Mel, You quote: ...'Truth is in things, and not in words'.... - Herman Melville But some say: both things and words are illusions. Another quotation: 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 You see the advantage of zen. What is real? A good question. Anthony
--- On Thu, 6/1/11, Mel <gunnar19632...@yahoo.com.au> wrote: From: Mel <gunnar19632...@yahoo.com.au> Subject: [Zen] some old sayings To: "zen forum" <Zen_Forum@yahoogroups.com> Date: Thursday, 6 January, 2011, 8:51 PM ...'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%
