6/25 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Mahakashyapa

[Jundo]

... a flower ... a smile ...

Pages 32 to 35 in Cook

Pages 39 to 42 in Hixon

Gassho, J

[Myozan Kodo]

Re: 6/25 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Mahakashyapa

... a shamrock ... a smile ...

Only joking ;-)

PS: The Irish Christian version of this story is St Patrick holding up the three-leafed shamrock to explain the Trinity concept to non-Christian Irish... one God, three persons. Of couse, not being a Zen Buddhist, he used words.

Gassho,

Soen

[Hans]

Re: 6/25 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Mahakashyapa

Hello,

sorry...but I just have to slip this Father Ted quote in here, since St. Patrick was mentioned:

"Father Ted: That's the great thing about Catholicism - it's very vague and no-one knows what its really all about."

One could say the same thing about certain aspects of Buddhadharma :twisted:

Gassho,

Hans

[Taylor]

Re: 6/25 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Mahakashyapa

Big laughs on the previous comments haha but since I can only seem to intellectualize the meanings of these things, a verse:

Gong and striker,
Combined in an instant,
Intimate,
Yet the whole world resonates.

Really enjoyed the comment about Mahkashyapa's toes in our sandals

Taylor

[chicanobudista]

Re: 6/25 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Mahakashyapa

An short aside. Stephen Batchelor had an interesting talk in one of his recent speaking series about how Mahakashyapa is viewed differently in different traditions. Obviously in Sotos school he plays a major key role, but Batchelor commented that if you read the Pali sutras he was not such a nice dude with Ananda.

[JamesVB]

Re: 6/25 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Mahakashyapa

[Myozan Kodo]

Re: 6/25 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Mahakashyapa

Great Fr Ted quote Hans! :lol:

... and since I'm a Zen Buddhist rather than an Irish Christian, all I have to say on the matter is:

[Jundo]

Re: 6/25 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Mahakashyapa

An short aside. Stephen Batchelor had an interesting talk in one of his recent speaking series about how Mahakashyapa is viewed differently in different traditions. Obviously in Sotos school he plays a major key role, but Batchelor commented that if you read the Pali sutras he was not such a nice dude with Ananda.

Do you have the link for that, Erik?

Gassho, J

[Eika]

Re: 6/25 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Mahakashyapa

The focal point of this reading for me was:
"This is simply raising a flower and smiling. No analysis of experience, no transcendent insight, no silent meditative equipoise, no separate action and response." p. 41, Hixon.

I have a question about the Cook translation:
"You should know that he was an old Buddha and not think that he was simply one of the Buddha's ordinary disciples." p. 33, Cook.

The idea that Kashyapa was somehow special and not the same as the "average Joe" is a bit of the religious hyperbole that I tend to dismiss. Am I too quick to disagree with this translation? I thought one of the points being made here was the timeless/beginingless nature of our true nature, so how does an "old Buddha" differ from a "new" Buddha in this awakening?

Gassho,
Eika

[Rich]

Re: 6/25 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Mahakashyapa

Chapter 18 A secular Buddhist in 'Confession of a Buddhist Atheist' by stephen Batchelor describes the power struggle between Kassapa and Ananda.

Also in the chapter Batchelor suggests that Buddha never wanted a successor but 'envisioned a community that would be governed after his death by an impersonal body of ideas and practices rather than by an enlightened monk' p.230

[Jundo]

Re: 6/25 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Mahakashyapa

I have a question about the Cook translation:
"You should know that he was an old Buddha and not think that he was simply one of the Buddha's ordinary disciples." p. 33, Cook.

The idea that Kashyapa was somehow special and not the same as the "average Joe" is a bit of the religious hyperbole that I tend to dismiss. Am I too quick to disagree with this translation? I thought one of the points being made here was the timeless/beginingless nature of our true nature, so how does an "old Buddha" differ from a "new" Buddha in this awakening?

I think that it is something like that old saying from Animal Farm. In Buddhism, "we are all equal ... but some of us are more equal than others". 8)

We are all Buddha, but yet there are enlightened beings and deluded beings, hungry ghosts and human beings, masters, great masters, not so great masters ...

There is no doubt that, in Buddhism in general and Zen in particular, there was always the tendency to insist that some folks (usually those ancestors from whom one is a descendant) were head and shoulders above others.

Then again, the Sixth Patriarch (perhaps the greatest of them all) was said to be an illiterate wood cutter, an "average joe", a layman who was working in the temple kitchen when he was made "the Sixth Patriarch". It has nothing to do with being an "average joe" or not.

Gassho, J

[Eika]

Re: 6/25 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Mahakashyapa

Thanks, Jundo.

Gassho,

Eika

[chicanobudista]

Re: 6/25 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Mahakashyapa

Chapter 18 A secular Buddhist in 'Confession of a Buddhist Atheist' by stephen Batchelor describes the power struggle between Kassapa and Ananda.

Also in the chapter Batchelor suggests that Buddha never wanted a successor but 'envisioned a community that would be governed after his death by an impersonal body of ideas and practices rather than by an enlightened monk' p.230

Rich--Thanks for the references.
Jundo--It's a very small commentary that Batchelor gives w/i a larger presentation. If I can find it, I'll reference it here.

[AlanLa]

Re: 6/25 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Mahakashyapa

I got the feeling reading these chapters that this was a done deal between Buddha and Mahakashyapa and the whole flower "ceremony" just formalized it, almost literally a passing of the torch (light). I picture the knowing nod between the two, and all the other monks asking, "Hey, what just happened?"

Other than that, I liked how symbolism and reality meet as one (beyond one?) in the image of the flower, the masculine/feminine aspects as an aspect of unity, and from Hixon:

Daily the old fellow Shakyamuni and you walk about, stand in place, sit, and lie down together, and you have words together without even a moment of separation.

[anista]

Re: 6/25 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Mahakashyapa

The nirm??ak?ya of Buddha passed on the light, and spread the dharma onwards. In time, it reached us.

The dharmak?ya of Buddha was already there, had already passed on the light, and is shining through all of us in this very moment. "In truth -- for what could go wrong?"

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