The Truth About Dogs and Cats

[disastermouse]

Re: The Truth About Dogs and Cats

With the talk about Nansen and his cat, and then talking about Mu, I had a question:

Since we know that dogs and cats have Buddha-nature, can they also have attachments, delusions, conceptions and the like?

If we say they have Buddha-nature, doesn't that imply that they must also have the same problems we do? Is a dog or a cat always showing Buddha-nature? If not, what kind of delusions or attachments can a dog or a cat have?

LOL. All this focus on rather tangential stuff.

Do you know what 'Buddha-nature' is? How about your delusions and attachments? Isn't that where it starts? Isn't that where direct realization occurs?

Chet

[disastermouse]

Re: The Truth About Dogs and Cats

I agree with you Will, but as you said, that is why Buddha left his teachings. We aren't there yet. At least I don't feel like I am. Perhaps I will hear enough and read enough, and learn enough one day to say, "wow, this is it, and I don't need that stuff I learned anymore to be right here." But I don't think you'll ever hear me say that I didn't need to learn it first to help me get on my path to there.

I don't think you understand even the very basis of the Mu koan. To even ask 'Does a dog have Buddha-nature?' is to have expressed profound delusion.

You resist correction even when told repeatedly that the very nature of your question is terribly flawed. You won't learn anything by insisting that the premise of your question is valid even when repeatedly told by nearly everyone that your premise is fatally flawed. You won't realize how flawed your questions are until you engage in direct practice.

So...why exactly are you here? I don't ask that question in order to dissuade you from being here - I ask it genuinely. Why are you here if you refuse to accept any correction that doesn't fall in line with preconceived notions you have? How many times and in how many ways are you prepared to be told that you are misguided?

Chet

[disastermouse]

Re: The Truth About Dogs and Cats

Apparently I stepped over a line with that last post (I'm going on faith here). JCM, please don't take anything I said as a challenge to your legitimacy to be here. It was most certainly not intended that way.

Chet

[Jundo]

Re: The Truth About Dogs and Cats

Apparently I stepped over a line with that last post (I'm going on faith here). JCM, please don't take anything I said as a challenge to your legitimacy to be here. It was most certainly not intended that way.

Chet

Yes, I think the points you were making, Chet ... which were not meant by you in a hostile way I know, and were meant to be constructive and helpful ... could have been a bit less confrontational in tone. Perhaps it is just my ear, but I read it as a bit berating. As you say, you did not mean them to come across that way.

The points you were trying to make, however, are important for JCM and all of us.

Gassho, J

[JohnsonCM]

Re: The Truth About Dogs and Cats

Here’s the thing. Taigu was absolutely right, in my humble opinion. Questions are a way of opening up and definitely not a box to tick off or an essay to write. This was exactly my point. And while there was no answer in any of the posts from my original question that read, “Yes, if a dog or cat has Buddha-nature, they have delusions, etc.” or “What are you crazy? You want a dog to sit zazen? I’d love to see a schnauzer in the full lotus!!! No, no delusions or attachments!!!” There was an answer.

Everything from Will’s post asking what the problem was, to Jundo’s older post on being grateful about life, and Taigu’s words about opening up, all the posts from my question on, were the answer that I needed to hear, I think.

It wasn’t an intellectual answer, based on data and findings and stuff like that, but it was an answer, and I don’t think I could have asked for one better. That’s why I ask in the fist place. The answer I get might be “Mu!” or “sit down and shut up” or “know vanilla” or what ever. But if I didn’t ask in the first place…………..


P.S. Thanks to you too Chet, I suppose it does start a bit closer to home. Don't worry about the post thing, I know you mean it in a corrective way.

I was thinking about this the other day. I heard someone say that old adage about “What came first, the chicken or the egg?” And my immediate response, in my head since they weren’t talking to me, was, “Enjoy your omelet.”

[JohnsonCM]

Re: The Truth About Dogs and Cats

So...why exactly are you here?

By the way, interestingly enough, that question is probably the very question that eventually led me to this forum. “Why am I here?” I probably spent years on that question. And to be honest, especially in the light of this most recent of conversations; which consequently resonates deeply with a conversation I actually had with my mother when I was 14 years old or so, I think the answer to both forms of that question are the same. We talked about the meaning of life and she asked me what I though the meaning of life was, and my answer was, “To live.” Although I knew this intuitively, I almost certainly had more of a nihilistic bent to it at that age.

