Alex Bunard wrote: > Dear Fudo, > > You are right in outlining how one cannot engineer the > breakthrough. From our limited human perspective, > awakening (kensho etc.) appears to be an accident. > > If that's so, why practice? Well, there is a famous > contention that practice makes us accident-prone. > > So, there is a way to influence the arrival of the > awakening, after all? > > I like to always compare it to the following: a couple > may decide to concieve a child. Now, there still isn't > a clearcut way to engineer this. In other words, you > still need to be 'blessed' with procreational powers > if you are to concieve a child. > > Knowing that, the couple may decide to sit back and > wait and see whether they are, indeed, 'blessed' with > procreational powers. But that would, of course, be in > vain. > > Only by engaging directly in procreational activities > can the couple test this theory. No sex -- no test. > > Same is with awakening: no practice -- no > accident-prone. > > Alex
Dear Alex, Someone could pound their head against the wall,b superstitiously hoping that one blow or another might just knock some sense into them, but I do not feel this is a recommended course of action. The idea that being accident-prone means you have a better chance to be enlightened than you do to be hit by a truck....just seems rather foolish to me. It seems some arrive at a breakthrough without effort, and some fail to have a kensho after years of practice. I am a poor one to ask how to manufacture a kensho experience. I had mine while relaxing in a hammock on the porch before I ever heard of Zen beyond the popular media fiction of what zen is. I began to practice to try and understand what had happened. I will be a tough sell as to the need to become accident prone, apparently I am naturally accident-prone enough. I learned through my practice that kensho is really no big deal. It is not really needed. It is certainly nothing to be proud of. It was nothing I did, it was something everyone and everything did. It is not what Dogen speaks of when he speaks of enlightenment. Our practice is not a practice to induce or engineer a kensho experience. Dogen says our practice is enlightenment. It is making enlightenment happen in the real world. It does not need kensho or breakthrough. In some such a breakthrough can be a hindrance instead of an advantage. Tell a Soto monk about your breakthrough experience and he or she will yawn and go back to sweeping the porch. Be Well Fudo ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> $9.95 domain names from Yahoo!. Register anything. http://us.click.yahoo.com/J8kdrA/y20IAA/yQLSAA/S27xlB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Noble Eightfold Path: Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration, Right Livelihood Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZenForum/ <*> 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/
