--- In [email protected], Neutral Milk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On 7/28/05, Bill Smart <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > ...preceeding text clipped...
> >
> > > Words are everything.
> >
> > If 'words are everything', why is the very essence of zen, that
> > which differentiates it from other forms of Buddhism, attributed
to
> > the wordless, non-verbal, mind-to-mind transmission between the
> > historical Buddha Sakyamuni and the first patriarch Mahakasyapa?
> > Why wasn't this transmission done via a lecture, or better yet in
> > the form of writing?
> >
> > Words are nothing. Words are wisps of smoke which cloud your
vision
> > and burn your nostrils. Their stench only ceases when they
> > inevitably and completely dissipate into the clear sky.
> >
> > Clarity is everything. Zazen is clarity.
>
> Clarity is no separation. As long as you splinter things into the
> 'real' ones (presumably the ones that are not 'wisps of smoke which
> cloud one's vision and burn one's nostrils') and the ones with a
> stench of 'unreality' (in your particular case, words), you have
not
> even a trace of clarity.
Your parapgraph above is a mish-mash of absolute vs. relative
rhetoric. I thought we already got through that. Clarity is the
ability to see things as they are. Clarity is absolute. Things-as-
they-are are relative. The smoke appears. The smoke does what it
does (cloud/sting). Then the smoke dissipates into the sky. The
smoke does not cease to exisit. It looses its relative qualities
and is subsumed by the absolute. I am affected by the smoke when it
is here. I am unaffected when it goes away - unless I become
attached to it. Then it permeates my clothes and I reak of smoke.
>
> The Buddha-and-Mahakashyapa 'wordless' incident is just a bunch of
> words. Yes, they are nothing, but so is the transmission of the
> enlightened mind (refer to the Diamond Sutra for further
clarification
> on this).
My whole point in this thread is that I don't have to 'refer to the
Diamond Sutra' to find clarity. I acheive that by sitting. I've
read the Diamond Sutra and many other sutras - many times. I've
memorized and chanted them. They did not bring me clarity. They
brought me a false sense that an UNDERSTANDING of the sutras was
clarity. It wasn't. It was clutter. I've understood that by
finding clarity through zazen.
The clarity I get through zazen is not the same as the understanding
I got from studying the sutras. Maybe its differnt for you; or
maybe as you suggest you are on a different path, or a different
section of the same path. Bon voyage.
> ...snip... And
> we naively believe that we are the masters of the words, while
> actually being totally ensnared and enslaved by them.
Now it's my turn to not understand one of your postings. The
statement above seems to agree with what I've been saying. Are we
violently disagreeing, or are you just giving self-referencing
example of the garble of words? What gives?
> But, of course, people are free to think and believe whatever their
> whims tell them...
...And people are free to read all the words they want.
I actually like the word 'whim'. It means an urge that is un-
planned, not bound by reason, immpermanent, spontaneous, pre-
thought. Sound familar?
The difference is all those words you read come from other people
and attempt to describe THEIR thoughts and THEIR experiences. My
whims come from me.
Current Book Discussion: Appreciate Your Life by Taizan Maezumi Roshi
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