So, “Why am I here?”

To be here, and to be here as well as I am able.

[disastermouse]

Re: The Truth About Dogs and Cats

So...why exactly are you here?

By the way, interestingly enough, that question is probably the very question that eventually led me to this forum. “Why am I here?” I probably spent years on that question. And to be honest, especially in the light of this most recent of conversations; which consequently resonates deeply with a conversation I actually had with my mother when I was 14 years old or so, I think the answer to both forms of that question are the same. We talked about the meaning of life and she asked me what I though the meaning of life was, and my answer was, “To live.” Although I knew this intuitively, I almost certainly had more of a nihilistic bent to it at that age.

So, “Why am I here?”

To be here, and to be here as well as I am able.

I used to ask 'Why am I here?'...but it's slowly over the years turned into 'What is here?'

People always seem to be looking for meaning...for purpose. There are the small, practical purposes of course... But the big 'Purpose'? The question has never really meant much to me either.

Chet

[JohnsonCM]

Re: The Truth About Dogs and Cats

This is totally off subject here, but it's been killing me since I started on this forum. Your screen name, disaster mouse, it that at all related to the old cartoon Danger Mouse? Because, I really loved that cartoon and my wife and I were just talking about it the other day.

[Dosho]

Re: The Truth About Dogs and Cats

This is totally off subject here, but it's been killing me since I started on this forum. Your screen name, disaster mouse, it that at all related to the old cartoon Danger Mouse? Because, I really loved that cartoon and my wife and I were just talking about it the other day.

Crikey DM! Penfold!



Da de da dum, da de da dum, da de da da da de dum!

He's the greatest! He's fantastic! Where ever there is danger, he'll be there. He's the ace! He's amazin! He's the strongest, he's the quickest, he's the best!

Dangermouse!
Dangermouse!
Dangermouse!

Da de da da...BANG!

Sorry...couldn't resist...a flashback to my childhood.

Gassho,
Dosho

[JohnsonCM]

Re: The Truth About Dogs and Cats



Don't worry, gentlemen. It's cabaret time. I shall begin my performance as emperor of the world with the execution of Danger Mouse.

[Tb]

Re: The Truth About Dogs and Cats

Hi.

DM: Penfold, I think this clock is a time machine!
PENFOLD: DM...aren't all clocks time machines?

Mtfbwy
Fugen

[Shui_Di]

Re: The Truth About Dogs and Cats

With the talk about Nansen and his cat, and then talking about Mu, I had a question:

Since we know that dogs and cats have Buddha-nature, can they also have attachments, delusions, conceptions and the like?

If we say they have Buddha-nature, doesn't that imply that they must also have the same problems we do? Is a dog or a cat always showing Buddha-nature? If not, what kind of delusions or attachments can a dog or a cat have?

Sorry bro... I can't help you to answer these questions.
First, I'm human not dog or cat.
Second, why don't you ask your own dog by your self and find the answer?

Gassho, Mujo

[ghop]

Re: The Truth About Dogs and Cats

I think it is good to ask questions. That's how Siddhartha
Gautama became the Buddha. Sometimes the way we
describe Zen seems very cold, very disconnected, I think.
Almost like a New Age pamphlet. I am not my ego, but
I am a real person. I exist. I can smile. I can cry. I can
make love to another person. I can take someone's life.
Don't tell me not to question why I am here. That is a
fundamental question. I find the answer only when I
find my "self" in others. It's all about service. To be
awake doesn't mean to be disconnected from reality. It
means to face reality even when it is something other
that what we want. To be there for others, that is the
Dharma.

"To meditate is to look deeply...once there is seeing
there must be action. Otherwise, what is the point
of seeing?" Thich Nhat Hanh

gassho
greg

[Jundo]

Re: The Truth About Dogs and Cats

This thread inspired today's "Sit-a-long with Jundo & Tinky" ... to mark the start of April ...

http://www.shambhalasun.com/sunspace/?p ... more-15957

[jrh001]

Re: The Truth About Dogs and Cats

I think it is good to ask questions. That's how Siddhartha
Gautama became the Buddha...

Hi Greg,

Questions are fine but I don't think Siddhartha Gautama became the Buddha by just asking questions.

Gassho,

JohnH

(now to practice a fast, breathless and erratic version of Kinhin while walking the Labrador)