Mike,
Since Edgar been ducking direct questions lately I'd like to respond to
this.
I think you are exactly right that zen has to do with the removal of
intellectual concepts, not their addition, expansion or clarification.
...Bill!
--- In [email protected], mike brown <uerusuboyo@...> wrote:
>
> Edgar,
>
> I don't usually repeat my posts, but I'm honestly interested to see
how you'd answer the questions I put to you in my previous post (below).
My understanding is that Buddha Nature is Buddha Nature and it doesn't
develop as more research is done in the field of physics, psychology,
neuroscience etc. Isn't it a more a question of losing layers rather
than adding layers?
>
> Mike
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: mike brown uerusuboyo@...
> To: "[email protected]" [email protected]
> Sent: Tuesday, 13 November 2012, 20:26
> Subject: Re: [Zen] Re: Is buddha nature coninuous?
>
>
> Â
> Edgar,
>
> It's good to see you back and well. Unfortunately I can't say the same
about your theories.
>
>
> "It's an updated understanding of how mind works that was unknown when
the Zen texts were written."Â
>
>
> Are you saying that prior to this 'breakthru' in neuroscience the
Patriarchs weren't practicing 'real' Zen, but that you now are? Is this
discovery definitive or could there be further "updates" which would
render the Zen you practice now obsolete? Are you in fact practicing Zen
or something different entirely?
>
>
> Mike
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Edgar Owen edgarowen@...
> To: [email protected]
> Sent: Monday, 29 October 2012, 22:34
> Subject: Re: [Zen] Re: Is buddha nature coninuous?
>
>
> Â
> Joe,
>
> I think you have a mistaken interpretation of what 'mind moving'
actually means...
>
> Mind is a computational system that continually computes sensations,
actions etc. Thus mind continually moves. There is no escaping that so
long as you are alive. In fact measurements show that mind is almost as
active during sleep as when awake.
>
> So mind always moves in that sense. Everything you do you do it
precisely because your mind is moving.
>
> What Zen means by mind not moving is different. It means that mind
moves in sync with reality, not in opposition to it. This 'Zen is mind
not moving' platitude was written centuries ago when the computational
dynamics of mind were not understood. It refers to a state when you
don't consciously think you are deciding to take particular actions but
actions seem to flow spontaneously from an unconscious inner source.
However it is now known that is always happening anyway. The conscious
mind actually very rarely makes any decisions at all even though it
thinks it does. That's the illusion. The source of almost all decisions
and actions is always the unconscious inner computational system.
>
> It's an updated understanding of how mind works that was unknown when
the Zen texts were written.
>
> So Zen is 24/7, whether your mind is moving or not. If there is
realization that is. Zen is a matter of realizing what is actually
happening, not getting rid of all thoughts which is of course impossible
if you want to function in reality and survive through the day...
>
> True mindlessness = lobotomy or more accurately being dead!
>
>
> If you want a reference even Suzuki Roshi agreed with this when I put
it to him...
>
> Edgar
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Oct 29, 2012, at 4:30 PM, Joe wrote:
>
> Â
> >Edgar,
> >
> >Ha, ha.
> >
> >Yeah, I don't get what motivates your comment.
> >
> >Let's see if, no matter what mind you are in now, you can follow a
logical exposition:
> >
> >The Zen adept Sumie ink artists who paint big black circles on rice
paper do so with a mind that does not move: I mean, they do it with NO
mind (and hence, no mind-motion).
> >
> >I remember our Shif-fu, on retreats, teaching us how to come OUT of
meditation. He'd say, "MOVE YOUR MIND, first, then move your BODY, VERY
SLOWLY, and sway your body in ever-widening circles from the waist,
first in direction, then in the other".
> >
> >That always seemed like un-necessary advice to me, before certain
developments on retreat...
> >
> >...After which, I found that it was impossible to move the mind, and
the body could nonetheless move.
> >
> >But the months of life afterwards with the mind not moving at all was
a continuing marvel and surprise. And yet, life was certainly possible,
and richer than ever before. "Decisions" and actions were the best I
have ever done.
> >
> >And, Edgar, I found I could not only write, but I could type.
> >
> >I had to type.
> >
> >I needed to type because my job was to control an advanced
radio-telescope from a Tektronix terminal at the top of Pupin Hall,
120th Street and Broadway. I discovered in these months giant filaments
of cold molecular gas, constrained and confined by magnetic fields, in
the Milky Way pouring from high above the galactic plane in the
Orion-Arm, and down onto the galactic disk, where the supersonic impact
from the flow stimulated the formation of stars in objects like
Monoceros R2, and the Rosette Nebula. The Great Nebula M42 in Orion is
part of this complex.
> >
> >Decades more of practice and many more retreats and more awakenings
showed the same nature and character of our empty, still, awakened
state, in the midst of no-matter-what activity. No thoughts: nothing
moving. Life is a continuous intuition: the only mind is the mind we
all share, which is no mind.
> >
> >I can say that the currents in the mind, or head, and the feeling or
sensation that there are thoughts, or ANYTHING moving at all, is an
illusion that pertains to the un-awakened state, and to that state only.
These things are illusions and delusions, but the awakened state does
not deprecate them: they are simply not present in the awakened state,
however; not present at all.
> >
> >Surely, in the un-awakened state, there is the sense of something
moving, and of something that takes TIME to pass before the awareness.
This appears to indicate that free action of the mind is dammed-up, or
necked-down, in the un-awakened state, into a bottle-neck situation,
which is just what we might also expect.
> >
> >NOT in the awakened state. Nothing takes time.
> >
> >Prajna is likened to LIGHTNING, for this reason, BTW.
> >
> >See the Dorje lightning-bolt images at Tibetan places?
> >
> >Prajna is entirely spontaneous and can not be mulled-over nor
formulated.
> >
> >Compassion arises simultaneously with Prajna. Compassion is not
something that you FEEL, in the awakened state, you simply respond
naturally.
> >
> >And so it is.
> >
> >--Joe
> >
> >> Edgar Owen edgarowen@ wrote:
> >>
> >> Joe,
> >>
> >> Well obviously your mind was moving when you wrote this... The mind
has to move to write...
> >>
> >> THAT's the experience...
> >
> >
>
