2/1 - The Four Seals(II)

[Eika]

Re: 2/1 - The Four Seals(II)

While we're discussing suchness, I'd be interested in exploring why, in Zen literature, the realization of suchness is so often associated with the hearing of a sound. Kyogen heard a stone hitting bamboo and was awakened. Mumon heard the beating of the drum announcing mealtime and realized suchness. Master Gensha instructed Kyosho to listen to the mountain stream and “enter Zen from there!” For his dharma talk, Fudaishi struck the table with a stick. This kind of thing happens often in Zen stories, and it points to a sudden, pre-reflective experience, in which the thing perceived is both real and impermanent, present and insubstantial.

Gassho,

Ben

Like ripples in a pond, sound consists of waves traveling through a medium (I'm sure you all already know that). The information it carries is real, but it has no substance of its own . . . it is a dependent phenomenon. Also, with no source of energy, sound will dissipate and the medium will return to its original state. Sound can in this way be seen as a metaphor for much of the parts of our lives that we are often deluded about. Sound can be complex and beautiful, like music. We can devote our lives to creating wonderful and powerful sounds that bring joy, peace, and even wisdom to other people, yet, in the end, the sound has no substance at all. Would we say then that all of that energy is wasted? Probably not. Music is without 'self' too, it is completely dependent, but it is great, and is a very direct way to communicate ideas that are beyond words.
Sound can be startling and violent like a thunderclap. . . it can make us jump out of our skin. It can remind us of our animal brains and bodies; in a sense, it puts us in our place (knocks us down a notch every now and then). Sounds can startle me, but I can't remember a time when a sight, or a taste, or a smell, etc. provoked the startle reflex. So, sound has a unique way of touching our experience . . . hearing is not superior to other senses, but it provides often overlooked opportunities for a world in which sight is given so much emphasis.
If feel like I'm rambling (I'm still getting over the flu, so I bet I'll look back at this post in a few days and think "What the hell was I trying to say?").

Gassho,
Bill

[Lynn]

I've been on Second Life for a year now and I think it's a bang on example of that very quote. When in Second Life, it is the present reality of life. It is ungraspable no matter how much you want to reach your hand through that screen and hug your virtual friend. No can do. It is a very good teacher of impermanence for me.

Well, not to sound like a bad Sci-fi movie on the cable channel, but "First Life" is pretty much "virtual" too ... and a large part of our practice is to realize that about it. I mean, our whole experience of "reality" is light and other data, input through the senses and recreated on the "holodeck" of the brain (no cheap Star Trek jokes please). While I think something is actually "out there", how much of the experience is created, added, and interpreted by you in the process of creating "First World" in your Brain? What can be changed through our Zen Practice?

And what/where is "No World"?

Absolutely!! But in First Life we actually have all the senses in play and the attachments are easier to form, harder to let go of and see the impermanence therein. In Second Life, as John mentioned, the only senses you have involved are 2-D seeing (and it's all cartoon-like) and hearing (cuz they have a voice programme now so you can actually do real time chats and hear the voices of your friends.) You can not smell, you can not taste, you can not touch and you are not bound to the laws of First Life physics so you can fly and walk through walls and, hell, I have no cellulite!!!

And, as John also mentioned, you get a first hand look at how personality is actually formed because your avatar is born and you can literally watch a "self" grow as it begins to interact with a world, at first completely unknown, and then, slowly, the chain of dependent origination kicks in and off you go forming attachments and I have seen a lot of suffering there, as everywhere.

John, one of the things about Second Life that I think is absolutely astoundingly wonderful is the doors it has opened to alter-abled individuals such as yourself. There is a whole realm dedicated to folks with CP, for instance.

Jundo, No World really is the place we reside with all our skandas. It is, as you say, all virtual, totally dependent upon our perceptions. When this vessel dies and the karma unravels, what is?

John, I would love to see a Treeleaf presence. There is an Osho presence and a Kusaladharma presence. Jundo would be a terrific asset and he could hold virtual dharma talks...if he likes... Own his own island with nothing on it but a tree that folks gather within to hear the dharma. So cool!

In Gassho~

*Lynn

[John]

Well, not to sound like a bad Sci-fi movie on the cable channel, but "First Life" is pretty much "virtual" too ... and a large part of our practice is to realize that about it. I mean, our whole experience of "reality" is light and other data, input through the senses and recreated on the "holodeck" of the brain (no cheap Star Trek jokes please). While I think something is actually "out there", how much of the experience is created, added, and interpreted by you in the process of creating "First World" in your Brain? What can be changed through our Zen Practice?

And what/where is "No World"?

I know, Jundo. That's why I find it a bit odd that others make such a huge distinction between what they see as 'real life' and Second Life. But I don't go all the way with anti-realism. There's something there to begin with, isn't there? We just add our interpretation to it from our way of seeing things that is conditioned by our cultural, educational, life experiences, our physical and mental makeup, etc. It's like when Uchiyama talks about the way no two people see the same cup?

What I think can be changed through our practice is the realisation that this is so, that we don't have to cling so tightly to views that are only a personal, temporary, interpretation, or be so sure we are right and others wrong, or become attached to objects or people.

Lynn: I have been to Kusaladharma's talks at the Mood Lounge the last two Sundays and found 'The Letter from Mara' very interesting.

Gassho,
John