What, in your own words, or pointing to any texts that mention the quality of what makes a Zen master a Zen master?

It seems to me that many of them were pretty violent. But was it really about violence? Were they actually trying to punish any monks? Maybe they were trying to make a point other than just "obey me!"

Have you noticed any kinds of patterns about them that I'm missing? How did they reach the status of Zen master? Do you think they enjoyed what they did?

Thanks in advance.

Game ID : 6343833729

So I'm a noob carry who has been playing solo unranked to level up my drow arcana.

Today I had a game where I first picked drow and another player told me that he is carry or feed and wanted me to swap heroes with him. At this time we already had a medusa (mid) and a WR. So I said no as I had called safe at the start. He then picked tiny and told me to swap or he would throw.

Basically you can see where this is going. He learns toss first skill and throws me into the opponents at bounty rune. I survive, subsequently he follows me around to offlane ( apparently WR and Omni decided to go to safe and let us duke it out) throws me straight into PL and SD multiple times. At one point I'm 0-4. All this time he's calling out my item timings which are shot to shit.

I decide the sensible thing to do is leave the lane to him and jungle but he follows me like a pet dog and tries to take all my farm with toss and avalanche. My my.. I could feel my eyebrow twitch slightly then I realised that hey, I'd already reported, my other team mates werent communicating much to me or him and there wasnt that much I could do to stop him. My team wasn't doing too badly as our medusa was winning midlane handily so I figured that I would farm what I could and play a bit of semi support to give her plenty of agility. Finally managed to get involved in teamfights and be useful, all while keeping my force staff ready to avoid being fed into the woodchipper by tiny. I got observeers and sents, planted them in sensible places (to me) and bought dusts to help ensure medusa knows shes gonna get molested before they arrive.

We win the game essentially 4v5 and as tiny throws me into the fountain to kill me one last time.. I force staff myself out and survive .

Ancient explodes and I get this beautific smile ... The three commends at the end were like a balm to my soul .

Anyway thanks for listening to my ramble.

TLDR :"Good CAN triumph over evil / toxicity

It is in contrast to ignorance that one speaks of awakening.  Since essentially there is no ignorance, awakening doesn't need to be established either.  All living beings, have, since beginningless time, been abiding in the consciousness of truth-nature.  In the consciousness of truth-nature they wear their clothes, eat their food, talk, and respond to things...

Because of not knowing how to return to the source, they follow names and seek after forms.  This gives rise to confused emotions and delusions, creating all kinds of karma.  If one is able in a single moment to illuminate the essence, then everything is revealed as the sacred heart.

Mazu Daoyi [Zen master, 709-788]

___________________________________________________________

Commentary: No awakening, no ignorance... what does this mean? Nothing to awaken from, nothing to awaken to. Thoughts of awakening are dualism, and so are thoughts of enlightenment. But then again, even dualism is still a part of the whole! haha

###What do Zen Masters teach? Do they teach Zen? Let's find out!^archive

Forty-Fifth Case from the Blue Cliff Record: Zhaozhou’s Seven Pound Cloth Shirt

I’m entering the last stretch of my series on the BCR for r/zen. After I hit 50 I’ll put on my straw sandals and start traveling around other forums. Don’t worry though, I’ll keep posting other stuff here so you won’t really miss me much.

I went over this case in two different voice calls with u/bigSky001, and I had a really good time. He is very intelligent and a great communicator. You can probably see that by yourselves when talking to him.

Case

>A monk asked Zhaozhou, "The myriad things return to one. Where does the one return to?"

>Zhaozhou said, "When I was in Ch'ing Chou I made a cloth shirt . It weighed seven pounds."

astrocomments:

-Sky brought up the word “ordinary” when we were talking about this case and a few questions came up after thinking about this for a bit.

How do you do something that’s not in the realm of ordinary existence?

If you are in a Zen forum, do you talk about Zen or do you talk about your ordinary life outside of it?

I said on my AMA I was only interested in talking about Zen and I take that very seriously.

I am 27 and I know exactly what I want to do with my life. I want to be available to people and talk about Zen with them. (And that’s not the same as discussing cases or ancient’s sayings, in case you were wondering.)

Linseed said in my last OP how he felt the value of a virtual community centered around Zen was in engaging with each other in terms of how and what we see in our lives (wherever they may be) as Zen students.

So here’s what’s been going on with me. After almost two years of COVID and quarantine, I finally got vaccinated and started moving around a bit more. I’m interacting again with people in real life who don’t study Zen.

What I see in them fills me with joy every day. Everyone is endowed with the wonderful. I am absolutely certain there’s no difference between enlightened and ordinary people. The great function permeates through all.

I spent my Christmas Eve teaching magic to my youngest cousin. She is 9 and extremely excited about life and everything in it (except for vegetables). As I was teaching her how to do the three card tricks I know, I began to notice she was starting to become really self conscious when try

When master Muzhou heard Yunmen coming he closed the door to his room. Yunmen knocked on the door.

Muzhou said, "Who is it?"

Yunmen said, "It’s me."

Muzhou said, "What do you want?"

Yunmen said, "I’m not clear about my life. I’d like the master to give me some instruction."

Muzhou then opened the door and, taking a look at Yunmen, closed it again.

Yunmen knocked on the door in this manner three days in a row. On the third day when Muzhou opened the door, Yunmen stuck his foot in the doorway.

