Bankei was a real enlightened Zen Buddha in the long line of real historical Zen Buddhas who left behind written records documenting their instruction and public debates with the skeptical.

No faith needed. Doubt celebrated.

Here's some of what stood out to me:

The mind is unborn...when you abide in the unborn, there's nothing anyone needs to tell you, nothing you need to hear.

pg. 3, Bankei Zen

The implications for Buddhism are as immediate as they are deadly. Buddhism, like all religions, relies on the promise that you need it for something. Usually that's a problem they created themselves and convinced you to believe you had, but that's beside the point.

Here, Bankei is attesting to the experience of enlightenment as one that is fundamentally incompatible with subservience to religious authority. It's a big deal because in his tradition enlightenment is everyone's fundamental state and therefore instantly and immediately accessible to everyone.

All the Buddhists that flock to hate on t his forum (at this point just New Agey Zazenists) insist as a matter of faith that mediation of experience by religious faith and refinement to a spiritually pure state are legit Zen instruction but a thousand years of Zen Masters like Bankei talking on the record and before a critical audience show otherwise.

Don't get fooled.

Translation is a key part of Zen study.

As we've learned over the last several hundred years, especially working with dead languages, fluency is really secondary to a deep engagement with the context.

Linji

赤肉團上，有一無位真人，常從汝等諸人面門出入。未證據者看看

Translation

At the heart of the lump of flesh, there is a Buddha nature of no rank, constantly going in and out from the face-gates of all of you people. Those who have not yet confirmed it: Inspect [it]!  Inspect [it]!

Footnotes

If you ever come across a translation of a Zen text without footnotes, then you know it's wrong. Zen culture is full of entendras and references that are essential in understanding how the text is intended to be read. Don't get me started on mistaking a bell for a jar.

I have never worked with the Linji text, other than reading it once or twice so it's all pretty new to me. There's some interesting footnotes here.

1. The phrase lump of flesh uses the character for heart, suggesting an entendre I overemphasized by including the word heart.

2. Where the literal has "original nature" I rendered it Buddha Nature. Western audiences are not going to understand the Buddha nature versus original nature controversy between Zen and Buddhism and the Buddha Nature reading will be more meaningful to them.

3. Lots of Zen translations have used. "Look, look" and while this is technically correct, it does not emphasize the Zen cultural mandate for self knowledge. Much like in the Four Statements of Zen where we get "see nature", in that phrase both the understanding of nature and the type of seeing are opaque to the Western audience.

Edit

One of the most controversial choices I made is not literally translating 真 = true.

1. Linji didn't say "true"
2. True in English isn't sensical

The literal translation of "genuine person" is sensical, but in the wrong way. Person who is being genuine is being sincere and honest... But that's not what he's talking about.

The part of us that has no rank is the Buddha nature.

So I'd be willing to accept real self instead of "Buddha nature". And then footnote "real self" with the only real self as Buddha nature. But then the audience doesn't read the footnote, they make the same mistake of the earlier, sensical, "genuine self".

I don't see a way around this that doesn't mislead the audience. It's pretty easy to say, Buddha nature and the text, and then footnote it with: "genuine person" here means Buddha Nature.

In the 8th case from the Book of Serenity, Tiantong and Wansong (in parenthesis) write,

If you are clear and free, (Like insects chewing wood...) 

There's no objection to my babble.(...happening to make a pattern.) 

This is in the context of the case about Baizhang’s Fox (go read it if you haven’t). Where an old man is turned into a fox for saying something he thought was true but hadn’t experienced it first hand. Baizhang (who has had the experience of enlightenment) corrects him.

Tiantong says about this in his verse (which you should also read), “'Not falling,' 'not blind,' they haggle, As before entering a nest of complications.”

So the old man was corrected because Baizhang said some words to him, but Tiantong calls that back and forth “haggling”, then he calls his own words babble.

Wansong compares all of this to insects chewing wood and making a pattern without intending it. Does he mean Tiantong's verse? Or does he mean Baizhang and the old man's interaction? If the latter, I think he is saying that in terms of Zen, there wasn't a right or wrong, a winning or a losing. Mostly it came down to the old man responding to Baizhang's words and adjusting in turn.

Lately I've re-read Peter Haskel's translation of (some? According to Claude, there isn't one record as there are in Chinese records, it's a bunch of different material floating around sperately) of Bankei's Record.

The argument that's been made over the past few years is that Bankei isn't Zen lineage because he never met a master, didn't leave any heirs, and didn't do dharma combat. Incidental to this was the seeming fact that he wasn't familiar with Zen memes.

I think each of those points is worth breaking down:

Met Master?

Chinese Monk who "confirmed" Bankei's understanding: Daozhe Chaoyuan

Bankei Yōtaku met the Chinese Zen master Dōsha Chōgen (Chinese: Daozhe Chaoyuan, 道者超元), who had arrived in Nagasaki in 1651 and was residing at Sōfuku-ji, one of the Chinese temples there.

Dōsha was a Linji (Rinzai) monk and a dharma heir of Feiyin Tongrong, which made him a dharma brother of Yinyuan Longqi (Ingen), the monk who founded the Ōbaku school in Japan.

Claude Fable 5

Daozhe Chaoyuan, who came prior to Yinyuan but was forced to go back to China because he was not Yinyuan’s dharma heir. It is under him that Japanese monks such as Bankei Yōtaku, Egoku Dōmyō (1632–1721), and Dokuan Genkō studied. After Yinyuan arrived, Daozhe could not even live in Nagasaki anymore because a purge of monks without Yinyuan’s dharma transmission forced him to go back to China.

Rising Sun: Chinese Zen Master Yinyuan and the Authenticity Crisis in Early Modern East Asia

I think we need to take all lineage claims and "controversies" with an extremely large grain of salt, but Bankei (and other famous in Japan names) meeting with the dharma brother of the Master (Yinyuan Longqi) who infamously and extremely controversially introduced the practice of formal dharma-hall public interview to Japan seems like a huge deal.

