Steve: One of the difficulties in forums is that not all participants are practitioners and because of that threads can go on and on with sometimes disparates ideas. As a result we have responses based in intellectual and not as much as much as the insight or the fruits of practise. Because there is no practise, there is no a direct experience, because there is no a direct experience there is no insight, because there is no insight there is no fruit of the practise. consequently what is left is a continuos intellectual and continuous information that the mind keeps gathering a bit from here and a bit from there. At the very beginning of finding the dharma, we were told never talk about anything that we didn't experience in us first as that wasn't the teachings of the Buddha. He himself only talked about what he experienced in him. Having said all that above and going back to the subject of compassion based only in myself experience with it. I would like to say that as a zennist practitioner there is no the idea or the concept of compassion but this doesn't mean that there is no compassion. Compassion arises naturally and by itself each time I'm in pain and take care of it. Each time my mind gets overloaded with nonsense and the processes of taking care of all that nonsese brings also compassion in me, even the same action of taking care of all that is by itself compassion. Each time I see an animal mistreated, or forests burning in summer in Spain, or plants feed with toxins that goes to human when they ingest them. Or the abuse that keeps having the sea by mankind and etc, etc. All this is compassion that arises naturally in one through oneself practice. It's a kind of compassion that is free from attachement. It's not sentimental...It's a kind of compassion that comes from being one with all forms of life or being in synchronisation with the universe as JMJM beautifully often express it. What's happens in zen that one doesn't dwell in the idea of compassion. Compassion happens and one experience it. We don't dwell on the idea of compassion. Compassion in zen is the energy that arises in one as many other energies arise also in one. We don't dwell on it but we have the direct experience of it. Of course just talking on myself experience here. Can't talk for others. Thanks Steve Mayka --- On Wed, 23/2/11, Jue Miao Jing Ming - 覺妙精明 <[email protected]> wrote:
From: Jue Miao Jing Ming - 覺妙精明 <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [Zen] Can A Buddha Harm Others? To: [email protected] Date: Wednesday, 23 February, 2011, 5:32 Excellent question. I would love to read everyone's input. Be Enlightened In This Life - We ALL Can http://chanjmjm.blogspot.com http://www.heartchan.org On 2/22/2011 9:26 PM, eugnostos2000 wrote: Hello. I have been following the recent discussions concerning zen, Zen and ethics with interest. IMO, it is a bit of a Red Herring to stay fixated on sexual ethics which even non-Zennists will often regard as a subjective muddle. So let me ask this. Can a Buddha deliberately harm others? Now doubtless there are some here that will say that zen has nothing to do with Buddha, etc. etc., but it is a fact that Zen arose within Buddhism as a way to become aware of our own Buddha-Dhatu in a direct way, unencumbered by intellectualism. And of course Zennists will assert that this "direct pointing to the heart of humanity" goes directly back to Gotama himself. So the question remains. Can a fully realized Buddha deliberately choose to cause harm? The BuddhaDharma has always been concerned, not just with Great Wisdom, but also with Great Compassion. Is this Great Compassion merely another conceptual delusion or is it a fundamental feature of Enlightenment itself? Steve
