anyone to try to explain Zen. Zen just is.

Zen is positioned, quite explicitly, outside the sphere of analytical reason.

Zen is positioned by most of its practitioners outside the sphere... yadda yadda.

That doesn't mean it can't repositioned, or discussed, or explored in a different way to its design.

If I were to say: "You can't seek or explore/critique/enrich Christianity through your Godless rationality" or "How dare you use your gender-based feminism to talk about consumer capitalism - they have nothing to do with each other", then the correct response would be a sigh of sadness.

You can't fence off elements of human experience in that manner.

Of course, whether such interregations are fruitful is a different matter entirely.

You might as reasonably require reason to take the form of Zen.

Why not?

That's not the point of analytical thinking, any more than a verbal explanation is the point of Zen.

So there's just the one point then? Well, that's fine then. We can all go home now...
 
 
Pepsi Max
13:58 / 17.10.02
Nick> I disagree.

No. It's futile for anyone to try to explain Zen. Zen just is.

Zen is positioned, quite explicitly, outside the sphere of analytical reason.

Zen is positioned by most of its practitioners outside the sphere... yadda yadda.

That doesn't mean it can't repositioned, or discussed, or explored in a different way to its design.

If I were to say: "You can't seek or explore/critique/enrich Christianity through your Godless rationality" or "How dare you use your gender-based feminism to talk about consumer capitalism - they have nothing to do with each other", then the correct response would be a sigh of sadness.

You can't fence off elements of human experience in that manner.

Of course, whether such interregations are fruitful is a different matter entirely.

You might as reasonably require reason to take the form of Zen.

Why not?

That's not the point of analytical thinking, any more than a verbal explanation is the point of Zen.

So there's just the one point then? Well, that's fine then. We can all go home now...
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
14:06 / 17.10.02
Actually, I meant "engaged emotionally" rather than "engaged with the topic in the form of Western rationalism". However, your response seems to exemplify precisely a problem that seems to keep cropping up.

How Zen is it to say "I'm Zenner than you"?
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
14:26 / 17.10.02
Jennings: Oh, make up your mind. Either you know very little about Zen and I can reasonably and fairly claim to know somewhat more, having studied it and meditated and sat Zazen and so on, or you do know something about it and you're just being a pain to get me to talk about Zen in a way I'd rather not.

It is not especially Zen to say 'I'm more Zen than you are'. It is analytical. You defined the playing field, now live with it.

Pepsi: this is frankly why I say it's not productive to discuss Zen analytically. You're talking about Zen as something to be repositioned, which implies that it has a position, and from an analytical viewpoint, of course it does. Zen doesn't acknowledge positions and postures, however: they are all equally illusiory, and they all get in the way of Zen.

If I were to say: "You can't seek or explore/critique/enrich Christianity through your Godless rationality"

Christianity is in many ways discursive. There are mystical versions of it which are indeed inaccessible to reason. You can talk about any mystical religion as much as you like. You will learn its tennets, its construction, its history, and still not really understand it.

or "How dare you use your gender-based feminism to talk about consumer capitalism - they have nothing to do with each other", then the correct response would be a sigh of sadness.

Another false comparison - and actually a false contention. Feminism has a great deal of shared history with captalism, both good and bad. Zen, on the other hand, is in direct opposition, as a construction of how to understand the world, to analytical reason. It sometimes uses the human tendency to analyse against itself - hence the koans. There is no school of Zen which maintains that successful analysis will get you there. And I'm not saying 'how dare you', I'm saying "what's the point?"

You might as reasonably require reason to take the form of Zen.

Why not?

From the point of view of Zen? No problem. Analysis, however, gets a bit shirty about it - hence, in fact, this discussion with Jennings, who, despite claiming to know little about Zen, is apparently prepared to judge the zen-ness of statements against a yardstick he has yet to identify.

So there's just the one point then? Well, that's fine then. We can all go home now...

I've been thinking that for some time. This conversation is losing its charm. Why on Earth do I persist in trying to answer questions which I feel miss the point about something I don't believe can be communicated properly by discussion? Politeness, perhaps, or a desire that Jennings not burn this thread into some other place where it won't interfere with the proper thinking. Which, now that I think about it, would matter not at all.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
14:58 / 17.10.02
Don't look at me. I'm *so* leaving this thread well alone.
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
15:20 / 17.10.02
For goodness' sake, why now? If you weren't interested, why did you make me go through all that after I expressed a desire not to?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
15:56 / 17.10.02
Well, I didn't. I said in the post before last that I was going to stop posting to this thread, and have only come back because you kept addressing me. Whether this thread has anything much left to say either about Zen or in general I know not.
 
 
cusm
16:23 / 17.10.02
I'm sure I could wank some comments on the futility of action out of the recent exchange...
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
16:32 / 17.10.02
The only eqiovalent of Mu in Western philosophy is some of the multiple state logics which are still considered 'pseudo-science' by much of the academic establishment.

See, chinese philosophy evolved in the absence of Aristotle, who is responsible for that most heinous and bogus foundation of every western-educated individual's most basic thought processes - that any given proposition must be EITHER true OR false.

