Greetings Bill, Anthony, and all This one now reminds me of the Taoist teaching concerning the 'uncarved block' from the works TAO OF POOH and TE OF PIGLET. Apparently the 'uncarved block'(me, you, anyone, anything...) as it passes and progresses through the world and time, becomes more and more polluted (and covered by such pollution) by its surroundings/environment, making the 'uncarved block' less and less recognizable as time goes by. Also, carve the block and the block is no longer 'uncarved'. It has then lost its original nature...or, such original nature has been blocked from our minds/hearts/eyes. We cannot see the 'uncarved block'...the original face.. Folks, you gotta read the 2 works above. They're great! A little derogatory of Buddha (please see note below) in the beginning, but quite acceptable overall for all Zen students(me, you, anyone out there) NOTE: I'm not sure of the depth or width of author Benjamin Hoffman's knowledge of the Buddha or Zen, but it does seem to be lacking. However, I'm assuming here and I could be wrong but I did notice that he referred to the laughing Chinese 'buddha' as if the old prince himself, if not perhaps some god-like figure from the heavens. Maybe it's just me, but I somehow can't picture the old fellow thinking like a Chinese (as opposed to that of an Indian) with the way the author narrated the Tale of the 4 Vinegar Tasters Buddha be praised Mel
________________________________ From: Bill! <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Saturday, 14 January 2012 6:21 PM Subject: Re: [Zen] When you began learning about buddhism, How did your friends & family react? Anthony, I don't consider myself 'more advanced' than you. In fact if anything I would like to think I am 'less advanced' than you. In the case of zen practice the more you unlearn and the less advanced you are from your Original Nature the better. I believe the concept of 'cause-and-effect' (like all concepts) is illusory. ONE of the reasons I believe this is because the concept of cause-and-effect is completely dependent upon the belief in a sequencial, serial, uni-directional flow of time. Cause-and-effect requires at least two separate actions, one - the cause- which happens before the other - the effect. There is no sequencial, serial, uni-directional flow of time. There is only an ILLUSION of a sequencial, serial, unidirectional flow of time. There is only Now. The past exists only in our mind - we call this memory. The future exists only in our mind as a logical projection(based on our belief in cause-and-effect) of a concatenation of our illusion of Past and Now. And, to employ the also equally illusory power of logic I can state: since the flow of time itself is illusory any concept based on time must also be illusory. I hope this helps to retard you a little... ...Bill!