Muzhou grabbed Yunmen and yelled, "Speak! Speak!"

When Yunmen began to speak, Muzhou gave him a shove and said, "Too late!"

Muzhou then slammed the door, catching and breaking Yunmen’s foot. At that moment, Yunmen experienced enlightenment.

Yunmen Wenyan [Zen master, 864-949]

__________________________________________________________________

The Gateless Gate: Gutei Raises a Finger [3rd Case]

Whenever Gutei Oshõ was asked about Zen, he simply raised his finger.

Once a visitor asked Gutei's boy attendant, "What does your master teach?" The boy too raised his finger.

Hearing of this, Gutei cut off the boy's finger with a knife. The boy, screaming with pain, began to run away.

Gutei called to him, and when he turned around, Gutei raised his finger.

The boy suddenly became enlightened.

When Gutei was about to pass away, he said to his assembled monks, "I obtained one-finger Zen from Tenryû and used it all my life but still did not exhaust it."

When he had finished saying this, he entered into eternal Nirvana.

__________________________________________________________________

Huangbo once attended an assembly at the Bureau of the Imperial Salt Commissioners at which the Emperor T‘ai Chung was also present as a śramanera (or taker of the ten precepts of Buddhism).

The śramanera noticed Huangbo enter the hall of worship and make a triple prostration to the Buddha, whereupon he asked: "If we are to seek nothing from the Buddha, Dharma or Sangha, what does Your Reverence seek by such prostrations?"

"Though I seek not from the Buddha," replied Huangbo, "or from the Dharma, or from the Sangha, it is my custom to show respect in this way."

"But what purpose does it serve?" insisted the śramanera, whereupon he suddenly received a slap.

"Oh," he exclaimed. "How uncouth you are!"

"What is this?" cried Huangbo. "Im

>A koan cannot be solved by intellectual arguments, logic or reason, nor by debates such as whether there is only mind or matter. A koan can only be solved through the power of right mindfulness and right concentration. Once we have penetrated a koan, we feel a sense of relief, and have no more fears or questioning. We see our path and realize great peace.
>
>“Does a dog have Buddha nature?” If you think that it’s the dog’s problem whether or not he has Buddha nature, or if you think that it’s merely a philosophical conundrum, then it’s not a koan.

Source: https://plumvillage.org/about/thich-nhat-hanh/letters/bat-nha-a-koan/

r/zen comment: I'm posting this here for a couple of reasons. First, it is a test case to see if certain members of this forum can acknowledge the true connection between Thích Nhất Hạnh and the lineage of Zen they hold to be untouchable and sacred. Second, the point he makes in the text is very profound. Reading his words, I am reminded of the great peace that is possible and my mind is put at ease. Does anyone still want to argue that he is not interested in Zen?

(Cases from James Green's Translation of The Recorded Sayings of Zen Master Joshu)

389 >A monk asked, “What is your ‘family custom’?” >The master said, “Having nothing inside, seeking for nothing outside.”

Okay, but Zen masters sure seem different than the monks that come and ask them questions, right? I think that if I had to separate the two groups by one characteristic, it’s that Zen masters seem confident about the Way. Let’s look at an example that could possibly challenge this.

103 >The master instructed the assembly saying, ‘The True Way is without difficulty, just refrain from picking and choosing.’ To talk about it even a little is picking and choosing. Yet, I am not within 'pure clarity'. In what place can you see the Patriarch?" >A monk asked, "You are not within 'pure clarity', so what place are you attentive to?" >The master said, "I don't know either." >The monk said, "You yourself do not know, so how can you say you are not within 'pure clarity'?" >The master said, "Your question has been good. Now make your bow and retire."

Even when Joshu seemingly doesn’t have a good answer, he doesn’t seem desperate for the monk to save him from confusion. He refutes the idea that he has a particular special understanding, and yet still seems to have an underlying certainty about… ummm… something?

I think /u/ewk (sorry to call you out so much in this post) said something really great about this in his latest AMA.

>They say enlightenment doesn't differ from ordinary mind. It is a little like you've been living as a poor person your whole life when it turns out you had a million dollars in the bank the whole time. Zen Masters are just easy going because they know about their huge bank accounts.

(emphasis added.)

I’m pretty sure he took that from one of the old men, but ewk’s is the one I remember. Anyways, so their ‘huge bank account’ is ordinary mind, which thankfully sounds like something that isn’t too hard to come by. In another one of his recent posts, ewk says that enlightenment in Zen commonly implies a sort of “nonspecific certainty” as opposed to special knowledge doctrines. What the hell could “nonspecific certainty” be? Whatever your answer is, it certainly won’t be of any use to me.

###What do Zen Masters teach? Do they teach Zen? Let's find out!^archive

Thirteenth Case from the Blue Cliff Record: Pa Ling’s Snow in a Silver Bowl

Lot’s of things happening on the forum lately. Protip: just keep studying Zen while you are here.

Case

>A monk asked Pa Ling, "What is the school of Kanadeva?" > >Pa Ling said, "Piling up snow in a silver bowl."

astrocomments:

-Without going into too much detail as to who Kanadeva is, since you can go read Yuanwu’s commentary for that, we can say two things:

1. He was great at pwning noobs ("using his unobstructed powers of argument to overcome heretics, who would therefore submit”)

2. When Kanadeva was alive, doctrinal disputes would end with the winner holding a red flag.

So what’s all this about "Piling up snow in a silver bowl"? Well, I was talking to GreenSage the other day, and he said ewk pretty much nailed it down last time this case was brought up (or maybe the time before that). He said, piling up snow in a silver bowl is adding clarity to clarity. Beautiful, right? So now that we've figured out the metaphor, what does that mean for our Zen studies?

