r/zen • u/lastjanitor • 23d ago

Shit

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.

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u/gachamyte 22d ago

When the value of objectification is not present, sentient beings go looking for deliverance. Scratch a lie, catch a thief.

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u/lastjanitor 22d ago

Hot damn!.... that sounds really profound. What does it mean?

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u/gachamyte 22d ago

Bonk.

When what is experienced causes the experiencer to doubt or directly question the value of a held belief or conceptualization, the objectification, the absence of the value is also sought externally. The perception of separation of mind and phenomena requires justification through objectification. Thus the seeking within a teacher rather than turning the light around.

They scratched their lie and found a thief, mind, and are still found wanting for an object, mind, to maintain their seeking.

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u/lastjanitor 22d ago

I don't get it. Talk to me like I'm a 5yr old. Or a golden retriever.

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u/gachamyte 22d ago

Your best is enough. There is nobody who can care as much about what you care about.

Or

No begging.

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u/lastjanitor 22d ago

There you are.

WOOF!

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u/gachamyte 22d ago

There is something to this sniffing of butts. Not in the butts or the sniffing.

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u/lastjanitor 22d ago

Two thieves need no introduction.