Dear Joe We don't want to get too far afield, but I will sketch in a few things.
Ouspensky was a student of Gurdjieff. Meetings with Remarkable Men was based upon Gurdjieff's second book of All and Everything 1) Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson 2) Meetings With Remarkable Men 3) Life Is Only Real When I Am Gurdjieff's work deals with oral teachings and the phenomena of Legomonism. Anyone can google an introduction to what a Legomonism is -- examples: Chess, Sphinx, Pyramids, Dante's Inferno, Epic of Gilgamesh, etc ... Gurdjieff's work has been compared to Tibetan Buddhism, Taoism, Esoteric Christianity, Yoga, Hermeticism, Gnosticism. Most likely it comes from Central Asia, a small elect of either mythological deity/tradition, or an Esoteric School. Bennett and others have said its origins is Sarmouni (The Bees), the closes we have to this is the Sufi Kwaja tradition of Shah Bauhadin . . . probably somewhere in Afghanistan. There are references to The Bees in various esoteric forms of Buddhism, Taoism, and Sufism. One mention of it is in Entry Into The Realm Of Reality, The Guide, by Li Tonxuan, translate by Thomas Cleary. Thomas Cleary has a good introduction to this Wester and Northern aspect of Buddhism and Taoism. There are plenty of references to this in Gurdjieff's writings. Gurdjieff never taught or operated on a literal teaching style, he always used other means to get the student to question and discover for himself, so same thing with his tradition and writings. Question and verify everything with experience. In my estimation Gurdjieff was not a syncretist. He also did not bring another religion. It is a school, which the study of being is the subject. You have teachers help you with this, with Group work. Although people come and go, and all religious traditions are welcome. They don't teach religion or oppose it. You could look at the work of William Segal who was both a teacher with Gurdjieff Foundation as well as Soto Zen Buddhist. But back to our regular programming Shikan Taza . . . /\ Kirk --- In [email protected], "Joe" <desert_woodworker@...> wrote: > > Salik, > > On Gurdjieff, I followed so little of his traces, and don't have a good sense > of him, but I recall thoroughly enjoying a showing of the movie "Meetings > With Remarkable Men", at the Olympia Theater uptown on Broadway in NYC. > > It seemed his practice was eclectic: one from Column A, one from Column B, > etc. It seemed untrue to all the traditions borrowed from, and unseemly when > all put together. > > I looked at some P. D. Ouspensky, Gurdjieff's teacher or inspiration (?), but > I didn't get far: I was already a Yogi, and on the way to Zen practice. So > much for relatively more wild-eyed ideas, with no clear line of practice. > Plus, I had begun a career as an academic Philosopher, and dropped it after > the first blush with genuine Ch'an practice. Pretty fickle! > > We get lucky sometimes: the way was clear, for this poor slob. > > ;-) > > --Joe > > > "salik888" <novelidea8@> wrote: > > > > Joe > > > > I am a mureed in the Naqshbandi Tariqa, was intitiated, given intstruction > > in Fiqh, Zikr,Wird, pratices, etc . . . I actually practiced Islam for a > > number of years, had several Shaykhs. I have long-standing connections, > > involvement in Gurdjieff Work Groups. Of course Gurdjieff is sort of a > > Central Asian school. But I rarely go into the Sufi community anymore. Zen > > is home for me . . . > ------------------------------------ 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/