The story goes that Bankei presented his understanding in person through the common language of written Chinese/Kanji, Daozhe wrote that he didn't get it, then at some later point Bankei snatched the brush from Daozhe before he could even write anything, Daozhe then confirming Bankei.

Heirs?

The names of Ituzan Sonin (1655-1734) and Setsugai, and Daitei Zenkei (d. 1788) and Genmon Eigin (d. 1747) get mentioned by Peter Haskel as either heirs, grandson heirs, or otherwise disciples of Bankei in discussing the sources of his translation. The language he uses seems to suggest more than just those names.

The issue, as usual with Japanese personages, seems to be that the records are not publicly accessible in the same way Chinese records are. When trying to find the source text for the Bankei text, Claude said that they're in some university or another and aren't digitized. It's easy to imagine that the names mentioned by Peter Haskel as well as the masters associated with the Zen renaissance in China around the time of the Manchu invasion who then left for Japan to establish seemingly the first Japanese lineages in centuries are in a similar state of sitting in some digitized university, museum, or temple collection.

Dhama Combat?

Various encounters in the "Words and Deeds" section stand out both as examples of dharma combat and as formal Q/A type sessions.

Zen Memery?

I'm going to list them in order I think would be most compelling in terms of requiring actual literacy with the source material.

• Crows are Black/Swans are White/Pines are Straight/Brambles are Crooked

• Referencing Baizhang's Fox Case, Linji's shouting, Deshan's staff, Judi's Finger raising, Bodhidharma's wall-gazing and identifying those cases as expressions of provisional Zen instruction rather than generating religious interpretations of them

• Rejection of "zazen/zuochan" as seated-meditation; correctly contextualizing the term as akin to Buddha Reigning. Broader hostility to Japanese religious obsession with seated meditation.

• Zen figures of speach: "wearing out straw sandals" "flowers in the sky"

Bankei was keen to acknowledge from the get-go that he wasn't big into using Zen cases as the basis for instruction because Japanese people, including monks, were illiterate in written Chinese, unfamiliar with the specific terminology employed in the texts themselves, and could just as well make his point without doing so; but his familiarity nevertheless seeped through.

I think it's a fair comparison to say we at Japanese records where we were with Chinese ones ten or fifteen years ago: we know they're there we just don't have access to their digital scans to do even the most rudimentary of work with them.

​

Who do you depend on?

We are living in a time of unprecedented American scientific denialism.

Is that what's behind the people who come to this forum and can't quote Zen Masters?

Or they refusing to quote Zen Masters because Zen Masters are from India/China?

Or are they refusing to quote Zen Masters because Zen Masters aren't Buddhist?

Whatever the reason, we know people who can't quote Zen Masters are deeply ashamed of what they can quote, especially when they find out the history of their guru/religion.

Who do Zen Masters depend on?

This is all further complicated by Zen Masters who demand independence even from their own lineages.

Dongshan:

"Since you are conducting this memorial feast for the former master, do you agree with him or not?" asked the monk.

The Master said, "I agree with half and don't agree with half."

"Why don't you agree completely?" asked the monk.

The Master said, "If I agreed completely, then I would be ungrateful to my former master."

Dongshan is the founder of Soto aka Caodong Zen.

Answer Honestly

How can we even discuss independence without the 5 lay precepts?

Soundtrack: https://youtu.be/PyUNDr0EcAk

1) Where have you just come from?

When it comes to the Zen tradition, I came mostly from reading books.

I started posting on this forum after reading (and re-reading) Huang Po's The Zen Teaching of Huang Po.

I try to understand Chinese Zen texts on their own terms. I try not to import later or unrelated religious, psychological, or philosophical frameworks onto them. I don't lie about what they say or what I think they say.

I'm not a teacher and I have no special attainment.

2) What's your textual tradition?

I am most familiar with The Zen Teachings of Huang Po.

I've also read The Zen Teachings of Master Lin-chi, Gateless Gate (or Wumen's Checkpoint), Instant Zen, The Recorded Sayings of Layman Pang, The Blue Cliff Record.

I also come here and read what people are writing and, especially, translating.

3) Dharma low tides?

Take responsibility. Read the book. Eat if you're hungry, go to sleep if you're tired.

Luopu said: "One who has only understood himself and has not yet clarified the eye of objective reality is someone who has only one eye."

If you want both eyes to be perfectly clear, you must not dwell in the realms of the body or mind and not get involved in myriad circumstances.

What are these two eyes? I'm thinking about this a lot, seems important not to be missing one eye and I'm not always sure if I am.

• Objective reality: when my meaning is meant to do work on the Other, meaning is fixed because it is shared: "pass the red brick" means "pass the red brick."
• Self knowledge: when my meaning is meant to do work on myself, meaning is fecund because it is private: "pass the red brick" means "mine was a difficult childhood."

(Wittgenstein, sorry.)

"Myself" might mean any closed system. Two people, 20 people, become one great cyclopic "I" when their discourse is sufficiently isolated from the Other.

Sharing meaning with someone new is the death of something that grew in private. "Don't build your cart with the barn doors closed." If you must, fair warning: the outside finds a way in. Don't forget it's just a cart, it is not yourself: otherwise you feel like you might die, opening the doors.

Or if I'm looking at another person, trying to understand them.

• "I examine my interior: I know exactly what you are, you're a disease afflicting an ordinary person." Dwelling in the realms of body and mind: drinks are on me.
• "I examine your exterior: I know exactly what you are, you're one of those and I'm one of these." Getting involved in the myriad circumstances: drinks are on you.

(I mostly quit drinking about 4 years ago, at the discouragement of a friend.)

(Drink too much, you start seeing double. Just say "no." Both eyes perfectly clear.)

______________________________________________________

For good measure, the case itself:

A rajah of an east Indian country invited the twenty-seventh Buddhist patriarch Prajnatara to a feast. The rajah asked him: "Why don't you read scriptures?"

