7/23 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Dhritaka

[Jundo]

Becoming greatly awakened ... the holy teachings will naturally become your own


Cook from p 51, Hixon from p. 54

[Rich]

Re: 7/23 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Dhritaka

I usually need a cup of coffee in the morning to become greatly awakened Read Hixon's didn't get to Cook yet. Dhritaka's expression 'no-self self' is very cool. 8) Didn't someone say something similar in our Self/No Self thread?
/Rich

[Jundo]

Re: 7/23 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Dhritaka

I usually need a cup of coffee in the morning to become greatly awakened Read Hixon's didn't get to Cook yet. Dhritaka's expression 'no-self self' is very cool. 8) Didn't someone say something similar in our Self/No Self thread?
/Rich

Not me me.

[Fuken]

Re: 7/23 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Dhritaka

I picked up my old copy of Cleary's translation.I think I will start reading all three together. Even though when I read through it the first time I thought it was a bit astringent, I feel like it is good medicine for the sweet aftertaste the other readings have. What resonates with me on this weeks reading is that despite there being no personal self, individuality still remains.

[Taylor]

Re: 7/23 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Dhritaka

How many pebbles need be piled up before one may call it a mountain? Someone will always require one more to make it truly what it is. Just so, how many words can be piled on to describe the Way? A sun, a moon, a lotus, no-self, Tao, etc... we make our own mountain every time we try. But again, there always seems to be one more that need be added, never finished, never completely expressed. One moment of Shikantaza brings down the mountain in a quiet roar as we attempt to climb it's ever growing summit. Better yet, we should have sat and been the mountain ourselves from the beginning rather than trying to change our homeland's topography.

Dhritaka is a bit of a parrot, to me. he knows the words, the formula, just what it is. "Polly want a cracker, Polly want zazen, Polly want nirvana." Upgagupta tells this fledgling to taste his own damn cracker rather than blab about it. And so the parrot is silenced, becoming a monk with wings instead.

Washing, rinsing, and repeating the words from the past, trying to somehow fit into a tailor-made suit that isn't our own just makes us look a desperate. Don't ask for others to sew it; we must measure, understand, and feel ourselves. Then our suit will fit.

A bug-bitten, bee-stung gassho (camping this weekend)
Taylor

[em]

Re: 7/23 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Dhritaka

Cook: Puts emphasis on the need to experience/understand things yourself (Cook, 52f) Need deep realization, not just knowledge, ypu ned to understand the nature of self/notself, of reality. (53) Puts emphasis on practice (in interaction with knowledge/teachings), something we each need to do for ourselves. (53) It's when we take the teachings into life or practice that we can become true monks. (52) Smash dual notions/perceptions of reality/self, go beyond them. (54)

Hixon I mainly read as a further presentation of the notion of (authorized and correct) transmission, of buddha nature(?) and the same focus on realization over scripture.

@Taylor: Doesn't Hixon suggest that Dhritaka is the opposite of a parrot, giving a spontaneus "non-intelectual" response to Upaguptas probing questions? (And receving transmission after a very short time, as Hixon suggest, before even the minimal seven years) Though I suppose that this spontaneous understanding of the dharma might be argued to present itself only at the point of his realization(?).

Gassho,
em

[Taylor]

Re: 7/23 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Dhritaka

@Taylor: Doesn't Hixon suggest that Dhritaka is the opposite of a parrot, giving a spontaneus "non-intelectual" response to Upaguptas probing questions? (And receving transmission after a very short time, as Hixon suggest, before even the minimal seven years) Though I suppose that this spontaneous understanding of the dharma might be argued to present itself only at the point of his realization(?).

Right. To me, a bit of a parrot move. He responded automatically to the probing, no thought as to whether what he was saying was right or wrong. But! He still had that last step to take to be "over the edge" and awakened. So the words he was saying were correct in the philosophical sense, but, IMHO, he hadn't penetrated the words he was speaking.

[Shohei]

Re: 7/23 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Dhritaka

Hiyas
This guy is familiar

Ill do an interpretive word dance if I may!


I got it.
No problem, I understand.
No ... Really, its all good, I understand!
C'mere look, its clearly stated A=B=C.
let me draw you a picture, throw a poem at you...no?
Well now how can I not have it!!!

Talking the talk and walking the walk... while still watching his feet and looking for for lips!
The new Buddha stood still and listened.

Gassho
Shohei

[Nick B]

Re: 7/23 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Dhritaka

I will be getting the two books for this study in a couple of weeks, at present my funds are low.

I do have on hand 'Transmission of Light' by Thomas Cleary.

Before posting any comments I would like to know if I can use this translation until the others arive?

[Jundo]

Re: 7/23 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Dhritaka

I will be getting the two books for this study in a couple of weeks, at present my funds are low.

