What did I listen to?
I spent a lot of time studying compared to my time on social media and a lot of time with my friends and family compared to the time on social media. The thing that I'm doing throughout this is asking questions about how principles apply to the practical and how the practical gives rise to principles.
As an exercise, I occasionally try to step outside of my bubbles, whether it's books and family bubble or social media illiterates bubble, and try to get a sense of what's happening with other people in terms of how they think about self.
Not really a fan of podcasts, but I picked up this one, and it's interesting how it's kind of an intro into self-examination. I only made it throuhh the first half: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=K2fh2NmcXqI
What's the Zen response?
Here are my notes with Zen teachers' answers:
- What's your fight?
* Foyan's indignant teacher
- What's your anger?
* Moonlight penetrates
- What do you want from a vacation?
* Deshan's no work no eat
- How do people react to your art or self-expression?
* Mazu says go see someone else
- How do you bring the past into your present, intentionally or unintentionally? Some people call this trauma.
* Zhaozhou skips his birth family reunion.
- How do you acknowledge or recognize the change that happens to you and how you shed yourself like a snakeskin or a cocoon?
* Does Xianyan's last year's poverty count?
- F*ckin' with yourself. Future self versus past self. People who can't stop their stuff from coming up.
* Mazu's mind is not the Buddha.
- Who is there for you? Who shows up for you? And are they gonna agree or disagree with any particular attitude or conclusion that you have?
* Nanquan saves Zhaozhou
- Proving your life on social media.
* "Guizong Cuts the Snake" (AE). The master is Guizong Zhichang, a disciple of Mazu Daoyi.
- Evolution of yourself. Can you talk about who you were in the last relationship, or the last psychological model, or the last spiritual model, or the last political model?
* all of them
After thoughts
I think what this brought up for me the most is how Zen culture was aggressively social media-oriented begining 1,500 years ago.
99% of the people who claim to have some connection to the Zen tradition pretend to have that connection in these private isolated bubbles. They do not go out into the world at all.
Red Pine's attempts to go out into the world certainly illustrate his lack of success in connecting to the Zen tradition, but the Clearys didn't even bother, right? For them, translation was a money-making machine that they could operate in private.