...'I believe in the forest, and in the meadow, and in the night in which the
corn grows'....
- Henry David Thoreau
...'Truth is in things, and not in words'....
- Herman Melville
In all my travels, I had never come across any teaching within the Zen
community that there is...
- some supernatural being out there responsible for the creation above
- a set philosophy set out in exact or detailed instructions
I personally don't know if there's a god out there, or how/why the earth and
the universe and all on and within such function the way they do...which brings
us back to zazen practise itself. In zazen, we're first aware of our breathing
and posture. This is in the beginning, but which we eventually don't even think
about because eventually, there's just the sense of nothingness. An absolute
nothing. There's nothing shamanic about the whole experience either, and so we
don't come across god, gods, or fairies..or other special beings of some sort
or another. So what is real exactly? I don't know about anyone else here, but
the air I breath is real, and so are the grass and trees outside. I can also
hear the night-time crickets, so they must be real also
On the other hand, we have people who are attracted to Buddhism because they
think it's a wonderful philosophy. The so-called Buddhist scriptures where
written...when? Did the man himself dictated such to a scribe? And who decided
200-300 years after the man's death which were cannonical, and which weren't?
Also, you have one side saying Nirvana is only for the monks whilst the
opposition say that it's for all. To complicate matters even worse, humanity in
the East look like they have invented/made up a complete hodge-podge
'buddhist' science based on wordings/terminologies, stages of
wisdom/enlightenment(?), ceremonies/rituals, and so on. Perhaps the best way
towards 'enlightenment' for such is to go outside and smell the flowers, and
breath some fresh air for a change. It would certainly get much further than
holding onto printed matter whose authors we're not even sure of 100%