Joe,
Thank you for your response. The two responses to the question "What is Zen?" that I like most are: "Just THIS." and "Shut up and sit." I would love to hear other potential responses. --ED --- In [email protected], "Joe" <desert_woodworker@...> wrote: > 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? ------------------------------------ Current Book Discussion: any Zen book that you recently have read or are reading! Talk about it today!Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Zen_Forum/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Zen_Forum/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