Well, when I talk to people in this forum, it becomes apparent that they think Zen Masters are special. Even when the whole tradition consists of bringing you backstage and showing you it’s all ordinary mind, you keep thinking they are hiding something from you. "Why is Zhaozhou so cool? isn’t that what a Zen Master is?" Well, yes and no. Zhaozhou explains it better. From his record, number 206,

>Someone asked. "If people ask. 'What is the teaching of Zhaozhou?' what should I say?" > >Zhaozhou said, "Salt is expensive. Rice is cheap."

Being enlightened is really cheap. You already are! The expensive part is being Zhaozhou, or your own wise, clever, insightful, charming, personal equivalent. Here’s the thing though. You can buy all the salt in the world, but no quip, clever retort, poetic ingenuity or charming humor will give you a full belly. You need rice for that. Without rice there is no meal.

I can understand why that is disappointing. A lot of people don’t want rice, they want some mystical food that will turn you into something else. Rice is it. You are it. I assure you, Zen is not gonna lead to a realization that changes you or fixes your life. You gotta do that yourself. So when some old chinese mon

r/zen, here is the second installment of my on going Transmission of the Lamp series, which is intended to look at stories of the Zen Masters, as well as discuss the history of the lineage of Bodhidharma (with a group of monkeys who even tell you they'd rather be playing "Who's Enlightened Now?" with a bunch of banana peels in the dark).

Sigh.

Anyway, here is the first post in the series (which I personally suspect contains the greatest Flubber joke ever told). I was very pleased to see it got two whole upvotes. I link it now in case you would like to enjoy it again.

Or for the first time. And I swear—there are some banana peels in there. But of course, myself being a literary hermit, they are black body stealth banana peels... and not that singing, dancing, talking, magnetic, vibrating, stone-skipping, neon sort you contemporaries of mine find "so much more convenient to use" from the "couch" [editor: whatever that is].

But let's get back in the saddle, and stop making fun of the donkey, shall we?

Let's continue on to the "discussing the Zen Masters and the lineage of Bodhidharma."

I'm aware this is a highly controversial thing to be doing in a forum that's dedicated to pretending the Zen Masters never existed—but I think I have found 1 or 2 people here at least who are interested in Zen—so I will feel free to continue with my own study in this milieu, despite the raging illiteracy, corrupt violence, sad power struggles, and ridiculous grandstanding of digital "couch and office chair" zenners raging around me... (due to the recent (30 year) corruption of the corporate bureacracy...) [editor: which corruption itself is what led to the need for these digital murder-spaces—for utterly bored and de-educated paper shufflers expiring of ennui and the fear of numbers they've been taught in school—of course, in the first place.]

Oh, would you look at that? I bet that is exactly how Chan Master Zhiyan felt! I mean, he was raised and educated under a beneficent government helmed by enlightened buddhists [editor: in the "enligtenment" and not Zen sense of the word]–only to watch it succumb before his very eyes to the courtly and bureacratic and aristocratic corruption of the Tang [ie: corporate thinking among (often literally emasculated) desk jockeys leading to the brainwashing and ult

Yes, yes, this is another post about how I would like to talk about precepts instead of ewk-ewk-ewk... but don't swing at the windup:

Human nature, buddha nature, self nature, the soul, whatever you feel like calling it today... is a matter of some debate (when you can get a debate instead of ad homi-ewk)

Those crazy Zen Master myths

Zen Masters tell people that if you directly experience this human self buddha nature you will FREEDOM! cast off all the ideological frameworks about how to behave and what to think... and become an vegetarian farmer that tries to get people to be responsible for themselves!

Many people, some in this forum

Lots of other people... including most religious people... all Dogenists, most Christians, many non-religious-philosophy types, a fair share of perennialists, I'd guess most Topicalists, think that if IF such freedom was obtained, then people would likely be murder rapists who lie about it and rob from the rich to give to murder rapists.

Seriously. People have said this to me in this forum. Recently.

But most people who really think it in this forum don't say it. This idea that "free" means that you will be free to follow all your darker precept violating impulses. In fact, they think we have precepts because of those impulses. They see precepts as chains to keep you from celebrating those darker impulses that you may have, because everybody has them! You may not have them all, but at your most basic, most human buddha self nature, you are defined by those impulses.

The argument

1. Is the myth of the gruff but occasionally seemingly well intentioned vegetarian farmer who doesn't feel like murder raping at all worth discussing?

• and incidentally, the historical records of their 1,000 years of their tradition, which we'd have to believe are mostly fake as all Dogen Buddhists do.

OR

2. Do we think that absolute freedom would inevitably reveal the dark destructive nature of the human soul? People lie not because they aren't free, but become some people are liars and that's why rules are important?

• and if you don't lie, that just means you are "enlightened enough" to see lying isn't going to win for you long term... b/c wisdom is what gets you out of being a murder rapist liar... wisdom from knowledge.