I do have on hand 'Transmission of Light' by Thomas Cleary.

Before posting any comments I would like to know if I can use this translation until the others arive?

Sure!

Gassho, Jundo

[Rimon]

Re: 7/23 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Dhritaka

"Home departure is not for the sake of body and mind"
I've been thinking about this like from Cook's translation several days. It's helping me to understand -me not me thinks- what is the point of searching for enlightment. Signals the constant danger in me to think that zazen is for improving my own self instead of trying to leave my self-home to be come a selfless self.
Now I'm re-reading this, but I'm not sure I understand it. Maybe I didn't write it a tll. As long as my selfless self understands it, no problem though

Gassho

Da5id

[Tb]

Re: 7/23 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Dhritaka

Hi.

From Hixon,

Sutras and Tantras can be propagated by someone without this seal of awakening, but they will remain dead scriptures. They may evencontain poison.

How often have not seen this?
The seal he's speaking of is the seal of transmission, but who gives and receives this seal?

Mtfbwy
Fugen

[BrianW]

Re: 7/23 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Dhritaka

Becoming greatly awakened ... the holy teachings will naturally become your own

What resonates with me on this weeks reading is that despite there being no personal self, individuality still remains.

Yes this caught my eye as well. On the one hand:

Original Mind never ceases to be just itself. Therefore the Great Way is timeless, without any trace of development.

Yet the experience of Original Mind is unique.

Reveals Keizan, tender mother of Japanese Soto Zen, each awakening is a gem which radiates its own unique aura. Each sage is a gourd, entwined with its own unique pattern of vines. The uniqueness of each mind is not effaced by realization. By awakening, we do not become impersonal principle, but the ever unique no-self self.

In each weeks readings I have noted a certain commonality to the storyline of the awakenings and yet each individual has his own distinct narrative.

Gassho,
Jisen/BrianW

[Stephanie]

Re: 7/23 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Dhritaka

Talking the talk and walking the walk... while still watching his feet and looking for for lips!
The new Buddha stood still and listened.

Gassho!

And I was struck by this paragraph in Hixon:

The wisdom spring of the successor can gush forth only from the lineage holder. The living Buddha must actually transmit Light. Awakening is not some independent project of the successor. Radical renunciation of self must be intended by the receptive disciple. Otherwise, apparent sages may arise who cannot truly transmit Dharma, whose expression of the principle of nonduality is tinged by arrogance, by formalism, by the nihilistic rejection of lineage, by subtle denigration of discipleship, by absence of compassion.

This is quite a departure from Keizan's text in Cook's translation, and almost acts as a counterpoint, as Keizan emphasizes not simply following another and absorbing doctrine, but bringing the teachings to life in your own life without relying about what has been formulated by a teacher.

We know that the story of one-to-one transmission in India is a construction and that the Dharma in actuality was preserved and transmitted in a different manner, through schools and even institutions in some cases.

So what good is this one-to-one transmission? What is it that is "not some independent project"?

An awakening or opening experience, a kensho, can happen in a flash, outside of the context of any formal teacher-student relationship.

And yet what is the difference between a kensho that happens independently and the full traditional training offered in the Zen schools?

I found this poem by Rumi when looking for an appropriate poem to share in response to one of the other transmission stories:

WHY WINE IS FORBIDDEN

When the Prophet's ray of intelligence
struck the dim-witted man he was with,
the man got very happy, and talkative.

Soon, he began unmannerly raving.
This is the problem with a selflessness
that comes quickly,
as with wine.

If the wine drinker has a deep gentleness in him,
he will show that,
when drunk.

But if he has hidden anger and arrogance,
those appear,
and since most people do,
wine is forbidden to everyone.

Rumi seems to suggest a long program of training and study. This reflects the Zen approach and yet contradicts the teaching Keizan points to in case after case, that perfection and realization are already perfectly realized, we do not need to polish tiles to create a radiant gem mirror.

And yet... because perfection is already perfectly realized, this means that when we realize the truth, some magical change to our condition does not occur. And adamantine truth sparkles like a diamond in whatever coal it appears in... but yet, Buddhas and ancestors throughout the centuries have committed to a discipline of various moral and attentive practices.

We say, do not try to spend your life erasing and purifying all your sin... but do not persist in your muddy pig-wallowing either.

It is a paradox I have not yet fully resolved for myself... because as I see it, things as they are, are already perfect, or they are not and need to be worked on. It is either one, or the other. Either the mirror needs to be polished or there is no place for dust to alight.

I know many teachers, including Jundo, have spoken about this paradox... but as stated, I have not yet been able to resolve it for myself.

[AlanLa]

Re: 7/23 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Dhritaka

I struggled with this one. I think the thread here explained it better to me than either of the books.

Gassho