Joe, This is BS. The cure, to use your metaphor, comes not from the "specialist" but from the life force of the universe = Buddha Nature.
The specialist can point the way to Buddha Nature for the ignorant but since Buddha Nature is everywhere no specialist is actually needed to point it out... There is only one master, one teacher, and that is Buddha Nature itself. To depend on a teacher is an attachment, a diversion. Zen is not to be found in a teacher or monastery. It's everywhere right in front of your nose.. Edgar On Oct 26, 2012, at 11:27 AM, Joe wrote: > Merle, > > It's one's practice of a koan that enables it to open and reveal what it > treats of. That revelation comes from your nature, not the koan's. And it's > you who opens, not the koan. The koan can do nothing without your practice. > > The marrow of Zen is not conveyed by reading. The text is simply medicine. > > With the restoration of your own health comes awakening, not before. > > There is no understanding of Zen, in fact. > > In Zen, we speak of one's "understanding", and what is meant is one's > realization, one's awakening. > > "Understanding" in Zen is not an intellectual appreciation that one holds, > nor a poetic metaphor that one holds. > > Expressions of Zen, or expressions of one's realization do not always come > through words. There are other ways: painting, martial arts, cooking, > archery, poetry, gardening, arranging flowers, making tea, drinking tea, > washing, cleaning, brushing the teeth, driving a car, etc. > > Koan practice is a medical treatment of oneself carried out by oneself in > consultation with a Specialist, a Zen teacher. Otherwise, > without the specialist at hand, it is Quackery. > > --Joe > > > Merle Lester <merlewiitpom@...> wrote: > > > > joe..my understanding of zen was it reached to the bone of the > > matter...merle > >