So I think that's the underlying tension, and I think that's why generally precepts are a sensitive subj

In Response to this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/rf2b5p/zen_masters_teachers_giving_instruction

I've been having this debate for a little while now with u/ewk, whom I consider a friend of mine. My view for the sake of this debate is that Zen masters don't teach in any normal sense of the word, and don't see themselves as people giving instructions. I'm not arguing with the idea that people come to them for instruction, or tend to make 'doctrines' and 'recipes' out of the things they say. I'm not suggesting that Zen masters don't see that their 'students' are asking for instruction. What I'm trying to say is that Zen masters don't give them what they're asking for in that respect - and that they are aware of the fact that they are not teaching or instructing.

Part of my interpretation comes from how I understand GG 38:

>Wuzu said, “To give an example, it is like a buffalo passing through a window.
Its head, horns, and four legs have all passed through. Why is it that its tail cannot?”

Thinking and analysing this in a purely logical way doesn't help. It's actually a bit frustrating. And that's kind of the point. In a sense it only 'clicks' when you see that you're just annoying yourself, using your mind in the wrong way. >!The buffalo is already free - it's just walking backwards.!<

The idea that there is something to learn from Zen masters is similar. They don't add to our knowledge in the way a teacher does.

Firstly I think there's a bit of a cultural gulch to cross here. China is one of those places where respect for one's elders - to the point of ancestor worship - is a much more intense social effect that what we're used to in Western culture. Even today the way one treats a guest, or the way a guest treats a host, seems something that the culture is more aware of than over here. I mean, I've visited friends over in China and struggled to be allowed to pay for anything, for example. There's a certain leeway afforded to foreigners for not being cultured in the same way. Things work a bit differently.

We can see some of that in the Zen cases - there's a lot of bowing. There are references to people being called arrogant for not bowing when approaching a Zen master to ask a question.

If you look at what Google says 'teacher' means when it is translated into Chinese I think you can see that the term doesn't have the exact same me

>In Buddhist circles, we are careful to avoid getting stuck in concepts, even the concepts "Buddhism" and "Buddha." If you think of the Buddha as someone separate from the rest of the world, you will never recognize a Buddha even if you see him on the street. That is why one Zen Master said to his student, "When you meet the Buddha, kill him!" He meant that the student should kill the Buddha-concept in order for him to experience the real Buddha directly.

Nhat Hanh, Thich. Living Buddha, Living Christ. Riverhead Books, New York, 1995, p. 149.

r/zen comment: Certain members of this forum will not accept that Thích Nhất Hạnh is a Zen Master no matter how much textual evidence is presented, so now I am just creating content for whoever is interested in studying Zen. The teaching stands on its own, but I will contribute that the Zen Master he is referencing in the quote was called Linji Yixuan, who founded an important school of Chan Buddhism during Tang Dynasty China. What will you do when you meet the Buddha?

There is a distinction in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy between your conceptual self and observer self. The former involves anything someone could learn about you through public information or 3rd person knowledge. This includes your name, social roles like parent, whether you're a Democrat or Republican, and so on.

The observer self is by definition private, only accessible to you. It's the part of you that can, in the present moment, zoom out and pay attention to anything in your experience (you can imagine consciousness as a stageshow, which includes everything in your experience- your breath, sounds, smells, and that voice in your head that uses concepts). Most people don't identify with this observer self and my understanding is that awakening involves realizing you are not the social roles or linguistic thinking that tends to dominate thought...but the larger awareness that is unchanged by what it observes: you are the context, not the content of your mind. Is there a Zen perspective on this?

###What do Zen Masters teach? Do they teach Zen? Let's find out!^archive

Twelfth Case from the Blue Cliff Record: Dongshan’s Three Pounds of Hemp

ewk once said that Zen Masters had the most difficult job in the world, since they have to get people to challenge themselves. I'm seeing it with u/junetwentyfirst2020 OPs today. People who are willing to challenge themselves love r/zen. People who wan't to be told they are right or that they have wisdom, hate it. I challenge you to say something about your understanding of this case before reading my comments. Let's see if there's any takers.

Case

>A monk asked Dongshan, “What is Buddha?” > >Dongshan said, “Three pounds of hemp.”

astrocomments:

-I think is high time I discuss the title of my series. What do Zen Masters teach? Well, I think a better question would be, have Zen Masters ever taught anything? It is said that “the thousand sages have not transmitted the single transcendental path" and "students toil over appearances like monkeys grasping at reflections.” If Dongshan isn’t teaching anything, and if he IS answering the question, what is the deal with the three pounds of hemp? He makes it painfully obvious you are getting nothing from him. Well, not nothing, three pounds of hemp. There are a lot of ways of making irrelevant interpretations. Thankfully someone went through the trouble of listing them out to smoke out everyone in the house. From Yuanwu’s commentary:

>Many people base their understanding on the words and say that Tung Shan was in the storehouse at the time weighing out hemp when the monk questioned him, and therefore he answered in this way. Some say that when Tung Shan is asked about the east he answers about the west. Some say that since you are Buddha and yet you still go to ask about Buddha, Tung Shan answers this in a roundabout way. And there’s yet another type of dead [person] who say that the three pounds of hemp is itself Buddha. But these interpretations are irrelevant. If you seek from Tung Shan’s words this way, you can search until Maitreya Buddha is born down here and still never see it even in a dream.

