|  mscsrrr | Oct 4, 2007 8:12pm | I was very repelled by my first encounter with Zen, even though I was already spiritually enlightened at that time.
The men whose books introduced me to it were Paul Reps ("Zen Flesh, Zen Bones") and T.D. Suzuki.
But those books never made sense to me because they were enigmatic.
As a matter of fact almost all Zen masters don't make sense.
They are geniuses of irrationality because one of the most important goals of Zen is to demolish your mind, intellect, all beliefs, knowledge and personality that hide our true nature, which is CONSCIOUSNESS.
I never understood this until I encountered Zen a second time through Osho Rajneesh (the polymath, "Guru of all Gurus", extraordinaire).
It was him who unraveled it for me and I began to smell its beautiful fragrance and taste its sweet juice.
But still Zen remained harder than steel.
It is one thing to comprehend Zen but a whole new ball game to live a zenful life.
Zen is so harsh because it takes away everything from you: your body, head, mind, knowledge, belief, spirit, soul and leaves you utterly nude. That is the fear.
But once you imbibe the very spirit of Zen you would come to realize that it is the ultimate flowering of spirituality and the very future of humanity belongs to it.
Ikey, Scogos.com |
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|  pinkfloyd85 | Oct 6, 2007 6:09am | | Take your spam elsewhere. Mind you, there are vegetarians here! ;-) |
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| | JIR | Oct 20, 2007 8:33am | To me, Zen was not first harsh or dangerous. About 19 of age I read Alan Watt's book and thought it was instant satori. This aloof omniscient attitude I preserved through all the years of studying and heavy drinking: I know A GREAT SECRET. Only after reaching the age of 50 or so I ran into something, on the net maybe, that stopped me completely and gave an enormous feeling of disgrace and shame. Now I'm no active disciple but I try to develop my mindfulness and pay attention to everything that I so fanatically want to grab, own and withhold from others, because it is all mine mine mine, whether it's material or honour and reverence from others (those I don't have).
The danger? What danger is there in learning both living and dying? |
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| | LuridHope | Oct 20, 2007 8:38am | | The whole philosophy of Zen is that the humanity is riddled with contradiction and somewhere amidst the tension and turmoil of these opposing extremes there is an eye of the storm. A place of peace. |
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| | sollune | Oct 20, 2007 8:39am | | was that luridhope, or lucidhope?? |
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| | LuridHope | Oct 20, 2007 8:54am | | I think Woody Allen said it best. "I don't understand how people look to Eastern philosophy to understand the nuture of the Universe when I can't even find my way around Chinatown." |
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| | JIR | Oct 22, 2007 9:58am | | I'd like to add something: harsh and dangerous it may seem as one starts slowly to understand that THIS ME is nothing, and the new me which we desperately seek looks thin and alien and sickly and impotent as observed from our present state of mind. I am afraid too. If I proceed, what'll I find? |
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| | | renumeratedfrog | Oct 26, 2007 3:52pm | | I find it hard to compare Zen practices of kyosaku or meditation with the Christian self-mortification rituals practiced by Spaniards or Filipinos. Surely there's a difference between sitting still for an hour and whipping yourself with a barbed wire. |
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| | Goatboy77 | Oct 26, 2007 5:41pm | | Dude. I'd almost rather whip myslef with barbed wire than zazen sometimes but, as yet, the only thing I found from self mortification is the stone cold truth that self mortification is dumb. Do any of you have a teacher? |
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| Why Zen is so harsh and dangerous | 11-19>| | | |
Zen → Discussion