Ed,
Thank you, I love a good question.
(I don't understand the "preconditions" part, so excuse me, Ed, if I muff the
answer).
Well, there's zen, and there's zen practice.
Zen is our original human inheritance, which is also the inheritance of
everything else, my lovely pedigreed cats, and the alley-cats I have not yet
been able to bring into my confidence. Plus, stones. Trees, too. Some say it
is the mind. Some say it is "not-mind" (whatever that is). No one knows what
they mean by "mind", anyway, whenever the word "mind" is "used". Well, mind is
just the channel that's open to everything, which is not an everything, because
it's less than one thing (Icchh-h, sappy. Burn this!).
I say it is marvelous intimacy with everything, or with one thing, which is
really nothing, and not one thing at all. But this assertion is worse than bad
poetry, and expires in three seconds!, and will self-destruct! Caution! On
second thoughts, I don't know what zen is. I call it a mystery, just to shake
it off my skin, like a wet dog vigorously and instinctively shakes off water.
You have to shake it off. ;-)
Practice is a way, and seems a necessary way, of removing thick creaking layers
of lacquer called karma, terrible unhealthy ways that have been inculcated by
society, our behavior, and by our education. They simply fall off. Who would
have thought!? But the essential thing is for one to practice with a teacher
and with a sangha, at least for some of the time (say, a long time, if you
can). Give up a lot to have that opportunity if you can find it. Maybe you've
done this.
Tnx again for the Q.
--Joe
> Joe, without any pre-conditions, could you tell us what zen is to you?
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