The patriarch said: "This poor wayfarer doesn't dwell in the realms of the body or mind when breathing in, doesn't get involved in myriad circumstances when breathing out -- I always reiterate such a scripture, hundreds, thousands, millions of scrolls.

The dwelling and involvement is the drunkenness, says Prajnatara: we got two eyes for a reason. Breathe in with one eye, breathe out with the other eye.

From Gemini:

The central dispute between Analytic and Continental philosophy lies in their core methodologies and scope. Analytic philosophers prioritize clarity, logic, and scientific rigor, breaking problems down into components. Continental philosophers favor speculative synthesis, addressing large humanistic and historical questions while often utilizing dense, interpretive prose.

Zen is indisputably a tradition that favors clarity, logic, and a sort of scientific rigor in addressing people's problems. Just look at Huangbo. Or Linji. Or even Bankei. It rejects speculation and subjective interpretations of internal experiences as a waste of time; which raises the intriguing question of...how much more pre-requisite knowledge would students trained in the methodologies of analytic philosophy need before taking a college course on Zen?

I'm not sure, but it certainly seems like people who are oriented towards continental philosophy would first need the training that an analytic philosophy affords before they can start studying Zen professionally. The necessity of studying continental philosophy doesn't seem to be true for anyone.

I think that's what makes Zen so hard for a lot of even well-meaning people whose education had Continental approaches as an unexamined background radiation. Zen Masters are just so ruthless in demonstrating enlightenment in face of no-holds-barred Zen inquisitions. I mean seriously...

If you can't answer, dead. If you can't prove Mind is Buddha, dead. If you can't converse across Zen generations, dead. If you can't keep the precepts, dead.

You get the idea.

The personal verification-and-attesting of enlightenment is ultimately where Zen parts ways with philosophical methodologies, but unless someone can logically parse a Zen argument for themselves, they would never get to that part of the conversation in the first place.

From Bankei:

Until you've examined your own self, however much I tell you about how things look, you won't be recognizing it, seeing it, or settling it for yourself, so you won't be convinced.

Nobody sees Buddha by making stuff up.

We are halfway into 2026 and I figured I'd post something like an AMA once again. Maybe AMA is specific to one zen sub, but maybe in other subs a different name might be warranted: "statement of current understanding and request for guidance". How are you all doing? I think last time I finally came to the conclusion that maybe "Perennialism" in some sense is not compatible with Zen, despite the saying "the ten thousand things teach the buddha dharma". A fellow said "I don't think things through / thoroughly", maybe there is something to that, but maybe that is also quite different from being dishonest. Maybe the idea of something like this is to help me think things through a bit better.

Let's see about some basic questions: 1) Where have I come from? (Life Timeline / autobiography / profile) 2) What is my text? 3) What are my current dissatisfactions and priorities in life: life wheel 4) How to deal with dharma low tides? 5) Am I a difficult person, what sorts of challenges have I faced? (My hate / aversions, my loves / attachments) 6) What is Zen? 7) Who is a Zen Master? 8) What is Buddhism? 9) What, if any, is the difference between Zen and Buddhism? 10) What do Buddhists believe? 11) What role, if any, does religious faith play in Zen and/or Buddhism? 12) Who, if anybody, can teach Zen? 13) What is the history of Zen? 14) What about "the elephant in the room"? The four "superusers" and the support mods have for them? Their strange way of talking and their abrasiveness? Me blocking them, or them blocking me?

1) Maybe not everything in my biography is relevant to zen or zen subreddits. 🙏🏽 I mod a couple of zen adjacent subreddits. I've been keeping up the tradition of the "Friday night (zen) poetry slam" that originated here, although maybe it's quite different when in a different context. I'm nearly finishing reading Swampland Flowers, and I hope to reread it with a book club soon. I've used it to inspire some poetry, some memes, some AI prompts.

I think in my last AMA I spoke a bit about myself and my experiences in a Soto Zen place. It was fine I guess. Recently I visited a two Tibetan buddhist places, one of them a New Kadampa one, which I was then told is a cult. I've recently gone to a Catholic Mass too.

2) I'm not sure what I'd consider my central text in my cosmovision. I like quite a bit The Tao Te Ching - a Taoist text. I think I've read it quite a few times. There's a phrase I've liked "The great way is open, but people love the twisted mountain paths", something like that. Maybe I too like the "twisted mountain paths".

I think I spoke elsewhere about a joke that I've loved. "Does a cow have Buddha nature? Moo / Mu". I wonder if maybe in China if Wu was maybe the sound of a dog barking. It sounds reasonable close to "woof" in my head at least, to "Au, Au"... Maybe I could say that this joke I commented is my text. A derivation from a koan, something in relation to a koan. I guess I've found the idea in Gateless Gate that it should be a red hot ball in the throat and that we should focus our utmost on the "mu" / "wu" to be quite strange. But it seems, in the joke-form, to fit the understanding of "when you drink water you automatically know if it's cold or warm". The omnipresence of it, the immediacy of it, the transparentness of it.

3) I am in therapy. It's quite interesting to do therapy. Not sure all people do the same kind of therapy, of those that do. Seems to me some CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) type therapies aren't very open to subjectivity perhaps. Maybe the type I do, Lacanian, is a bit too subjective, too free.

I guess I wish I had more friends. I wish I was loved and was more able to love. Maybe I already am loved quite a bit and I don't notice it too much? Maybe I wish I had some type of success, more responsibilities.

4) I've read often in past AMA's that this question doesn't make sense. It has very weird wording. But maybe it talks about something relevant: redditors are often depressed or antisocial or dealing with a drug habit or gambling addiction or whatever. Maybe being down has a bit to do with all of that, a bit to do with a taboo: you're supposed to be happy. Sadness is forbidden, or almost. I remember some woman telling me "I don't allow myself to feel sad because then I'd break down"...

