On 7/28/05, Bill Smart <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> 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 the ability to realize that there is no such thing, nor
could there ever be such thing as 'things as they are', 'the ability
to see', and finally, 'clarity' itself.
> 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.
This is all wishy-washy self-indulgent daydreaming. What smoke, what
sky, what relative, what absolute? Where's the clarity in that? It's
only one giant mess.
> 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.
If by sitting you achieve an insight that there is something called
'clarity' over here and then there is something else called
'muddleness' or 'non clarity' over there, then I'm afraid you may be
just kidding yourself. That state certainly is millions of kalpas away
from anything even resembling clarity.
> 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.
And that's your crown argument that it's the Sutras' fault? Have you
ever contemplated the possibility that the clutter is coming from you,
not from the sutras?
> I've understood that by
> finding clarity through zazen.
If you truly did, you'd no doubt realize the true role of those Sutras.
> The clarity I get through zazen is not the same as the understanding
> I got from studying the sutras.
The clarity you get through zazen should definitely enable you to get
the full clarity from studying the Sutras. There is absolutely no
difference between the two.
As a matter of fact, it's actually the most perfect test -- people who
have attained perfect clarity through zazen can perfectly well explain
the Sutras, down to the very deepest level of detail. If a
practitioner can't do that, it's time for her to go back to the
'drawing board' (in this case, back to the meditation cushion).
> 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.
Thanks. No, we're all on the same path. How could it ever be different?
> > ...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?
If you ask any sufficiently mature person what's their level of
mastery of the world, most of them would admit that, try as they
might, they've managed to master only a tiny portion of this world.
Yes, they can master, to a certain degree of predictability, the
temperature fluctuation in the room they're sitting in, and also the
inflow of food and water that they can put on a table, etc. But if
they are mature enough, they must realize and admit it to themselves,
and to others, that all those 'certainties' are very fragile, and may
unpredictably break at any moment. An earthquake, a
fire/flod/tsunami/volcano/vile epidemic etc., not to mention any
human-made disasters (such as a terrorist attack), can quite easily
put a kibosh on any and all of those 'certainties' of life.
So, a grown-up, mature person is pretty much resigned to the
unavoidable suffering in this world. Even if everything else goes
perfectly fine, as if in a fairy tale, at least no one is getting any
younger, and eventually all, even the luckiest ones, will die.
However, there is one facet of this world where all, even the most
resigned, jaded and skeptical people agree that the mastery is theirs
-- and that's language. At least, people say, come hell or high water,
I have managed to master one thing in my life: the language. I know
how to articulate it, how to use it perfectly.
This is the deadliest of all delusions! This is what the Buddhist
teaching is all about. Wake up, and allow yourself to realize that not
only are you nowhere near to mastering the language, you are actually
totally ensnared, totally enslaved by the language. The language is
your true master!
Once you realize that, you'll be able to clearly see that even those
'wordless' aspects, such as someone twirls the flower and someone else
smiles in full understanding, are part of the language. One doesn't
have to speak, write or read in order to be exercising language, to be
ensnared by the language. Every act, from the raw sensory input all
the way to the most complex cognitive constructs, is nothing but
language.
If you stare at the wide open blue sky, try to realize at that moment
that that experience is governed by the language. Everything is
conceptual, even the seeming forrays into the non-conceptual
territory.
This is basically all that the Buddha was talking about. It is
crucially important for us to wake up to that fact. Otherwise, we're
merely kidding ourselves.
> I actually like the word 'whim'. It means an urge that is un-
> planned, not bound by reason, immpermanent, spontaneous, pre-
> thought. Sound familar?
No. I guess what you're aiming at is some mythical, mystical territory
beyond the terror of words? Those are nothing but castles in the sky.
Flowers in the sky, that never emit any fragrance. You may chase after
them, you're of course free to do that, but in the end you'll return
empty handed.
Why waste time?
> 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.
So long as you think that you are different from other people and that
your whims are separate from their whims, you'll continue to waste
your time.
Current Book Discussion: Appreciate Your Life by Taizan Maezumi Roshi
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/
