Answers about Death and Happiness

[Shoki]

Thank you, Jundo. I have a busy day planned. I can take this teaching with me.

Gassho
ST-lah
James

[Luigi]

Luigi
ST

[vanbui]

Wise answers and wonderful teaching.

Gassho
Van
SAT+LAD

[Seibu]

Thank you Roshi for sharing this

Gassho
Seibu
Sattoday

[Kyonin]

Life is just what we need, not what we want it to be.

Thank you Jundo.

Gassho,

Kyonin
Sat/LAH

[Shinshi]

Thank you Jundo.

Gassho, Shinshi

SaT-LaH

[Tairin]

Tairin
Sat today and lah

[Yokai]

"we" are intimately all of reality manifesting as you and as me

Thank you Jundo. Deepest bows for this teaching

Thank you REALITY for manifesting Treeleaf! It's so wonderful to share the bus with you all

Gassho, Chris stlah

[Ishin]

I'd like to share this thread from Facebook, because I think it helps, and I have questions about it which might help others.

Me: For most of us familiar with Western culture and or religions there is an assumption of some kind of afterlife and immortality of the soul. We go to “heaven” or “hell”, even concepts of rebirth , reincarnation or ghosts actually reflect an unwillingness to accept that death is the end of self. The question itself reflects the hesitation to let go of such notions. Zen gets right to the heart of the matter confronting us with the crucial counter question; are you so sure there is a self as you see it? That’s quite a paradigm shift for many people. Yet practice itself reveals just how much we are invested in the layers of ego we think are “real”, but reveal themselves to be illusions in the first place. This clinging can get us into and creates a good deal of trouble. My “self” wants there to be a magical place to be beyond death, but Zen teaches us being what is. There’s no real evidence for an afterlife and there’s no real evidence there isn’t. Yet how horrible to know I’ll be the same old smuck for eternity. Buddhism teaches us nothing exists; it’s all in flux. It’s egoic to want everything to remain the same. Striving for preservation of the propped up reality of an infinite personality is not something to embrace. Zen teaches us to let go and be WITH the flux, come what may.

Jundo: Zen is not nihilism. Once the self is torn down, the result is not nothing. There is no afterlife because there was never a before life ... only the life of Buddha. The unchanging change is neither chaos nor does it stay ever the same for even a moment. There is nothing to preserve for nothing can ever be lost, even as things are constantly gained and lost. All of reality is a most magical place, but that magic is often most ordinary like rusty tin cans and bloody bandages. Best not to see things only from one side.


OK My questions.

I get that Zen is not nihlism. What does "Buddha" mean in this statement there is only the life of Buddha?

Gassho
Ishin
Sat/lah

[Meian]

Looking at this, I cannot call myself a Zen Buddhist, but I suppose I can still sit Shikantaza.

To sit shikantaza it does not matter what I am or am not, or what I believe. I can just sit.

Gassho2, meian/kim, st

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[Onka]

Looking at this, I cannot call myself a Zen Buddhist, but I suppose I can still sit Shikantaza.

To sit shikantaza it does not matter what I am or am not, or what I believe. I can just sit.

Gassho2, meian/kim, st

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

I call myself a follower of the Buddha Dharma.
That doesn't mean my knowledge base or practice experience is vast and full of insights because it's not. I'm just a muppet doing the best I can, how I can, with what I can, when I can. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Pretty sure calling oneself a Buddhist isn't rooted particularly deeply in history either.
Just as I personally believe that Jesus the person would burn down most Churches I reckon the dude we accept was pretty switched on and was called Buddha by others would possibly openly mock the ridiculousness of the Buddhist Religion as it is practiced in most places. I'm reckon all of the people recognised as being the founders of any philosophy that was later turned into religion would be the same.
All the messages of the recognised founders are the same - don't be a dick. It's about the practice that resonates most with you that's the important part.
But hey, who am I but someone who occasionally yells NO GODS. NO MASTERS. haha
Gassho
Onka
St

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[Horin]

I'd like to share this thread from Facebook, because I think it helps, and I have questions about it which might help others.