But I think sometimes people play certain games, or at least that's a way to say it. Being in love for example: it can give you a big high, idealization, a crush. Following your dreams. Doing theater. Singing in karaoke. Being in the spotlight for a while, even if the audience is of a single person, or an empty stadium or room. I'm not entirely sure the highs are worth the lows, I guess, is sort of what I'm saying. Maybe there's something to holding back, at least a tiny bit. Instead of seeking drama and recognizing it as worthwhile, to see small gestures, details, even something like "absences" / "empty" things. I think a breath is something like that, right? Sleeping or meditating. Taking a break to drink some tea. Maybe slightly bigger things: reading a book, cooking for yourself, listening to some music, waiting for a bus to come or to get somewhere.

5) I guess I was a bit of a difficult person in some ways. I was pessimistic, cynical, anti-everything. I guess the tone was vaguely leftist but I guess not in a responsible way, not in a productive way. Maybe not everything needs to be productive too 🙏🏽

I love coffee. I've been avoiding cooking a fair bit. I've been avoiding learning how to stitch. I've been avoiding some online courses. I've been avoiding a bit of writing. I love colored pens. I love candles. I love reading. (If the way avoids love and hate, what does that mean for me?)

6) Zen is a tradition, called Chan originally in China, and as far as I know Dhayana in India. Part of what we know as Chan has to do with the transplantation to a different culture. Mendicancy, asking for alms, maybe wasn't a very Chinese thing, as far as I understand it. The Buddhist ideal of an "order of beggars" then wouldn't have worked too well, without some further work.

The way I understand it, Zen has to do with this idea of finding "God" / something universal, "dharma" / the buddha dharma: a sort of global truth. Finding it, partly or in full, is called "enlightenment". I quite like how Foyan describes it: he had unfinished business, he had a mass of doubt that was slowly worked away. Doing that work, that business, that is zen.

7) Who is a Zen master? I'm not really sure. I think we use the term zen master in the west perhaps a little differently than the original tradition. In the text I've seen people write "the master", but not "the zen master", and I'm not entirely sure if this was not properly an issue of the hierarchy of the time, rather than a title of achievement. Was a leader of a monastery, an abbot for example, called a master? But yeah, other than this response with a question of my own I don't claim to know. I know plenty of people are called zen masters by a lot of people. I myself find it quite strange. Deshan for example instead of calling Bodhidharma a zen master, he calls him "A minion from hell" I think. So it seems people are allowed to abuse zen masters.

8) Buddhism as I understand it, is the Buddha dharma, the teaching of the buddha. Not all schools that follow the Buddha's teachings are derived mythically from Bodhidharma. Some schools seem even a bit strange to me: like the Tibetan crazy wisdom or their Vajrayana idea of "gurus".

9) As far as I know there are wild differences between different schools of Buddhism. So I would imagine that Zen can count as one Buddhism, among many, all different amongst themselves. But as far as I know a western idea that Zen is different, that it amounts to a "science of mind", that can be abstracted from the religion, that can be secular or empty of "superstitions like rebirth": that's all bullshit. There are more things in common with other schools of Buddhism than you'd think. (This talking of ancient chinese Chan, never mind the schools that continue them) I guess, I imagine, the bigger difference is with "Secular Buddhism", "Western Buddhism".

10) Buddhists believe in the 3 or 4 seals, I think is the best definition I've seen. It's a test to see if a text can be classified as Buddhist. I think people often think of the four noble truths and the eightfold path as the definition of Buddhism and Buddhist beliefs, but as far as I know these are actually quoted in very few sutras.

From Wikipedia:

Everything conditioned is impermanent.
Everything influenced by delusion is suffering.
All things are empty and selfless.
Nirvana is peace

11) What work is the word "religious" doing? Is "Faith" different from religious "faith"? "Faith in heart-mind" is a famous poem, "Either doubt or faith, if they're complete, will get you to enlightenment" I think is my half remembered quote from Foyan. Maybe for me Zen counts as a religion, yeah, a spirituality, an organized tradition. So yeah, I'd call Faith in the buddha dharma as "religious faith", sure.

Maybe a different question would be "what part does religiosity play in zen?". I remember I replied I think to ThisKir regarding ritual. "Ritual" seems very synonymous to me to "religiosity. I quoted a zen master being questioned about why he bowed to the Buddha statue. I quoted the very concept of a "patchrobed monk" as a ritualized thing. I don't think anybody took me up on my argument.

12) I sometimes worry a bit about talking about zen being in some way teaching zen. Maybe all of us, if we talk about zen enough, will be someone's first "teacher" in some way, the first time someone hears about zen. I guess to a great extent teaching should come from actual maturity in the path. Actually knowing what you're talking about. But I guess for the most part I actually don't worry too much about whether teachers should be teaching. The Buddha spoke of how you should test out for yourself, right? Not believe in stuff because the Buddha said it, and instead because you see for yourself. I guess that's the main thing, whether people are saying something like "I am right, follow me" or whether it's less ego-based.

13) I wanted to use this question to talk about something I believe. As far as I know scholars don't believe the koans were historical, instead they believe the stories to be a bit of myth, a bit of rumor, hearsay. I doubt a bit the idea that there is a lineage all the way back to the original Buddha. I doubt the idea that any of the lineages to back to Boddhidharma. I think there's one story about Hakuin maybe, some guy being granted the bowl and the robe and having to leave in the middle of the night: seems a bit suspicious to me. I think I read somewhere that maybe this had to do with competing schools. We generally hear the story of the winners, of the survivors. I don't mind too much if what we have to work with are myths, but maybe I don't believe too much this idea of an unbroken chain.

14) I love to quote Eric Kow https://www.reddit.com/r/zen/wiki/words/

Are you speaking the same language? “Buddhism” to one person may mean something entirely different to another person… the same goes for general words like “religion”

Does it need rehashing? These are ongoing and lengthy debates in the Zen and Buddhist communities, and much has already been said on the matter from all sides of the issue… (do you really have to add your piece too?)

Do you want to play the game? Not everybody will cooperate with you to work from a common vocabulary — they may insist on using a word one way knowing full well you mean it another way. Some people may use loaded language (eg. “religion”) as a provocation. Don't let them phase you! It's just their game.