Binary logic. It underpins everything about our culture, politics and society. And is, of course, a complete bunch of arse outside the imaginary realm of pure mathematics. The whole Either/Or argument leaves out the entire spectrum of possibility between these two.

Part of the reason I think eastern philosophy in general, and not just Zen, appeals so much to so-called 'New-Age' smellies (hah) is precisely because of this refutation of such a pig-headed and evident to the senses wrongness of greek classical thinking, which survives today in spite of the quantum theory and relativity that have grown out of it.

Note that it took classical greek philosophy several thousand years longer than classical eastern philosphy to formalise in mathematics what is just so much more meaningful in the poetry of ko-ans and the Tao Te Ching.

Bye for now

:-D
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
16:45 / 17.10.02
Oops. Posted that before getting on to page 2, when Nick and Jennings started the whole handbags at dawn thing.

Jennings, what's with the fried potato on the shoulder? The thread began with someone sking for online resources regarding zen, and the development of the post has thrown up more than enough, along with a few ko-ans which are bound to be of interest to the original inquisitor, at least to further fuel research and interest.

Suggesting that it is futile to read about and research zen is ridiculous. A quote from Charlie Parker (jazz again, not zen, strange that) sums it up nicely -

"Jazz is knowing everything there is to know about music. And then forgetting all of it"

(paraphrased, but you get the idea)

You seem to have an issue with those who *apparently* 'get it', at least more than you do. Blimey.
 
 
Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero
18:00 / 17.10.02
There are plenty of Zen sources around. You read them then you either get it or you don't. If you don't get it, you get on with it.

This is an important part. All the books and essays will only give you descriptions or arrows to point to it. It is useful to think of any and all discussion of zen as using two ideas (that often appear to be contradictory, such as a master with a big stick saying "fifty blows if you don't answer, and fifty blows if you do answer! Now answer!") to triangulate the third idea that lies beyond normal sight and understanding. These ideas are not capable of being explained, and certainly not with rational discussion.

So it really is a case of you either get it or you don't. Sort of like a joke, except the punchline can't be explained. Don't worry if you still don't have a clue about zen after you've read all the books. No one does. You don't learn Zen from books, you learn it from living. I didn't know a damn thing about zen until I stopped thinking about it and started actually doing things.

So why read the books at all? It's good to have some descriptions in case you want to know when you're there. Eventually, all the crazy stories will start to make sense, you'll "get the joke", and you'll have a big laugh at yourself for missing it all that time.

It's all an illusion. The true seer is never seen.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
23:11 / 17.10.02
It seems that this thread about Zen is actually a thread about Barbeloids. Barbeloids are Zen. Who knew? So....one more time.

Mu - your assumption that another's motivations can be broken down into a set of motive parts, they being either inimical towards or friendly to the idea of Zen Buddhism, is not only Aristotelian, but Aristotelian in a thoroughly simplistic fashion.
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
06:59 / 18.10.02
Ooh, stop it, you'll break the strap and lose your hankies.

Congratulations on putting the 'anal' back in 'analytical'.
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
07:10 / 18.10.02
Mu - your assumption that another's motivations can be broken down into a set of motive parts, they being either inimical towards or friendly to the idea of Zen Buddhism, is not only Aristotelian, but Aristotelian in a thoroughly simplistic fashion.

And where, pray, do you read that assumption? I neither know what you think, nor give a fiddler's fart what you think about Zen.
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
07:28 / 18.10.02
Haha! Part three!

The only assumption i made is that there is a motive for your posts, and that it 'seems' (to me), from what little can be gleaned (by me) from the content of your posts, to be antagonistic.

BTW, I am Aristotlean in thought process through and through, having been cultured, educated , indoctrinated and socialised by a system of education and society which rests upon the foundations laid by that very fella.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
10:21 / 18.10.02
Hardly. I was asking questions that I felt might moce the discussion along. It was explained to me that this was not the Zen thing to do, so I have stopped, and am now inhabiting this thread only to deal with your fixation upon me.

You have neatly answered your own question - you have made an assumption about motive, and the further assumption that there is a further mover behind that motive. Pure Aristotelianism, and not very interesting to boot.

Perhaps if any of your last three posts even mentioned Zen (outside the aforementioned fixation upon me), I would have a higher opinion of the general quality of thought in this thread. Of course, one could say that the whole point of Zen is that you *don't* mention it, you just get on with it, as has been mentioned. In which case a thread called "Zen" probably defeats the object anyway.
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
10:37 / 18.10.02
Pax!
 
 
grant
13:17 / 18.10.02
So to try to get back on track, is it even possible to point towards Zen from an Aristotelian starting point?
Or is the whole process one of backing up beyond that starting point?
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
13:31 / 18.10.02
Mu
 
 
cusm
15:39 / 18.10.02
Frustrating, isn't it?
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
15:41 / 18.10.02
*sigh*

'Mu' is probably the right answer, in that the question probably doesn't get a lot of traction on the subject under discussion.

On the other hand, 'mu' is also the wrong answer, because it's the expected answer, the known, canon answer. So it has no shock value and, for me, at least, no uplift.

So, a Barbelith koan: if Mu, no, and yes are all wrong, what is right?
 
  

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