Was Dongshan teaching something then? Was Yuanwu? Here’s HuanBo with the weather,

> In reality, their Dharma is neither preached in words nor otherwise signified; and those who listen neither hear nor attain. It is as though **an imaginary

###What do Zen Masters teach? Do they teach Zen? Let's find out!^archive

Eleventh Case from the Blue Cliff Record: HuangBo’s Gobblers of Dregs

I don't say this enough, but I've seen some new faces around the forum and I ought to say it more, even if it applies to both old and new people here. If anything I say doesn't make sense to you, ask me to clarify and I will do so gladly. Any comments about your understanding or about what you thought about the case, even if it's not related to my commentary is welcome. Also, picking apart what I say it's fine too. This is YOUR tradition and this is YOUR forum.

Case

>HuangBo, instructing the community, said, "All of you people are gobblers of dregs; if you go on traveling around this way, where will you have Today? Don’t you know that there are no teachers of Ch’an in all of China?" > >At that time a monk came forward and said, "Then what about those in various places who order followers and lead communities?" > >HuangBo said, "I do not say that there is no Ch’an; it’s just that there are no teachers."

astrocomments:

-From what I’ve seen, people love it when someone tells them what to do. That’s why they run to religious institutions and listen to people who have any semblance of authority. Then they do whatever practice is recommended to them and call that attainment. They don’t realize they are just gobblers of dregs. A few of them, by some stroke of destiny, find Zen, and do the same with the words of these old teachers. Gobblers of dregs. If clinging to the words from the books is far away, how much further are the people who claim to understand Zen but can’t be bothered to read the words of the people who define the tradition.

Why try to make your living in HuangBo’s words, or anyone else’s? That’s what is meant by the dead word, if you cling to it, you are a dead man walking, What is the living word? YOU are the living word! The priceless jewel is within your reach, why settle for some spare change from a kind teacher?

The whole issue is people don’t understand that studying Zen is studying to be a Zen Master. For some reason or another I went back to this post from last year. What makes it relevant here is that they wrote that "Not everyone’s zen masters" in, what seems to

I thought this was an interesting reconciliation of Jesuit and Zen within the life of a skilled priest/master.

https://www.ncronline.org/news/i-wanted-faith-was-deeper-jesuit-priest-and-zen-master-part-i

https://www.ncronline.org/news/i-wanted-faith-was-deeper-jesuit-priest-and-zen-master-part-2

>'I wanted a faith that was deeper,' a Tom Fox interview
Jesuit Fr. Robert E. Kennedy is an American Catholic priest and a Zen master (roshi). "I have never felt that I was a Buddhist. I have always felt that I am Catholic and a Jesuit," Kennedy tells Tom Fox. "But I wanted a faith that was deeper, that was rooted in my experience, that was not a theory that could be blown away with a change in culture." He explains: "Christianity is not a triumphal march to the Kingdom." It is an emptying of self. "This profound teaching of Christian life is very close to Buddhism. Buddhism tries to empty ourselves of a false identity and to come to the world as naked and as crucified as Christ was."

>More about the author
Ordained a priest in Japan in 1965, Jesuit Fr. Robert E. Kennedy was installed as a Zen teacher in 1991 and was given the title Roshi in 1997. Kennedy studied Zen with Yamada Roshi in Japan, Maezumi Roshi in Los Angeles and Bernard Glassman Roshi in New York. He teaches in the theology department of Saint Peter's College in Jersey City, N.J. In addition to his work at the college, he is a practicing psychotherapist. He is the author of two books, Zen Spirit, Christian Spirit and Zen Gifts to Christians.

The closeness he touches upon is one of the more difficult but true aspects of the Lotus Sutra. Reality is that none of humanities past practices are separate from this moment. Those past practices are the causes, conditions and the capacities that led to this moment. They are empty of an intrinsic self but they aren't meaningless or void of meaning because time has passed. To put them into context and them conflict with Buddhism is to treat them as if they had an inherent self.

It has been claimed (irrationally) that while the words "teach", "instruct", "lecture", and their variants appear commonly in the teachings texts, that Zen Masters do not see themselves as teachers, do not see their followers as students, and do not see their teachings as... well... teachings.

Let's take a deep dive into a text we have the Chinese for:

From Wumen's Checkpoint:

Teach (15), Instruct (2), Lecture (1), School (1)

1. 後有童子。因外人問、和尚説何法要。

• Once a visitor asked Gutei's boy attendant, "What does your master teach?"
• 師, Definition teacher, master, specialist; multitude, troops
• Etymology: Pile of people gathered around a hill

2. Please teach me."

• 州云、喫粥了也未。
• "I haven't eaten porridge"
• Obviously I'm missing something.

3. 國師三喚

• Chû the National Teacher Gives Three Calls
• Same as #1

4. 今行者即是某甲師也。

• My lay brother, you are now my teacher."
• Same as #1

5. 祖云、汝若如是則吾與汝同師黄梅。

• The patriarch said, "If you say so, but let us both call Õbai our teacher.
• Same as #1

6. 於是禮辭。

• Then, making bows, he took his leave of his teacher.
• It just says he left.