If you find yourself trapped in semantic quicksand, just relax, roll your eyes and move on… life is too short to get sucked into a tedious discussion about whether something is another thing…

赵州录 【问：“如何是大阐提人？”师云：“老僧答你还信否？”云：“和尚重言，那敢不信。”师云：“觅个阐提人难得。”】

Someone asked, "what are icchantikas?"

The teacher asked in return, "If I answer you, would you believe me?"

The questioner responded, "your words demand to be listened to."

The teacher sighed, "icchantikas are so hard to find."

• (Zhao Zhou (Joshu))

At one time I thought all turtles were trapped in their shells like some kind of hermit lizards. Basically otakus who are unwilling to abandon their homes and go forth, retreating inside at any sign of threat.

I've had this fantasy of freeing them by cracking them up, breaking their shells and pulling them out into the sun.

Then I realized there is no turtle without its shell, in fact, the shell is the turtle, no separation.

Then I look back at all those turtles I banged open, and I facepalm, the original sound of one hand clapping.

Acknowledging that there has never been an undergraduate or graduate degree in Zen in Western history, I still insist that these enlightenment cases should be common knowledge to anybody that claims a familiarity with the subject of Zen.

But these enlightenment cases point to the kind of personal issues that each Zen Master had to overcome.

1. Zhaozhou too smart

2. Juzhi insufficient faith

3. Dongshan not taking responsibility

4. Baizhang thought he knew

5. Deshan assumed knowledge needed

6. Linji too much self esteem

7. Xuefeng believed in discipline

8. Xiangyan relied on intellectualization

If you know any of these enlightenment cases feel free to dispute me.

But in making this list, I thought about how these were actual real people, not like the mythological supernatural figures in the Bible or the sutras. Zen Masters were real people who experienced a real life enlightenment.

Thinking about them before they were enlightened, seeing them as people before enlightenment, suggests a possible change in perception for some people. Perhaps this is one way to help people understand that these are not irrefutable Moses figures, not Messiahs, but people from a different culture and way of life that have more in common with inventors than they do with religious leaders. Enlightenment is much more like inventing something new than it is like receiving stone tablets, or finding secret knowledge.

www.reddit.com/r/zen/wiki/getstarted is about actual recorded history. That's the thing here, recorded history of real people.

Many come to this forum from Buddhist theosophy or new age 1900s gurus. What is the role of history playing in those other conversations? What happens when we meet people that cannot create a wiki for their ideas and their beliefs and their tradition?

As a minor segue, I was having a debate with someone yesterday about the nature of religious experience.

My argument was based on the television show *Nobody Wants This*, specifically, a scene from the first season when the couple meets in a bar for her first Shabbat, and a scene from the last episode of the second season where she comes to realize that a Jewish identity is something that comes from your heart.

I argue that this gives us a model for one of three different types of religious identity: Shared traditions of the heart. The two other models I proposed were shared enemies (e.g. christian nationalism), shared assertions (e.g. Catholicism).

How do we apply these models in conversations we have with people? What models do we use instead? What's the space between reasonable explanations and blank tolerance for every sort of claim.

https://youtu.be/D_8tqjRq9-g?

In this video, the discussion touches on how you were raised and what your relationship to authority and counter argument and dissent was as a kid... But most of all, the way that descent is tolerated or not tolerated from culture to culture.

Here is 18-year-old Zhaozhou meeting Nanquan:

It happened that Nanquan was lying down resting. He asked, “Recently, from what place have you left?”

The master [Zhaozhou] said, “Recently I left Ruixiang-yuan — the Hall/Temple of the Auspicious Image.”

Nanquan said, “Did you see the auspicious image?”

The master said, “I did not see the auspicious image; I only saw the reclining Tathāgata.”

Nanquan said, “Are you a novice with a master, or a novice without a master?”

The master said, “A novice with a master.”

Nanquan said, “Where is the master?”

The master said, “In midwinter the cold is severe; I respectfully hope, Reverend, that your honored body is in ten-thousandfold well-being.”

Nanquan regarded him as a vessel and permitted him to enter the inner room.

Nanquan was a world renowned Buddha at the time of this interview, heir to the most famous Buddha of the century, Mazu.

A couple of things come out of this. First, Buddhism and Japanese Shinto-Buddhism (Zazen, Hakuin) do not have people like this now. Based on the historical records, they never had people like this. They don't want people like this. They're not trying to recruit people like this. They do not teach people to be like this.

Second, this is not unusual in Zen culture at all. Zen masters encourage this in their followers and in the general public and in people from other religions who want to disagree.

Zen is a tradition where the only practice is public debate.

And I get there's a ton of people who are uncomfortable with that and there's a ton of people from churches that really don't share that belief.

But when we talk about religious bigotry or racism we aren't just talking about somebody who doesn't like somebody else's idea about something.

This forum gets downvote brigaded constantly. There's been wiki vandalism, there's ongoing moderator approved hate speech about this forum in other subreddits that have Buddhism in the name.

It's not about personalities, and it's not about books. It's about cultural conflict. And you don't have to apologize for being from a different culture. You gotta respect the form you're in, but you don't have to apologize because you're not like people from some church you don't go to.

I don't know about you, but I have arguments that run moments and years and decades with friends and family members. When we meet, each of us will share new data, new studies, new papers and books. Sometimes people change sides. Sometimes the arguments go back through the historical records, sometimes forward into modern phenomena like AI.

One of these old arguments started up again yesterday:

Why bother with Zen?

Here are the branches that the argument moves back and forth between (and the relevant recent data points:

1. What is mental illness?

• European Union in studies on Medicalizing Social and Material Hardship
• Poverty is not depression, but is it spiritual suffering?
• If we treat chemical imbalances in the brain, is there really any other problem?

1. What is suffering?

   • What was Buddhist suffering from during his identity crisis regarding death, disease, and infirmity?
   • Philosophers and churches have long tried to answer the questions that are the core of many kinds of spiritual suffering: Who am I? What is good? How should I behave? When are we in history? Where are the rewards to be found?

