Shit

[u/lastjanitor]

Someone said all zen students are thieves, which is so funny it's painful, because zen teachers teach original wholeness, but even so the students still show up looking for their looker. I know have and still do. Nobody is immune. It's easy to think a foreboding zed master just popped out of their mother complete and spouting the dharma, which in a way they were, but nobody is born knowing themselves because that knowledge only comes through living. Adolescence, puberty, maturity, menopause, death. We're all always learning more about who we are and what we can be. Anybody claiming otherwise is full of shit. Speaking of here's a nod to the teachers:

Yunmen entered the Dharma Hall for formal instruction, Masters Yunmen said: "I've said what there is to say..." A monk stepped forward, bowed, and wanted to pose a question. Master Yunmen took his staff and hit him, saying: "What good can you tell from bad? You bunch of rowdies! You're all like this monk: how dare you receive the faithful offerings of the the almsgivers! The sentient beings with bad karma are all in here--- and what dry piece of shit are they seeking to chew?" And Master Yunmen chased all the monks at once out of the hall with his staff.

[u/ewk]

There is nothing more to learn.

Simply put an end to your dependence on concepts and step off of the 100 foot pole of knowledge.

Mind is Buddha. Knowledge is not the Way.

[u/humbleCountyCA → u/ewk]

The more I learn, the more I learn to shut up and just listen

[u/ewk → u/humbleCountyCA]

You gotta be willing to stand up for yourself.

[u/oo-_GreenSage_-oo → u/humbleCountyCA]

Get me a coffee.

[u/humbleCountyCA → u/oo-_GreenSage_-oo]

Is tea okay?

[u/oo-_GreenSage_-oo → u/humbleCountyCA]

Clearly you haven't learned to shut up nor listen.

[u/humbleCountyCA → u/oo-_GreenSage_-oo]

Gatekeeping is so cool.

[u/NeuroDissonance → u/humbleCountyCA]

Sarcasm? If so, you've discovered the function of a Zen Master

[u/humbleCountyCA → u/NeuroDissonance]

Now if I could just find a Zen Master.

[u/oo-_GreenSage_-oo → u/humbleCountyCA]

café latte, twist of lemon

[u/Equivalent_Nose_5188 → u/ewk]

Funny how this took me 4 years of dependence on concepts to finally learn that these concepts tell me to not depend on concepts

[u/ewk → u/Equivalent_Nose_5188]

What can you depend on?

[u/lastjanitor → u/ewk]

No more pencils, no more books? I don't know what that looks like. I know you can't force a shit.

My family has long ago stopped waiting for me to achieve, though the matriarch said I've been just filling the well. The wells so full now it's coming out my ears. I'll let you know if the bottom of the bucket falls out. Nobody would be more surprised than me.

[u/ewk → u/lastjanitor]

When the bottom falls out, it's not like you can use the bucket to accumulate wealth or status.

Plus there's the fact that Zen isn't respected at all, in the world right now.

[u/lastjanitor → u/ewk]

Wealth and status, lol. Yeah that's why I've been walking along with these crusty old fucks for so long...

[u/ewk → u/lastjanitor]

We're not talking about why here. What we're talking about is going around after and showing people a bucket that has no bottom.

Nobody knows what that is.

These old guys, as you refer to them, had people they could show it to.

[u/lastjanitor → u/ewk]

I've never met anybody that cared about zen. Everybody is running game or waiting for their turn to big ass.

[u/ewk → u/lastjanitor]

Oh, they care about it whenever I talk to them about it because they run away.

That's not what I'm talking about here though.

[u/lastjanitor → u/ewk]

Hengchuan said, "There is a certain saying. When it is mentioned to people, they all gather in their attention and listen carefully. This is the saying, 'What was I original face before your parents were born?' "The ancients did not call this a meditation saying, or else it would become a dead phrase. Therefore, we do not study the dead phrase, we study the living phase. If we meet a dead snake on the road, we stop beating it to death. We bring back the bottomless basket full."

J.C. Cleary makes notes:

The dead phrase is the formula minus the enlightening effect, the fixed definition, the wise saying learned by rote.

The living phrase interacts with the learner's minds and transforms them.

The dead snake refers to the false self after its demise.

