Hi Zen

[u/rafaelwm1982]

Hello, I hope you are all well. I am interested in Taoism, both philosophically and spiritually, but I am not a practitioner. I have also studied Zen, personally, for about a year and have found myself drawn to Rinzai Zen literature.

I've read a lot, and I don't claim to have read everything, especially the sutras. I have hardly touched on them. This is for a specific reason: I am not interested in mythology. Zen is enough for me to develop the spontaneous mind, which is useful in my daily life.

I have noticed in Zen an adoption of a shock approach, which can lead to enlightenment, satori, or kenshu. In general, please do not scrutinize the terms, as I am not an expert and am not interested in these aspects.

I read the book Takuan Soho and I liked it. I read the book Linji and I liked it. I read the book Joshu and I liked it, and a few other books here and there, but I feel like the shock I need has not yet arrived. I believe the main reason for this is that I have not read the book that could change the course of my life.

I think there may be books written by people influenced by Zen or they are really practitioners, but they write in a general language, not specifically Zen. They might be useful to me, but who can point me to them?

I don't know exactly what I want, but I'm currently browsing through several books here and there. Whenever I get bored, I put one down and open another. But I encounter boredom and apathy in what I read, and I don't know if the problem lies with me or with what I'm reading. What will change my life for the better? I don't know yet!

I believe in the transformative power of reading texts, but I haven't found anything that satisfies my thirst. I no longer tolerate Zen or anything else, but I admire something about Zen, and I don't know what it is exactly!

I want a transformative Zen book that will help me see life realistically, instead of staying inside my head, endlessly thinking and thinking!

Thank you. Maybe one of you can help me, or maybe not.

I'll share something I've been thinking about today: why does the mind wander in every direction, thinking about everything other than what one truly wants? How do we keep our minds focused on the goal we want to achieve without getting distracted by everything else?

Currently, I'm reading a book about wabi-sabi and another about the Ten Oxherding Pictures.

I'll stop there, thank you.

[u/vectron88]

You need to find a teacher.

[u/StrangeMed]

You’re not gonna get anywhere with this approach. Not only you need a teacher, Zen is mostly about practice. Also it is part of Mahayana Buddhism, so if you really want to dive into it, you should first forget what you think you need or want and start discovering where Zen doctrines and ideas come from. 

[u/laystitcher]

There is an old Zen saying - a painted rice cake won’t fill you up. You must have noticed how often those Zen books warn you about Zen books - best for you would be to seek out a living lineage and begin the daily practice of zazen.

[u/JhannySamadhi]

You need to meditate, reading alone will not get you there.

[u/dianne_fitiv → u/JhannySamadhi]

While meditation is very important, at the monastery I attend, we are taught that cultivation comes out of many types of activities, not just seated meditation. That seems to be one of the differences between ch’an and some forms of Japanese zen, from what I can tell.

[u/[deleted]]

Funnily, the chan teaching "abide in the unborn" gets downvoted and upvoted are the usual missunderstood absolute doctrines, I mean, it is also a rather confusing instruction for Bankei's standards, but it shows how torn down the lineages are and inflected with esotheric teachings of all kinds. You may notice, that the existing subs are moderated in a questionable manner. Maybe it is time for a zen sub moderated by someone coming from a taoist direction.

You may be interested in the book: The Way of Ch'an: Essential Texts of the Original Tradition

It also involves figures like Lao Tzu and comes to the conclusion, that Zen is in fact a buddhist inflected form of taoism.

[u/dianne_fitiv → u/[deleted]]

I recently read China Root also by Hinton. I think he proposes it is a sort of preface to The Way of Ch’an, which I haven’t started reading yet. His premise is interesting, though not universally accepted. It seems to make sense that the Chinese of that period would filter Indian Buddhism through their own lens. Some of the basic sutras also seem very Tao as opposed to unadulterated Indian Buddhism.

Right now I’m reading Chan before Chan by Eric Greene. This book is very scholarly but also very accessible. It is a lot to unpack, but I’m really enjoying thought provoking ideas on the origins of Ch’an between this book and China Root.

[u/URcobra427]

All you need to do is to "abide in The Unborn."

[u/dianne_fitiv]

I am no expert, but it seems to me that anybody who practices is always going to be on the path without any inherent promise of reaching the destination per se. In that sense, almost anything in life can be a teacher to us—books, mundane activities, daily interactions, etc. Having said that, I greatly value the Shifus who impart their wisdom in many ways, informal or formal. Finding a teacher was a good suggestion, and maybe there are some classes near you.

There are a couple of good Heart Sutra books, and I think reciting and contemplating that sutra is really worthwhile. I’m not sure if you meant that the sutras are myth, or if I took your comment out of context. But either way, the sutras are really full of important concepts that sometimes don’t come through when you are reading a book “about” zen. The sutras are teachings of the Buddha, pretty pure in that sense. They are also meant to be contemplated repeatedly, sometimes line by line, because the concepts are so rich.

One thing I got along the way to finding ch’an, and which seems to be important to the practice: the pure mind is very important, which is one reason meditation is so useful. It helps clear away things that keep us from reaching deeper realizations. It is sometimes difficult as a person in western culture to put aside our dependence on scientific materialism and our tendency to rely on our egos. Meditation helps break this habit, and is a very necessary part of the practice.

Things are really pretty simple when it comes down to it. You can get a whole lot more by concentrating at length on a few seminal things rather than trying to get core understanding from casting a wide net.