7. 然雖如是、未肯向婆子句下死却。遂問婆子、近處有甚麼宗師。

• However, he did not remain inert under her words but asked, "Do you know of any good teacher around here?"
• Same as #1. "Great teacher" as opposed to

8. 又古徳云、百尺竿頭坐底人、雖然得入未爲眞。

• Another eminent teacher of old said, "You, who sit on the top of a hundred-foot pole, although you have entered the Way you are not yet genuine.
• It's just "old saying says"

9. 無門曰、若向者裏見得雲門用處孤危、者僧因甚話墮、堪與人天爲師。

• If you clearly understand this and realize how exacting Unmon was in his method, and what made the monk err in his speaking, you are qualified to be a teacher of heaven and earth.
• #1 again

10. 把定放行、各出一隻手扶竪宗乗。

• One holding fast, the other letting go, each stretches out his hand to support the profound teaching.
• Looks like "support the school"

11. 願行者開示。

• I beg you, please give me your instruction."
• teaching of novices, revealing, showing. literally "start showing"

12. 今蒙指授入處、如人飲水冷暖自知。

• But now, receiving your instruction, I know it is like a man drinking water and knowing whether it is cold or warm.
• 指授 zhǐshòu
• to instruct or direct: Point, indicate; give to, transfer, confer

13. 清涼大法眼、因僧齋前上參。 眼以手指簾。

• When the monks assembled before the midday meal to listen to his lecture, the great Hõgen of Seiryõ pointed at the bamboo blinds.
• • 因 僧 齋
• I think it might be "monk house" not school.

14. 無門曰、雲門、當時便與本分草料、使洞山別有生機一路、家門不致

I just stumbled upon this tweet:

https://twitter.com/ContraPoints/status/1469781348965568512

> Almost no one can take a large volume of harsh criticism well. We’re at war with human nature expecting this from celebrities. Especially since being an egoless zen master is incompatible with fame-seeking in the first place.

Thoughts?

Master Huangbo Xiyun once attended an assembly at the Bureau of the Imperial Salt Commissioners at which the Emperor T‘ai Chung was also present as a śramanera.^(1) The śramanera noticed Huangbo enter the hall of worship and make a triple prostration to the Buddha, whereupon he asked: "If we are to seek nothing from the Buddha, Dharma or Sangha, what does Your Reverence seek by such prostrations?"

"Though I seek not from the Buddha," replied our Master, "or from the Dharma, or from the Sangha, it is my custom to show respect in this way."

"But what purpose does it serve?" insisted the śramanera, whereupon he suddenly received a slap.

"Oh," he exclaimed. "How uncouth you are!"

"What is this?" cried the Master. "Imagine making a distinction between refined and uncouth!" So saying, he administered another slap, causing the śramanera to betake himself elsewhere!^(2)

Huangbo Xiyun [Zen master, died 850?]: On the Transmission of Mind

___________________________________________________________

1. Here meaning a layman who had taken ten buddhist precepts instead of the normal five.
2. This story is, to anyone familiar with the customs of Eastern courts, hair-raising. That Huangbo should have dared to slap the Divine Emperor, the Son of Heaven, indicates both the immensity of the master's personal prestige and the utter fearlessness which results logically from an unshakeable conviction that samsāric life is but a dream. The emperor's willingness to accept the blow without retaliation indicates the depth of his admiration for the master. It must be remembered that Huangbo, as one of several masters belonging to a relatively small sect, with no temporal authority whatever, cannot be compared to a Western pope or archbishop who, under certain circumstances, might be able to strike a reigning emperor with impunity by reason of his authority as a Prince of the Church.

In the early 90s, someone described a book as being about a “Zen master,“ IIRC, full of little stories you have to think about afterwards to realize what they mean.

The example I remember was one where the Zen master is being chased by an animal and ends up hanging off the side of a cliff by a branch. While he is there, he notices some berries growing next to him, and he stops and eats one.

And that’s the entire story. The idea is that you then reflect on it and realize that the point is: Even when there is calamity, you can stop and enjoy nice things.

I think this was a book. That’s the way I remember hearing it described.

Any ideas?

1. Wansong's Book of Serenity: Based on quoting the Instructional Verses of Hongzhi, who wrote the instructional verses about 100 quotes from other Zen Masters.

2. Yuanwu's Blue Cliff Record, Measuring Tap: Based on Xuedou's Instructional verses and teachings based on two sets of 100 quotes from other Zen Masters.

3. Wumen: Verses and teachings based on 48 quotes from other Zen Masters... the quotes take up more text than Wumen's verses and teachings.

4. Xutang's Empty Hall: A single sentence of teaching for each of 100 quotes from other Zen Masters... the quotes take up more text than Xutang's own teachings.

Note that these Zen Masters wrote verses of instruction and/or teaching about other Zen Masters' sayings and about what other Zen Masters said about other Zen Masters' sayings after they were enlightened Zen Masters themselves.

So, why this "obsession with quoting Zen Masters"?

I'll offer a theory: Enlightenment is so kick ass that the only people you are interested in testing and being tested by is... other Enlightened people.

Right from the start you can tell that someone who can't quote Zen Masters is not only not interested in Zen... they aren't enlightened or interested in enlightenment.

It isn't just that these "quote haters" don't like Zen or Zen teachings... QuoteHaters generally don't have much in the way of reading comprehension... it's more that QuoteHaters do not want to test or be tested... they want something else: Attention usually. A way to feel important often. Enlightenment never.

PS. My theory offers a bit of a different spin on the famous Zen question, "What do they teach where you come from?"

I got asked what I mean when I say that something is 'bullshit' is tonight...

Here's Urban Dictionary doing the legwork,

>A term that is used to described lies or untrue stuff.