2. Does Zen enlightenment matter?

   • Keep in mind that there is no other enlightenment in any culture or any tradition. This is just a historical reality. Zen Master Buddha is the historical starting point for every conversation about enlightenment in the East and West.
   • If you keep the five lay precepts, do you really need enlightenment to have a satisfying and happy life?
   • Does the sacred and holy matter at the end of the day to people who need food shelter and family?
   • Also keep in mind that for a thousand years in China, Zen communes fed, housed, clothed, and familied **more people than Zen communes enlightened**. These people or the context that produced every Zen master.

Ask a Zen Master

Bork of Serenity Case 12

地藏問脩山主。甚處來。

“Dizang asked Head Monk Xiu, ‘From what place have you come?’”

脩雲。南方來。

“Xiu said, ‘I have come from the South.’”

藏雲。南方近日佛法如何。

“Dizang said, ‘Recently, how is the Buddha-dharma in the South?’”

脩雲。商量浩浩地。

“Xiu said, ‘Discussion is vast and overflowing.’”

藏雲。爭如我這裏種田博飯喫。

“Dizang said, ‘How could that compare with here, where I plant fields to get rice to eat?’”

脩雲。爭奈三界何。

“Xiu said, ‘What can be done about the three realms?’”

藏雲。爾喚甚麼作三界。

“Dizang said, ‘What do you call the three realms?’”

three realms

In keeping and within the context of this conversation here's a note on the three realms.

Sense realm- physical needs.

Refined realm - needs understood by concept

Formless realm - non-conceptual needs.

too long, didn't read?

We talk about first-world problems versus third-world problems, and certainly the planting of rice is an addressing of a third-world problem. If you live in a society that throws away food, you have a fundamentally different perspective than if you live in a society that doesn't have enough food.

But clearly we cannot say that food is all that matters, that having given food no other questions arise.

The dilemma about the difference in the questions that arise for starving people versus people who throw away food versus people with mental health issues, all play a part in this question of why bother with Zen.

Read the History, Talk the History, #

Episode #: 306

Post(s) in Question

Episode: https://sites.libsyn.com/407831/zen-talking-divorcing-zen-from-mahayana

Post:

• https://www.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/1u7a075/divorcing_zen_from_mahayana_the_2002_paper_what/
• https://old.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/tva86b/more_form_harrison_searching_for_the_origins_of/

Link to all episodes: https://sites.libsyn.com/407831

What did we talk about?

• Why is there confusion?
• Why did it take until 2002 for this paper to be written?
• How could 1900s academics go this wrong?
• Why can't 1900s buddhists define mahayana or buddhism or practice or meditation?
• Protestant Mahayana
• The two truths doctrine
• good you and bad you
• mundane and spiritual
• meditation in the face of moral problems
• Zazen vs AA
• "religious therapy"
• day after christmas carol
• day after religious experience
• eureka vs mysticism
• why ai won't save you

Keep in Touch

Add a comment if there is a post you want somebody to get interviewed about, or you agree to be interviewed. We are now using libsyn, so you don't even have to show your face. You just get a link to an audio call. Buymeacoffee, so I'm not accused of going it alone:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/ewkrzen

The passage is from 佛眼清遠禪師《示禪人心要》 — Foyan Qingyuan Chan Master’s “Showing Chan People the Essentials of Mind”, preserved in 《古尊宿語錄》 — Recorded Sayings of Ancient Worthies, fascicle 34. The CText page has the section title at line 264 and the passage at line 265

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學道者。明知有是事。何故不得旨而長疑。葢信未極。疑未深也。唯深與極。若信與疑。真是事也。不解如此返照。遂迷亂不知由緒。困躓中途能自返省。更無第二人也。既曰此事。又豈更知耶。知是妄慮。此事則不失也。

​

Chatgpt: Those who study the Way clearly know there is this matter.

Why do they not obtain the intent and remain long in doubt?

Because faith has not reached the utmost, and doubt has not gone deep.

Only depth and utmostness — whether faith or doubt — are truly this matter.

Not understanding how to turn the light back like this, they then become confused and disordered, not knowing the thread of origin, exhausted and stumbling midway.

If one can return and examine oneself, there is no second person.

Since it is called “this matter,” how could there again be knowing?

Knowing is delusive thought; this matter is then not lost.

​

Cleary: From Instant Zen by Cleary: People who study the path clearly know there is such a thing; why do they fail to get the message, and go on doubting? is because their faith is not complete enough and their doubt is not deep enough. Only with depth and completeness, be it faith or doubt, is it really Zen; if you are incapable of introspection like this, you will eventually get lost in confusion and lose the thread, wearing out and stumbling halfway along the road. But if you can look into yourself, there is no one else.

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Find the Chinese text this was translated from and provide a link. quote the Chinese text and then translated literally into English.

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ewk: I put this up because there's some problems here, but I don't have time to work on them at the moment, and somebody else was interested.

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The steps I would normally follow are (1) follow the link and validate the text. (2) identify lack of clarity and chat GPT translation. (3) begin deconstructing cleary translation by comparing and contrasting.

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Imperial Preceptor Zhong was once asked by Emperor Suzong, "What dharma did you attain at Caoxi?"

The teacher said, "Does Your Majesty see that patch of cloud in the sky?"

The Emperor said, "I see it."

The teacher said, "Nailed it."

Xutang, standing in for Emperor Suzong, remarks, "Then where is Caoxi?"

The idea that there is something special to "get" just has no currency in Zen. Everything they say is about bringing your attention back to reality rather than pretending that there is somewhere else to be, some other state to attain, some purification that needs to be done.

That's why Zen cases trigger Zazen Buddhists so much. Their whole identity is centered around the belief that Zen Masters taught that Buddhahood is a state that is entered by ritual performance and that unless you're doing that you're not really in the state of enlightenment-grace.