Me: For most of us familiar with Western culture and or religions there is an assumption of some kind of afterlife and immortality of the soul. We go to “heaven” or “hell”, even concepts of rebirth , reincarnation or ghosts actually reflect an unwillingness to accept that death is the end of self. The question itself reflects the hesitation to let go of such notions. Zen gets right to the heart of the matter confronting us with the crucial counter question; are you so sure there is a self as you see it? That’s quite a paradigm shift for many people. Yet practice itself reveals just how much we are invested in the layers of ego we think are “real”, but reveal themselves to be illusions in the first place. This clinging can get us into and creates a good deal of trouble. My “self” wants there to be a magical place to be beyond death, but Zen teaches us being what is. There’s no real evidence for an afterlife and there’s no real evidence there isn’t. Yet how horrible to know I’ll be the same old smuck for eternity. Buddhism teaches us nothing exists; it’s all in flux. It’s egoic to want everything to remain the same. Striving for preservation of the propped up reality of an infinite personality is not something to embrace. Zen teaches us to let go and be WITH the flux, come what may.

Jundo: Zen is not nihilism. Once the self is torn down, the result is not nothing. There is no afterlife because there was never a before life ... only the life of Buddha. The unchanging change is neither chaos nor does it stay ever the same for even a moment. There is nothing to preserve for nothing can ever be lost, even as things are constantly gained and lost. All of reality is a most magical place, but that magic is often most ordinary like rusty tin cans and bloody bandages. Best not to see things only from one side.


OK My questions.

I get that Zen is not nihlism. What does "Buddha" mean in this statement there is only the life of Buddha?

Gassho
Ishin
Sat/lah

My opinion on "There's only the life of Buddha..."

...I think it says that everything that exists is just this isness, that nothing is seperate, thich nath hanh emphasizes the interbeing, that there's nothing that stands alone, nothing that is for itself, that's the emptiness from a seperate self.. jundo explained the great dance, that everything is a manifestation, everything is constantly changing nothing is fixed..or the bus tour jundo also explained once..
I also like the image of a mirror that reflects everything and yet isn't clinging nor pushing away the things appearing on it. Although the reflections seem separate, we cannot isolate them from the mirror... I think we can use many concepts and metaphors, but we cannot grasp it by thinking or talking...we better sit down and try to "embody Buddha"

Gassho

Ben

Stlah

Enviado desde mi PLK-L01 mediante Tapatalk

[Geika]

What does "Buddha" mean in this statement there is only the life of Buddha?

My answer to the question, if I understand it correctly, is the Heart Sutra.

...I think it says that everything that exists is just this isness, that nothing is seperate, thich nath hanh emphasizes the interbeing, that there's nothing that stands alone, nothing that is for itself, that's the emptiness from a seperate self.. jundo explained the great dance, that everything is a manifestation, everything is constantly changing nothing is fixed..or the bus tour jundo also explained once..
I also like the image of a mirror that reflects everything and yet isn't clinging nor pushing away the things appearing on it. Although the reflections seem separate, we cannot isolate them from the mirror... I think we can use many concepts and metaphors, but we cannot grasp it by thinking or talking...we better sit down and try to "embody Buddha"

What he said.

Gassho
Sat today, lah

[Jundo]

What does "Buddha" mean in this statement there is only the life of Buddha?

Well, the word "Buddha" tends to have some rather different meanings in Buddhism: One is that guy who lived and died in India 2500 years ago or so, and other is a code-word for "The Universe, Everything, Reality, the Kitchen Sink, the Whole Enchilada and anything and everything that may be found perhaps beyond even that."

I feel that Horin expressed this very elegantly ...

...I think it says that everything that exists is just this isness, that nothing is seperate, thich nath hanh emphasizes the interbeing, that there's nothing that stands alone, nothing that is for itself, that's the emptiness from a seperate self.. jundo explained the great dance, that everything is a manifestation, everything is constantly changing nothing is fixed..or the bus tour jundo also explained once..
I also like the image of a mirror that reflects everything and yet isn't clinging nor pushing away the things appearing on it. Although the reflections seem separate, we cannot isolate them from the mirror... I think we can use many concepts and metaphors, but we cannot grasp it by thinking or talking...we better sit down and try to "embody Buddha"

Lovely. I would just say that we may even leap past human concepts of "is" and "being." I like to say that, if Hamlet had been Zen Buddhist, he might have allowed for some third possibility beyond a simple either "to be or not to be."

We don't say that this is meaningless, dead, lifeless, so we are definitely not "nihilists." Neither are we so bold as to claim to know everything about it, because simply, our human brains probably can't process all this, any more than my cat or an ant can understand my computer as anything more than something to sleep on or crawl across. So, Zen folks tend to avoid too easy labels for it although, yes, sometimes we call it "Buddha" or "Dharmakaya" or "the Absolute" or some such silly names. Some other folks have other silly names. Wise folks sometimes skip all the names.

