Why get up?

[Risho]

Re: Why get up?

I once heard Steve Hagen say in a dharma talk that a bodhisattva exists the way a pedestrian exists. When a pedestrian arrives at his destination or gets in a car, he is no longer a pedestrian. Where does the pedestrian go?

Buddhas are also like this.

Chet

I can be dense sometimes So are you saying, or is Hagen saying that we are what we do?

[ChrisA]

Re: Why get up?

IIRC, Hagen's comparison is about flux. Buddha is, like pedestrian, an impermanent, provisional state. You don't "become" a Buddha or a pedestrian permanently; you don't suddenly cross from one side of non-Buddha to Buddha and stay there, nor do people suddenly turn into pedestrians and cease being persons.

[Risho]

Re: Why get up?

Thanks Chris!

[andyZ]

Re: Why get up?

IIRC, Hagen's comparison is about flux. Buddha is, like pedestrian, an impermanent, provisional state. You don't "become" a Buddha or a pedestrian permanently; you don't suddenly cross from one side of non-Buddha to Buddha and stay there, nor do people suddenly turn into pedestrians and cease being persons.

Just a thought... you can be all of those things (a buddha, a pedestrian, a father and a son etc.) at the same time...just a label really.

[Risho]

Re: Why get up?

Aren't those labels only applicable when you are doing the things relative to the label? e.g. aren't you only a pedestrian when you are walking? And really like you said it's just a label; just a word describing what your primary visible action is at the time.

But beyond semantics it seems the point is that we aren't points :mrgreen: . We are changing, but we are not those labels.. simply those descriptions of a limited view of what we are doing at that point.

[andyZ]

Re: Why get up?

But beyond semantics it seems the point is that we aren't points :mrgreen: . We are changing, but we are not those labels.. simply those descriptions of a limited view of what we are doing at that point.

Right, there's nothing that exists by itself i.e. without a reference point.

[ChrisA]

Re: Why get up?

IIRC, Hagen's comparison is about flux. Buddha is, like pedestrian, an impermanent, provisional state. You don't "become" a Buddha or a pedestrian permanently; you don't suddenly cross from one side of non-Buddha to Buddha and stay there, nor do people suddenly turn into pedestrians and cease being persons.

Just a thought... you can be all of those things (a buddha, a pedestrian, a father and a son etc.) at the same time...just a label really.

Yes, that's also how I read Hagen on the matter: all or them, none of them, some of them, provisionally, always in flux -- including and quite importantly the label of "person."

He (along with roshis Suzuki & Katagiri, among others) are reacting, I think, to the attainment-based descriptions/translations of breaking through to satori that have floated around Western practice since the Zen raft started across the ocean in the first place. To that end, it's a reminder that dharma itself is also always in flux.

ETA: Hi, andyZ!

[Saijun]

Re: Why get up?

IIRC, Hagen's comparison is about flux. Buddha is, like pedestrian, an impermanent, provisional state. You don't "become" a Buddha or a pedestrian permanently; you don't suddenly cross from one side of non-Buddha to Buddha and stay there, nor do people suddenly turn into pedestrians and cease being persons.

Just a thought... you can be all of those things (a buddha, a pedestrian, a father and a son etc.) at the same time...just a label really.

Hello friends,

Just a thought:

How can you be "Buddha" when still caught up in notions of "Buddha?" Likewise, how can you fully "be" anything if one labels it? Labeling causes distinction, and "the slightest distinction splits heaven and earth."

"I'm this. I'm that. I'm both. I'm neither, I'm both both and neither."

Each one misses the mark.

Who is "I"? What is "this?"

Metta and Gassho,

Saijun

[ChrisA]

Re: Why get up?

Well, sure! But I think that we're teasing out a slightly different point here.

Increasingly, it's my sense that many teachers in the post-WWII West got tired of people going on about wanting to reach Nirvana, and therefore created dharma talks that responded to those attempts at grasping. Since their students wanted to "break on through to the other side" and then stay there, they emphasized that "the other side" was just as impermanent as anything else, and not a new address across the tracks in paradise.

