Bill!,
Ha! I criticize your statement here.
The fellow gets deep down into the basement, and sees the treasures in the wine
cellar, then says that the stairway that led him down there and bore all his
weight, step by step, safely!, and then removed all his weight, is "fluff",
extraneous, and non-essential. It may not be of the essence you speak of, but
it was essential for YOU!
Another baby with the bathwater guy, in that view.
There you have my criticism.
You know I respect you and your experience and practice. But I don't like to
see you stray, either, and mis-lead, either, nor do I like to see you or anyone
mis-represent the richness and functionality of the panoply of tools of
awakening.
Folks don't need -- and can't use -- teachings about "THIS!". And you cannot
give any such teachings.
They'll discover "THIS!" on their own, and must discover it or never actually
encounter it by any mitigated means. What they need is a stairway to the
basement. Take that away from YOURSELF at a certain point, surely, but don't
"dis" it, at least not publicly. Impressionable people may be on board.
--Joe
> "Bill!" <BillSmart@...> wrote:
>
> Zendervish,
>
> In that statement I made I use 'essence' to mean the core teaching and
> practice of zen. I sometimes call all the rest of it 'fluff', which just
> means extraneous and non-essential.
>
> Buddhism is a good example of very complex 'fluff'. So are all zen teaching
> techniques like zazen, koan study, kinhin, bowing, chanting, samu, etc...
>
> Like actual 'fluff', some of these are comforting and even useful to shield
> yourself from the bumps and grinds of reality, but none of it is essential.
>
> The only essential is Just THIS!
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