Just going by the numbers, people who've come here claim that total dismissal of their beliefs constitutes something so outrageously-offensive that they assert a privilege that supersedes their obligation to respect /r/Zen as a space to converse about Zen...as opposed to a place to bullshit.

What do Zen Masters call out as bullshit?

1. Nanquan said, "The Way is not in knowing or in not knowing."

2. Cheng says, "Heading back to reality as such, doctrine is after all impure."

3. Yunmen said, "You monks must not think falsely; heaven is heaven, earth is earth, mountain is mountain, river is river, monk is monk, and layperson is layperson."

4. Wumen said, "Making progress is an intellectual illusion."

5. Wansong said, "If you believe seeing and hearing are like illusion-creating cataracts, then you will know that sound and form are like flowers in the sky."

6. Tianhuang said, "When you see, see directly; if you try to think, you'll miss."

7. Sengcan said, "As soon as there is right and wrong, the mind is scattered and lost."

8. Yongjia said, "In the multiplicity of the relative world, you cannot find [enlightenment]."

9. Wumen said, "Looking for Buddha, looking for Truth outside oneself is being confined in two iron [mountains]"

10. Gupta said, "The teaching, [contemplating on stillness], which is practiced in India by inferior [outsiders] is regarded as the Chan school in this land. You greatly mistaken person!""

PRE-EMPTIVE HUANGBO RE THE QUESTION OF "BUT, HOW DO I GET RID OF BULLSHIT?!"

> Huangbo says:

>>"The arising and the elimination of [bullshit] are both [bullshit]. [Bullshit] is not something rooted in Reality; it exists because of your dualistic thinking. If you will only cease to indulge in opposed concepts such as 'ordinary' and 'Enlightened', [bullshit] will cease of itself. And then if you still want to destroy it wherever it may be, you will find that there is not a hairsbreadth left of anything on which to lay hold."

The bell is rung, the flags are raised;

THE FORGE OF HUANGBO IS HOT!

>"Psychonauts subject themselves to altered states of consciousness in order to search for Truth in the unconscious mind. . .through the use of psychedelic drugs, but also includ[ing] tactics like dreaming, hypnosis, prayer, sensory deprivation, and meditation."

>[Source] (https://haenfler.sites.grinnell.edu/subcultures-and-scenes/psychonauts/)

This is the dominant religious paradigm of what is an overwhelmingly white, male, middle class religiosity that comes to /r/Zen to proselytize.

Next to nobody is coming here to preach moral rectitude, virtuous behavior, performance of liturgical rites, or the importance of engaging in social justice activism or going on mission trips. It's all just dudes BSing about how consciousness-expanding, ego-dying, nondual red-pilled "gnosis experience" escapism is enlightenment, truth, reality, Zen--whatever.

But what do Zen Masters say?

>The Third Patriarch, Sengcan, says:

>Dreams, illusions, flowers in the sky—

>Why labor to grasp them?

>>Qingliao remarks:

>>All objects are dreams, all appearances are illusions, all phenomena are flowers in the sky, impossible to grasp. It is just your conditioned consciousness mistaking the dead skull and stinking skeleton in the material mass of flesh for your own body, that draws out so much fuss and bother, pursuing the myriad objects before your eyes all day long, just continuing a series of repetitious dreams.

So it's not just that the dope-smoking, meditation, and chasing dreamland by psychonauts all have profoundly debilitating consequences on their long term physical and mental health but the lack of honesty about the nature of their practice without lying about what Zen Masters have to say creates years-long cycles of account-deletion, 0-day spamming, and /r/Zen brigading. Let's call that 'thirst'.

As for "searching for the Truth in the unconscious mind"--Zen Masters clearly talk about things a little differently, so why not check them out?

> Master Yunmen entered the Dharma Hall and said:

> "A bodhisattva striving for wisdom must be able to know the illness of sentient beings; then he will also be capable of knowing [his own illness], the illness of the bodhisattva striving for wisdom. Well, if there is someone here who can understand this, he ought to step forward and try demonstrating it to all of us!"

> No one in the assembly said a word.

> Then the Master said, "If you cannot do that, then don't prevent me from taking a walk wherever I please!"

Someone asserted recently that "Zen Master" was an official title transferred in an official ceremony and that the Zen Masters reserved that special title for referring to each other.

Now, anyone who has done any legitimate study of Zen will realize pretty quickly that is rather ridiculous ... however, it still leads to a good question to ask:

"Did the Zen Masters call themselves 'Zen Masters'?"

The answer: No.

I started by looking up "Master" in HuangBo's record.

First, what Blofeld translates as "master" is actually "禪師" chanshi, "Zen teacher".

In the first paragraph Pei Xiu simply refers to HuangBo as "teacher".

Later on, in Chintokkong's translation, the word "master" is used.

That character is "主" or "zhu" -- "master" / "host"

So, so far, we have "師" shi and "主" zhu.

Where we find 主, however, the word is being used in a very clear sense as a literal "master":

> The truth of ultimate meaning is really without falsehood. Students-of-the-way [should] not doubt that the body is of the four great-elements, that the four great-elements are devoid of a self, that the self is also devoid of a master ("主"). Therefore know that this body is devoid of self and also devoid of master ("主").

> [Do not doubt that] the mind is of the five skandhas, that the five skandhas are devoid of a self and also devoid of a master. Therefore know that this mind is devoid of self and also devoid of master.

That's not being made in reference to HuangBo, that is in reference to an abstract concept of "a master".

