With palms together, Hello All,
Any Master worth his or her salt, however, would demand that a student forget everything word of his teisho and go learn it for him or herself on the cushion and in the marketplace. Most Zen Teachers I know are uncomfortable with students reading too much in the beginning, filling their heads up with ideas about the thing rather than experiencing the thing itself. Zen is, indeed, about each of us. Or rather our attitude in the world as we receive the world, interact with the world. Philosophy, like Zen, can become nothing more than dry, brittle words, clattering about the cold floor. The phenomenologists tried, in my opinion, to resurrect philiosopy. They wanted us to learn to see in the same way a practitioner of Zen sees: directly, with nothing added. I am not an academic and have little direct knowledge of the philosophers in question here, though I have read some of their work thirty years ago. My sense is that one of them was more interested in seeing directly, and the other was intereseted in parsing language so that it said what it was intended to say...or not. That was the question, I think. In my humble opinion, language is only a symbol of some cognition. It is either shared or not, perceieved clearly or not, but in any event is always a finger pointing rather than the thing itself. The danger in discussion is always that the words become so invested in the mind of the participant that he does not set them aside and learn. We must be ever mindful of our small self getting into the picture and blinding us, thereby, to what is being offered. Be well my friend, Sodaiho-roshi --- In [email protected], "Al" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > From: "Bill Smart" < Zen is more about what YOU have to say (or do, or not > do) - right NOW - as a response to THIS SITUATION; and not what someone else > said at some other time in some other, even seemingly similar, situation.<< > > I disagree. Unlike Heidegger or Wittgenstein who were a couple of smelly old > eccentric fart-sniffers, Zen has had hundreds of Zen Masters who have left > ample records, advice, and procedures for Zen practice. Zen is not about > YOU. And nobody really wants to know what YOU think, except for YOU. YOU are > not an authority about anything. > > I am reminded of people that call radio stations so that they can talk on > the radio and listen to themselves on their own radio. At the end of each > sentence they stop talking so that they can hear themselves at home. That is > why they are always told to turn off their radio before going on. In this > case, perhaps you should turn off your e-mail every time you post a remark. > ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Give the gift of hope to an orphaned child this holiday season. Become a sponsor>> http://us.click.yahoo.com/ZEPhsD/1RCMAA/i1hLAA/S27xlB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> 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/