We do sense that there is some wholeness and intelligence to the whole shebang, whether some kind of mathematical harmony or natural laws or something more which we might actually define and recognize as "intelligence" (I suspect that we could not process the reality completely any more than my cat or an ant can process what I am typing on this screen). We know for a 100% certainty that it can think, see, hear, taste, touch and smell for the simple reason that we can think, see, hear, taste, touch and smell ... and we are it, and it is us. **

** (I mean, we are not merely residents of this universal house we find ourselves temporarily renting and living in, but seem to be more the house which somehow has given birth to its own residents! For whatever reason, over billions of years, the bricks and beams of the house evolved to birth people and ants and cats that seem to appreciate living in the house, feast from its kitchen and gardens, and sometimes make a disgraceful mess of the place with our internal squabbles, junk and failure to properly maintain it. Maybe future residents will appreciate it more. The house somehow sprung up residents who think, see, hear, taste, touch and smell and thus make use of the kitchen, able to appreciate the place and make a house a "home." No, we are not sure all the details about how this house gave birth to its own tenants, but it is pretty amazing that it did ... and here we are, conscious and aware, lease in hand. Since we, the tenants, are alive, conscious, intelligent and aware ... and since we are the house as much as the bath tubs and floor tiles ... we can be 100% sure that the house is also alive, conscious, intelligent and aware, at least to the extent of us, because we are the house ... not only housing us ... but the house housing as us who are also the house.

I suspect and hope ... because we are still real idiots! ... that the house is more intelligent than us. We are like the cat and the ant, far from the highest measure of the potential consciousness and awareness of this "smart" house. At least, I suspect so. I mean, it would be quite the coincidence if a wild forest and a dumb stone quarry somehow by chance and evolution alone wound around totally by dice rolls to form beams and kitchen, bathtubs and garden, then you and me sitting here by the fireplace, smoking our pipes and reading Chaucer or watching Seinfeld. I suspect that there is something more to that surface happenstance. I suspect that the universe tries planets and planets of houses, most of which remain piles of lumber, mud holes, simply uninhabitable ... but some of which become split level ranch houses, a further subset of which become fully furnished with a full set of appliances, fully stocked refrigerator, sofas and chairs, and living asses to sit in them. Seemingly, the house could have remained empty, or a pile of uncut lumber and raw stone, or had only ants, or had other tenants than you and me ... and yet, here you and I sit in our chairs. I suspect that a house ... or at least, the vibrant neighborhood which gave rise to the house as well as lots of other houses, some of which are likely habitable if most maybe not ... needs tenants so as not to itself be totally empty and unrented. Kitchens needs cooks, and bathrooms need bathers. On the other hand, if we crazy dumb ass humans are the best this universe can do, even if with Chaucer and Seinfeld, then it is a pretty poor dumb ass universe! I suspect that the universal development company ... be it nature or something more ... having a seemingly endless supply of universal building materials, takes a "shotgun, see what sticks" approach to house building, some of which works out, some which never gets off the ground, and some of which ends up burning the place down ... and we are just temporary caretakers of this apartment pending future building and expansion, assuming we don't burn the place down first with us inside! No, not perfect ... the pipes sometimes leak, the boiler overheats, the chairs are often lumpy, our fellow room mates can often drive us mad or act like madmen, and sometimes a virus sends us to our sick beds ... but not too bad, especially considering the rent charged. )

In any case, we don't really need to know all the details. To be a Zen fellow is like being a sailor on the sea. The sailor does not know every inch of the sea, every wave, every coastline, every grain of sand on every beach, every fish ... but he can taste the whole salty thing in every single drop on his fingertip. She then sails, reading the wind, doing her best to avoid the rocks as long as possible (some of us sailors are better at that than others). The one thing we know is that we are the sea, the sea gives us life, the sea is us, we give life to the sea. This is Master Dogen's famous image from Zenki in Shobogenzo ...

Life can be compared to a time when a person is sailing a boat. On this boat, you are working the sail, you manage the rudder, you are handling the pole. At the same time, the boat is carrying you, and there is no “you” to sail without the boat. By your sailing of the boat, this boat is made to be a boat. Please study and understand profoundly just this instant of the present. Understand this fully. At this very instant, everything is nothing other than the world of the boat. The sky, the water and the shore have all become this time of the boat, which is very different from what this time would be if there were no boat. Thus, life is what you make of it, and you are what life is making of you. While you are sailing in the boat, your body and mind, self and environment, are all essential pivot points of the boat; and the entire earth and all of space are all essential pivot points of the boat. That is to say, life is the self, and the self is life

That is the "Life of Buddha."

Gassho, J

STLah

[Yokai]

Nice'n'jazzy Jundo!

Thank you

Gassho, Chris stlah