Re: [Zen] Re: Caveat Emptor

[Jue Miao Jing Ming - 覺妙精明]

What does "seriously" or "nasty" mean?  How about "more seriously" or "less seriously" or "nastier". Adjectives as such are but relative terms in a human language, which are but forms of our conscious mind. None of these words means anything when we sit down and shut up. Even sit down and shut up are just the beginning...... Smile, you are on candid camera..... Bill Smart wrote: The whole point of this thread was to suggest people just LIGHTEN UP about the Zen Forum. It's just a forum. It's like going down to your local public park, sitting on a bench with 5 or 6 strangers, and engaging in a discussion about football, or the NBA, or politics, or zen. In fact an internet forum is less favorable than that since you can't even see the people you're talking to, and it's not an immediate, real- time conversation. If you find some information on here that's useful to you – good! If you think you can contribute something – good! If you want to make a joke about something – good! If you want to argue with someone about their statements and call them out on them – fine! If, however, you want to denigrate or hurt someone – then that's bad. Zen is full of stories about zen masters saying things that could be interpreted as `mocking' the person or the practice. How about `If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him!'? Or describing Buddha mind as `Shit on a stick'. Those could certainly be considered mocking – and in fact they are mocking. They're mocking the apparent fact that the other person has some preconceived ideas about Buddha, or Buddha mind or zen, that is probably interfering with their practice. They are said, however, not to denigrate or to hurt the other person, but to WAKE THEM UP! Unfortunately most of us, certainly including me, on this forum are not skillful enough to use mocking words like that successfully all the time. But, we try. Think of it like trying to tell a joke that doesn't make anyone laugh. It's not a big deal. Besides, the only thing you have to loose is your ego. You can take your zen practice seriously without taking the Zen Forum and everything that's posted on it seriously. …Bill! --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED]ps.com, "Al" <actionheroes@...> wrote: > > From: "cid830" <And to Al... I feel you have mocked the practice in prior > postings, > if I am wrong, I do apologize.>> > > Who made you the Pope of Zen? Am I being excommunicated? Are you the person > that sent me the nasty email about a week ago? > __._,_.___ Current Book Discussion: any Zen book that you recently have read or are reading! Talk about it today! Your email settings: Individual Email|Traditional Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe __,_._,___