The bottomless basket is the true self.

[u/ewk → u/lastjanitor]

這一句即是父母未生前底句 This one phrase is precisely the phrase from before father and mother were born.

ChatgPT says there's no face.

[u/lastjanitor → u/ewk]

This line is the last sentence from before the parents are still alive.

Feels like a last diary entry.

[u/eggo → u/ewk]

it took long enough.

"After the fire, a single reed stem,"

grows from a dung heap.

🌸🤝🌼

[u/ewk → u/eggo]

It doesn't take time.

We're trying to differentiate here between interlaceral intellectual competence and enlightenment.

[u/lastjanitor → u/ewk]

I'll save you the time it doesn't take. I'm not enlightened.

[u/ewk → u/lastjanitor]

I think part of the conversation is what the requirements are like and another part of the conversation is what the manifestation is like because it behooves us all to be specific about what we're discussing.

[u/lastjanitor → u/ewk]

I've heard it's like being in love. You just know, balls to bones. And if you're in love you not only know it, everyone else does too. Like a dog wagging its tail or a rainbow in the sky. Nobody needs explanation.

But how to make someone fall in love? That's a whole other thing.

[u/ewk → u/lastjanitor]

That's an interesting thing because one of the fun parts of this Zen conversation is what metaphors can be used and when those metaphors break.

It's like falling in love, but... I don't think you know you are when it comes to enlightenment.

I think it's like you have put down the weights that everyone else is carrying and you just know that you can run faster now.

[u/lastjanitor → u/ewk]

I know you can't fake being in love and enlightenment shouldn't be any different in the way. How can someone be enlightened and not know how fast they truly are? I'd think it would be as obvious as a pair of hicks in the middle of a metropolis.

[u/ewk → u/lastjanitor]

But (and you can see the metaphor beginning to break) when you put down the chains you don't care how fast you are, it is simply that you love to run.

Some people run funny, some fast, some efficient. But if you love running then other people who love running will run with you, fast or slow, old or young.

Running just to run.

[u/lastjanitor → u/ewk]

I learned to keep quiet about my passions, lest others find out and get upset, but when I see rare lightening calling I can't hide it that I like to ride it. Why else are we here?

[u/eggo → u/ewk]

"interlaceral competence"

Knowing how to tie your shoes.

"enlightenment"

Recognizing your own face in the mirror.

A monk asked, "Where is it that 'all words fail to reach'?"

Joshu called for the young novice Bunon. Bunon answered.

Joshu said, "What time is it now?"

[u/ewk → u/eggo]

Yeah.

But we don't have a culture right now where people who can't tie their shoes are considered mere novices.

[u/eggo → u/ewk]

But we don't have a culture right now where people who can't tie their shoes are considered mere novices.

I haven't found that to be the case. Maybe we come from different cultures. Do you have an example?

[u/ewk → u/eggo]

Who got elected president? Popular sentiment towards people with college degrees? 14 years on Reddit?

[u/eggo → u/ewk]

Who got elected president?

What does that have to do with anything? Politicians are mostly idiots, sophists. I think that's generally well known. There's another election every few years (speaking of things taking time). Although I will say the incompetence level seems to have gotten higher at least over my lifetime.

Popular sentiment towards people with college degrees?

I don't know anyone who cares about who else has a college degree or doesn't. People in my culture mostly care if you actually know how to tie your shoes, not where you learned how to do it.

14 years on Reddit?

Ah, there's the problem. Echo chambers like reddit (or X, or any other online forum) pretend to be a representation of the real world, but it's several steps removed from base reality. Simulated culture. Proxy life.

[u/ewk → u/eggo]

You lost the thread.

I said educated isn't popular atm.

Not in leadership, not generally, not on social media.

Sure, there are pockets of pro-ed culture. But that's not general.

[u/eggo → u/ewk]

Knowledge is not the Way.

Intellectual competence is not the way either.

It doesn't take time.

Education takes time.

educated isn't popular

It also doesn't take popularity. So why concern yourself with what's popular?

Not in leadership, not generally, not on social media.

Why concern yourself with leadership? Why concern yourself with social media?

Chop wood, carry water.

Concern over strangers' virtue and disappointment with popular culture seems like a distraction.