Happy New Year To You Bill, Al and everyone,
As per your call, following is a post related to "understanding" the nature of
things.
Too often, we made judgement based what we saw, encountered or heard. We did
so because we received these physical messages through our senses.
Too often, we thought these were the real life events, because we can see,
hear, touch or feel them. These experience are in physical forms.
Too often, in our haste to survive or to defend, we made judgment or react
quickly based on what we see, hear or feel.
If we delay our reaction a bit, take some time to explore, calm our emotions,
put ourselves in stillness, we will soon discover, these are merely effects and
not causes.
Causes are usually invisible, untouchable, indescripable. In Buddhist terms,
causes are actually the "real forms", while the effects we experience
physically are actually the "no forms".
The only way to truly be in sync with the causes, as well as causes of causes,
is to have a mind not affected by effects. Practice meditation helps us to
purify our thoughts, assumptions, judgments as well as enhance our inner spirit
to be in touch with the invisible universal causes.
In essence, we are then undertaking the karma of others and we are able to
liberate our own suffering from all the effects, which were merely physical
manifestation of the causes.
This state of nothingness can be labeled as understanding, awakening,
compassion, etc.
Happy New Year
_/\_
Donald
Bill Smart <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Anthony,
I agree again, especially in a text-based e-forum its impossible not to say
anything if you intend to participate.
I agree with your comment about eliminating self (or at least recognizing
it is illusory), but I dont agree about understanding what things are. I
think the faith that understanding will help solve problems is a precept from
modern empiricism and not a zen teaching. Understanding is vastly overrated
and does not help much in these matters.
Thats my experience anyway.
Thanks for posting something appropriate for discussion. The Forum has been
pretty quiet lately and youve helped perk it up a little. Now all we need is
more participants.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot, thanks to Als for his Wu-Wu zen comment. As
usual Al makes dark and very subtle puns that Im not sure everyone fully
appreciates. I do from my Dark Side, as Al has previously pointed out.
Bill!
Anthony Wu Wrote:
Bill,
You are talking about the essence of zen. But don't wash your mouth. In
modern world, you cannot just talk about talking nothing.
To eliminate self or to understand what things are help eliminate
suffering.
Thank you anyway.
Regards,
Anthony
Bill Smart <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Anthony Wu wrote:
Yes, the Satan you worship is your self. The better way is to have
others worship you. Either case, you cannot get rid of suffering, which is the
objective of Zen.
Anthony, I agree. I also believe the (God, Buddha, Krishna, Ganeesh,
Empiricism, Fill-In-The Blank) you worship is your self also. And as you said
in any case if you worship (or are even still are attached to) a self you will
have suffering.
I usually dont talk about zen having an objective, but I do believe
alleviation of suffering is the objective of Buddhism. And as Ive said many
times before talking about zen is virtually impossible, so using Buddhist terms
is normally okay with me. When the self dissolves so does suffering.
Happy New Year everyone!
Bill!
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