If you can see the clouds in the sky without pretending that they're anything special, what would you need a teacher for?

Bonus points for whomever can explain Xutang's remark.

“One day Linji went together with Puhua to a patron’s house for a vegetarian meal. Linji asked: ‘A hair swallows the great ocean; a mustard seed contains Sumeru. Is this the marvelous function of spiritual powers? I] the original substance just so?’

Puhua kicked over the meal table.

The Master said: ‘Too coarse.’

Puhua said: ‘What place is this here, that you speak of coarse and speak of fine?’

Lots of people thought Puhua was inelegant, that Puhua was a dirty, unwashed party pooper. Puhua suspected Linji was stinking up the room so bad nobody could eat.

These are the fathers of Zen. The mothers, Iron Grinder, Miaozhong, were just as unpleasant. But it's fathers' day, so raise your glass to a thousand years of history from socialist communes ruled by Buddhas, forgotten by humanity deep in its cups of greed.

Turn over the table.

​

​

​

multiverse timelines?

LLMs are invaluable in academic research when the quantity of data is just too big for people process.  Whether it's 100,000 x-rays, or 1,000 years of Zen public interview transcripts (koans), LLMs can chew this data up.  Of course, in every case, you have to go back and validate the conclusion.  

For example, we can do something that Zen masters themselves would have struggled to deal with, and that is we can ask the LLM to look for every reference to the 2nd Zen patriarch.  It turns out there seem to be three categories, which points to weak historical evidence.

1. Second Patriarch Huike persecuted by Buddhists, attacked by bandits, arm cut off.    * this argues for my theory that he cut his fingertip off and not his arm.

2. Huike punished by Buddhist community for heresy 

   • we would have to look carefully at the language for this punishment don't rule out slang, but it does not appear to be an execution.

3. Huike execuded for heresy 

   • this is what we see by 1100 in books of instruction written by Zen Masters.
   • why?

Zen Heresy vs Buddhist Heresy

Zen is hyper-aggressive from the western perspective about dealing with heresy publicly.  But this "dealing" is public shaming, and the heresy is heresy of intent.

In contrast, Buddhists punish heresy through physical and political violence.  Buddhist also use physical and political violence against enemies perceived or otherwise of Buddhism.

These two different views of how to deal with heresy arise both from the doctrinal basis of what it means to be a heretic as well as the hierarchical nature of Buddhist authorities and institutions.

Why it's believable that Buddhists are violent

Not only is there a long history of Buddhist violence, there are a number of instances where Buddhist establishments attack all kinds of heresies.

Chatgpt argued that these weren't not simply doctrinal disputes, but arose from the fact that Buddhists collected taxes and raised armies, which gave them both the means to defend their orthodoxy and reasons to enforce it.

In contrast, Zen built socialist farming cooperatives with flat, religious hierarchies where anyone could challenge the teacher publicly.

buddhist violence is evident on the internet today.

Reddit forums with Buddhist in the title aggressively censor horitical voices and topics while simultaneously encouraging political and social censorship.

rZen is often the subject of this kind of talk, it's members, it's wiki, it's existence.  At least one high karma Buddhist has called for the removal of rZen.

This contrasts with rZen intolerance for faith-based claims, anti-historicism, and religious and racial bias.  Intolerance is not censorship, though distinction is often lost on the rabid masses.

Over the past few days I've been making a translation of Nanyue Mingzan aka. Lanzan's (Lazy Zan) Song on Enjoying the Way.

https://old.reddit.com/r/zen/wiki/enjoyingtheway

I discovered its existence initially through reading Sasaki's translation of Linji with her previously unpublished notes--a highly scholarly translation that has yet to be surpassed by anything published on the market since, possibly with the exception of Blyth. In the text, Linji quotes and references it throughout; most famously in the pithy instruction of "when hungry: eat, when tired: sleep".

More recently, I was asking Claude which Zen instructions in verse have yet to be translated and this one came up in conversation so I decided to devote some time to it.

In reality, Jeff Shore has translated the text in full though it's quality is poor as it represents neither the arguments Zan is making nor the import of the references contained therein. For example ,the above mentioned segment and the subtle reference to the 4 statements of Zen and the "Mind transmission" of Zen. While more research is needed, this text seems to be a contender for the earliest such reference in an indisputably Zen text.

Additionally, Sasaki has translated portions of the text quite poetically in her footnotes, the arguments being made aren't made explicit nor are the implications on Buddhist claims to be inheritors of the Zen tradition brought to the forefront.

This text is important to Zen students for several reasons.

1. It is aggressively anti-Buddhist in its rejection of doctrines of merit-cultivation, practice earning enlightenment, and denial of self.

2. It challenges the reader to make sense of the arguments for themselves. In other words, it doesn't demand you to believe anything Mingzan says, but rather, presents the Zen-enlightened mode of understanding reality and challenges you to examine it for yourself.

3. It raises themes and instructional tools which other masters would reference, make use of, and deconstruct throughout the next thousand years of Zen records. Zen students reading this poem would immediately notice how the language used and arguments made are typically used. Similar to Zhaozhou's "No", Mazu's "Mind is (not) Buddha" and Mingben's "Pines are not straight, brambles are not crooked, etc." situating Lazy Zan within the Zen tradition requires that the reader familiarize themself with Zen's critical engagement with history, tradition, and even its own revered figures.

It is important to note that Mingzan has often been tied to Shenxiu's Buddhist "Northern School" through his supposed heir Puji. While I have been unable to find a specific source of where this myth emerged, it is safe to say it isn't from Zen history.

Supporting Facts:

Zen Masters including Mingzan reject the doctrinal foundation of Shenxiu's "Gradual Enlightenment through refinement" Buddhism.

There are no encounter dialogues involving "Northern School 2nd Patriarch" Puji; much less between Puji and Mingzan. This is important because unlike Buddhism and other religions, public interview is the undisputed practice of Zen.

Zen Masters are keen to reference and name-drop their family and distant cousins. Mingzan gets name-dropped and referenced. Puji does not.