The word "師" shi, is used throughout the text to refer to HuangBo.

At one point, HuangBo calls BodhiDharma "大師" dashi, "great teacher" ... but that's about it.

Now, when we look at LinJi's record (I used Sasaki's for the footnotes), this all becomes more obvious and corroborated.

Throughout the text, LinJi is referred to as "teacher" - "shi" - 師.

"主" Zhu is only used when talking about "guest and host" "賓主" ... (which also indicates that "host" can also be "lord" .. like a "feudal lord").

The only other use of "主" outside of that context is as use for official titles.

So, for example,

> “Fuzhu” 府主, here translated as “governor” (Hucker 1985 has “commandery governor” [2047]–Ed.), was a title for the chief administrator of a superior prefecture 府, in this case Chengdefu 成德府. The title, an informal rathe

"Make me one with everything."

A few quick notes that I've been meaning to jot down somewhere...

Numbers:

Hexadecimal and binary are not the only 2 ways of representing binary numbers, there is also twos complement and signed magnitude. (There are also more, but this is pretty good for now.)

Combined Numbers?

The statue has a piece on the front showing 6 lines that combine down into 4. Line 3 combining with 4, and 5 with 6. Since we have 6 digits to start with, the idea occurred to me to try combining them.

There are several ways that this can be done, such as: addition, multiplication, exponentiation. The ones that seem a bit more appropriate to me are the bitwise operations (AND, OR, XOR). I tried many things, but the one that jumped out at me was the bitwise AND.

The result is FF01. So why does that seem noteworthy? With twos complement it yields the result of -1, 1.

Perhaps now I am one with everything.

So, what does it all mean? I don't know, but it seemed like something worth writing, maybe it will mean something useful to someone. Google told me that FF01 has something to do with multicast IPv6 addresses, but I don't know much about that.

This energy feels powerful and unlimited. It listens to me and I am grateful for that. My relationship is my relationship with it and there isn’t anyone who can tell me what I should or shouldn’t be doing. Or should or shouldn’t be saying. I will continue to look within myself and dig for the treasures within my heart and mind that my energy is thriving off of. I am energy, I am spirit. I love the way I am harmonizing with my body.

Treasury of the Eye of True Teaching #502

> As Angulimalya was begging, he came to the door of a rich man whose wife was having a difficult birth, and had not yet delivered. The rich man said, "As a disciple of Gautama you are a supreme sage - what method do you have to avoid birthing difficulty?" Angulimalya said to the rich man, "I have just entered the path and do not yet know this method. Wait till I go back and ask the World Honored One, and I'll come back and tell you." Then he went back and told the Buddha all about this. The Buddha said, "Go there quickly and announce, 'Ever since I have been following the teaching of saints and sages, I have never killed a living being.'" Angulimalya did as the Buddha said; he went and told this to the rich man. When his wife heard this, she delivered at once.

> Note: Before he was converted by Buddha, Angulimalya was a death cultist who believed he could attain spiritual liberation by killing a thousand people. Some see in him evidence of an ancient ancestor of the more recent cult of Thuggee.

what's so great about not killing that it makes a difficult birth easy? what's all this got to do with the "teachings of saints and sages?"

Treasury of the Eye of True Teaching #50

> As Master Guizong was weeding, a lecturing monk came to call on him. Suddenly a snake slithered by; Guizong killed it with his hoe.

> The monk said, "Long have I heard of Guizong, but after all you're a roughneck monk."

> Holding the hoe, Guizong glared back at the monk and said, "Are you rough or am I rough?"

> Later Xuefeng asked Deshan, "What was the ancient's meaning when he killed the snake?"

> Deshan immediately struck him; Xuefeng walked away. Deshan called to him, and Xuefeng turned his head. Deshan said, "Later he was enlightened; only then did he realize the old guy's thoroughgoing kindness."

submitting questions is not enough. after all, guizong is indeed a roughneck. doubtlessly of the same teachings as followed by the buddha yet he's killed a few snakes.

Treasury of the Eye of True Teaching #422

> Master Yunju You said to an assembly,

> People engaged in study need to attain the basis of enlightenment, discovering the ground of mind. If you realize the master of the reality body, then the whole earth, plants and trees, take refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. If you realize the teacher of Vairocana, the realm of space takes refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. But te

The following is a couplet from Crow With No Mouth, a translation by Stephen Berg of some of Zen master Ikkyū's poetry:

>that stone Buddha deserves all the birdshit it gets
>
>I wave my skinny arms like a tall flower in the wind

Reading this passage this morning ignited me. Positively. But rather than editorialize my own personal sunburst, I think merely relaying Ikkyū's words to you might be more edifying.

With that, wherever you are and however you practice or don't, I hope the birds find your stone Buddha too.

Wikipedia says that he is a Zen master, but some people in this forum disagree.

What basis is there for claiming that he is not a Zen master?

>Having entered the Dharma Hall for a formal instruction, Master Yunmen said:

>>"The Buddha attained the Way when the morning star appeared."

>>A monk asked, "What is it like when one attains the Way at the appearance of the morning star?"

>>Master Yunmen said, "Come here, come here [I'll show it to you]!"

>>The monk went closer. Master Yunmen hit him with his staff and chased him out of the Dharma Hall.

🤿What's it like?
One thing resembling another.

I don't want to color your answers, so I wont say more than this.

Or am I perhaps not seeing it?