As such, the dharma talks to which I'm referring sought to use the language, labels, differentiation, and so on to respond to the needs of their students. These "intentional mistakes" seem to me to be a perfectly legitimate dharma raft on which one could travel a ways, and, like any raft, you'd want to dispense with it after it had served its purpose, if (inevitably) imperfectly.

I daresay that Hagen, Katagiri, or Suzuki, even if they agreed with my characterizations of their pedagogy, would never say or encourage anyone to say, "I'm this. I'm that. I'm both. I'm neither, I'm both both and neither" as definitive declarations of Truth. However, they all signed their names as Hagen, Katagiri, and Suzuki -- labels, all, just like "you," friends," and "Saijun," Saijun.

Gassho for this discussion!

[ChrisA]

Re: Why get up?

One last thing along these lines. This discussion got me thinking about a Katagiri quotation I've been carrying around and (re)tweeted this morning: "It might seem to be good to be infatuated by some wonderful, spiritual experience, but it's not so good." He uses the language of "good" and "not so good" not to assert the importance of such binary oppositions but to focus on this infatuation, itself a form of grasping, that he's seeing in his students.

Of course, to make his point, he has (and we have) to use language, an imperfect raft if ever there was one! As he wrote, you have to say something, and language, especially English language, is going to keep sending us back to those labels and dualisms every time. Indeed, perhaps Katagiri's title is a possible answer to "why get up?" Because "you have to say something."

[Jundo]

Re: Why get up?

Well, sure! But I think that we're teasing out a slightly different point here.

Increasingly, it's my sense that many teachers in the post-WWII West got tired of people going on about wanting to reach Nirvana, and therefore created dharma talks that responded to those attempts at grasping. Since their students wanted to "break on through to the other side" and then stay there, they emphasized that "the other side" was just as impermanent as anything else, and not a new address across the tracks in paradise.

As such, the dharma talks to which I'm referring sought to use the language, labels, differentiation, and so on to respond to the needs of their students. These "intentional mistakes" seem to me to be a perfectly legitimate dharma raft on which one could travel a ways, and, like any raft, you'd want to dispense with it after it had served its purpose, if (inevitably) imperfectly.

I daresay that Hagen, Katagiri, or Suzuki, even if they agreed with my characterizations of their pedagogy, would never say or encourage anyone to say, "I'm this. I'm that. I'm both. I'm neither, I'm both both and neither" as definitive declarations of Truth. However, they all signed their names as Hagen, Katagiri, and Suzuki -- labels, all, just like "you," friends," and "Saijun," Saijun.

Gassho for this discussion!

Hi,

I am very much in accord with Chris' view of recent Buddhist/Zen history (it is true no less on the Koan-Zazen side, as many teachers come to emphasize "Kensho" and "passing the Koans" as a more continuous, fluid process and not a final station reached in this life).

I believe that there is some effort by some teachers to counter the "get Satori and done!" or "become Buddha and done!" view of this Path. Well, me may ... in some future life ... attain Buddhahood and be "done!" ... but not as Bodhisattvas alive and living in this life/world. As well, we are all "Buddhas from the start" so ... nothing ever to "get started" ... nothing even to be "done!". But, still, in this life ... we will have moments of acting or being very much as a Buddha ... also moments of being very much caught by Mara (the Buddhist devil of greed, anger and ignorance).

(all the above views can be true at once, by the way, folks!)

And as was said, we can all be parent-Buddha, friend-Buddha, factory worker-Buddha, citizen-Buddha (and, I suppose unfortunately, parent-Mara, friend-Mara etc. too).

Yet as was said too ... let's not get caught in labels, or see any of this as but the wonderful dance it is. Life is not frozen, and while "Buddha" this moment ... we can become "Mara" the next.

I just realized that my "sit-a-long" talk yesterday is very much of this same school ... that "Great doubt leads to Great Awakening in which the is No Doubt" ... but also "Great Doubt and No Doubt" can come at various times in life, at various moments in a single Zazen sitting ... and truly piercing the meaning of that is all Great Awakening!

viewtopic.php?f=17&t=4099

Gassho, J

** Wonderful recommended book by Stephen Batchelor on the Buddha dancing with Mara ... LIVING WITH THE DEVIL.

http://www.amazon.com/Living-Devil-Step ... 1594480877