Thanks, --Chris [email protected] +1-301-270-6524
On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 12:33 AM, Joe <[email protected]> wrote: > Chris, > > > Chris Austin-Lane <chris@...> wrote: > > > > That reluctance to challenge the prevailing conditions is why human > history > > has been so awful until so recently, and is only now slightly better. > > "You" -- yes, and even You -- have to look at it with the eyes of > Compassion and Wisdom, not with the calculating and critical eye you're > looking at it now. True compassion is nothing you can fake. The > historical Buddha is not the first person who comes to mind when I think of > folks who have let humanity down, and let their own humanity down. > Two words to remember about Zen: Not Always So. when people start to claim that enlightenment in a zen training center will cure them of participating in the entrenched systems of racism or sexism, then I think someone needs to speak up. The point, even merely for people that want less racism in the world, to pretend not to be other than we are; it is to handle that racism, built into the structure of our brains, in a responsible way that weakens the overall system of racism. I certainly wasn't claiming that Buddha let humanity down - I was claiming that his fumbling of the women monk issue shows that sexism was built into him, and he dealt with it as best he could. > > If you think that racism and sexism have become untenable to praise in > our > > world without people fighting, tooth and nail, to change their > conditions, > > establishing their right to autonomy, to their own head, against > intimates > > and strangers alike, then you should talk to more people involved in the > > changes. > If you think we got to the point of having women in the army without a legion of women fighting to change society, fighting their parents, spouses, children, and their own unconscious, then you are very wrong. Same for gay marriage, civil rights movement, and a whole host of the ways in which my children will have greater chance to live our their life as they are than their great-great grandparents. > Some of that is surely garbled; are you usually up so late at night? > Chris, I think we're all involved in the changes, there's no two ways about > it. You're free to establish yourself at the level of intensity that you > like. And it's one reason why we practice. > Is that more clear? What you attributed to the Buddha as a noble act I attribute to the same limitations that we all face. You know the joke: what's the difference between a Buddha and an ordinary person? Nothing, but the ordinary person thinks there is. I'm working rather intensely on a project due in 11 hours, and using the extra energy that brings up while waiting for compiles to post. > > > I think too that an awakened person does not break Precepts: Their > > > maintenance goes with the territory. To act otherwise is to go > > > deliberately against our nature. When we're awake, there is just our > > > nature, and nothing and no one to go against; and, one cannot be > deliberate. > Perhaps you also think the awakened person doesn't ever need to atone for things. That attitude I personally find to cause problems and allow people to fall into grave illusions. Awakened people still will do things that need apologizing for - they will apologize quicker and with less shame and dualistic hand-waving excuses, but we aren't free from the conditions that give rise to harm. > Didn't we just go through this with the NYT/zen abuse thread? Awakening > > doesn't change all the neural systems in the head, and those things have > > effects. To believe otherwise is to be condemned to 500 births as a fox. > > You're momentarily again mixing up "Karma" and awakening. You're > remembering a koan case involving a legend in which the question was asked > about whether an awakened person escapes karma. I'm saying that an > awakened person will not break Precepts. If our nature becomes covered > again somehow -- say, by sickness, or old age, or by an accident, or lack > of practice -- then newly formed karma can deflect our straight behavior, > and we are then subject to THAT new karma, and in the confusion, we do > neglect our nature at that time, because we can. This is called > "vexation", and it's said that vexation arises endlessly. Well, it arises > endless only if we are not awake. When we are awake, there is no vexation. I bring this koan up again and again because people keep implying that if we'd just get enlightened then magically we'd be free of our troubles. It just doesn't work that way. Doing good and not doing evil requires constant attention to the current moment before us. In pretending this isn't true, we harm our selves, our teachers and our fellow students. "Do not be deceived by anyone!" -- needs saying every day. The awakened person certainly will get drunk, lie, and abuse students. Not as many as average maybe, but certainly some do. They may well be lying to themselves when they do this stuff, I suspect so. But by any practical standard of certified awakening, it happens. I agree with Zen Dervish that it happens relatively infrequently with Zen; as my first teacher was fond of noting to new students, Zen training has been around a long time and had many kinks worked out of it. But humans are humans. > > > We continue to practice in order to remain awake, and thus to keep > > > "studying" the Precepts, as is said well. > Keep up your practice! And I hope you can attend some more very long sesshin regularly. Me too. And you too. > --Joe