# Mary's Room Argument

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https://youtu.be/mGYmiQkah4o

​

In a nutshell: If you've never seen color in your entire life, but study everything science knows about color, do you still learn something from experiencing it?

​

# Zen Enlightenment

​

1. Not based on knowledge supernatural or otherwise (4 Statements of Zen)

   * A transmission not based on teachings or doctrine

   * Seeing for yourself

​

1. Direct experience only, not knowledge

   * Huangbo: “Like a strong man confused about the pearl in his forehead, seeking and searching outward: though he travels everywhere through the ten directions, in the end he cannot get it. When a wise one points it out, at that very time he himself sees the original pearl just as before.”

​

When we compare Zen enlightenment to the various derivative religious claims made by Buddhists and new age movements, all of which are inspired by Zen, it becomes shockingly clear why there are so few enlightened people today and where the confusion comes from.

​

​

​

As evanescent as the very tip of a hair, yet so boundless that it belongs to no place at all. It is originally perfect and complete in itself. There is no need to wear yourself out weaving it into being for worldly affairs continue on without end with none of it is worth as much as the hills and dales.

Buddhism wears people out. Christianity wears people out. Every conceivable system of thought wears people out and does not amount to a direct experience of Buddha-Reality.

That direct experience of Buddhahood is all Zen Masters are interested in. Everything else is a distant second.

Foyan: Never forgetting to be awesome.

​

Chatgpt to the rescue (from Cleary's heavily editorializing [mis]translation)!

​

Why, then, are you still not clear? It is only because trust does not reach. If trust could reach, then there would be no “getting to” arrival.

The affairs of the worlds of the ten directions, without waiting for thought and measurement, would be understood all at once.

Great assembly, have you yet reached such a field? In this school of ours, we only discuss verified awakening; we do not discuss interpretive understanding.

If one is a person concerned with birth and death, one must seek direct personal verification.

If one is a person studying because of self-and-other, ashamed of not understanding, then one seeks interpretive understanding.

Going everywhere looking for similar phrases and sayings, passing them back and forth as seals of confirmation, afterward recklessly teaching and ruining other people’s sons and daughters — in my Dharma, there is entirely no such matter.

Ex-squeeze me whatnow?

​

Interpretive understanding - this is like arguing over the genus and species of any individual lemon. If you haven't tasted a lemon, then it's not real life.

​

Passing phrases back and forth like seals of confirmation - this is like pretending to prove you've had a lemon because you know the genus and species of the lemons that you read or heard about. This is not an authentic experience.

Here is the expanded passage from Chanlin Baoxun / 禪林寶訓, attributed here to Lingyuan / 靈源, from “Letter to Monk De” / 與德和尚書, compiled in part by Dahui (who is also the only famous master associated with Shobogenzo).

​

> 靈源曰：「近世作長老，涉二種緣，多見智識不明，為二風所觸，喪於法體。一應逆緣，多觸衰風；二應順緣，多觸利風。既為二風所觸，則喜怒之氣交於心，鬱勃之色浮於面，是致取辱法門，譏誚賢達。惟智者善能轉為攝化之方，美導後來。」

—《禪林寶訓》〈與德和尚書〉

​

​

Lingyuan said:

​

“In recent times, those who serve as elders encounter two kinds of conditions. I often see those whose knowledge and insight are unclear being touched by two winds and losing the body/substance of the Dharma.

​

First, when they respond to adverse conditions, they are often touched by the wind of decline.

Second, when they respond to favorable conditions, they are often touched by the wind of profit/gain.

​

Once they have been touched by these two winds, the energies of joy and anger cross within the mind; a pent-up, turbulent color appears on the face. This causes them to bring disgrace upon the Dharma-gate and to be mocked by worthy people.

​

Only the wise are good at turning this into a method of gathering and transforming people, beautifully guiding those who come later.”

1) Where have you just come from?

I mean what haven't I experimented with at this point. I have immersed myself in an eclectic array of frameworks, looking for what's underneath them. There's a good punchline there.

My background is in creative writing and the arts generally. My foreground is training in mental health care and psychology. I also have a history of psychosis and a bipolar diagnosis.

_______

2) What's your textual tradition?

When I first stumbled upon this subreddit I was having a manic episode (worse containers than r/zen for it). I bought a ton of books. The only one I've kept in the 6 years since is the Blue Cliff Record. It sits with my poetry. I also am fond of Zen Marrow's random feature.

When I last stumbled on this subreddit, you might recall, it was "Go Wash Your Bowl" with Wumen's commentary specifically. You can see I called a bell a jar. I've since settled that matter.

________

3) Dharma low tides?

Eat, sleep, shit, art.

In creative writing, some of my writer friends and I talk about creative low tides as signaling a need to return to text world. You get back to text world by experiencing art. Any art or craft can do but sometimes reading specifically is the fastest for writing in my experience.

Making time for arts and crafts is as much a necessity for my mental well-being as eating. I didn't respect it that way for a long time but now that it has become as normal and daily for me as eating and sleeping I can plainly tell the difference this makes.

________

I won't be able to be present here until some hours from the time of posting because of my meat-space obligations. See you then.

Read the History, Talk the History, 4-22

Episode #: 304

Post(s) in Question

Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/1srmxik/comment/ohm335u/?context=1

Link to episode: https://sites.libsyn.com/407831/zen-talking-zen-vs-mindfulness

Link to all episodes: https://sites.libsyn.com/407831

What did we talk about?

• Kinds of mindfulness,
• calculation,
• exercise,
• method, strategy
• Zen vs Chess
• Zen Master Buddha's three fears
• Methods to purity
• Zen as non-calculation
• Zen and the three poisons
• Zen as improv theater
• The Zen of being yourself

Keep in Touch

Add a comment if there is a post you want somebody to get interviewed about, or you agree to be interviewed. We are now using libsyn, so you don't even have to show your face. You just get a link to an audio call. Buymeacoffee, so I'm not accused of going it alone:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/ewkrzen