False Teachings

[Omoi Otoshi]

False Teachings

I hope Taigu realizes that I wasn't intentionally dissing him. I respect his teaching style very much, actually.

Yes, your post reflected that, in a unique Chet kind of way. You have come quite far with your own issues this past year too, haven't you? I wish I will be able to work as hard as you with my own issues!

/Pontus

[Hoyu]

Re: False Teachings

Kojip wrote:
There is also some absurd Buddhist practice. ...a war over the Buddha's tooth anyone? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relic_of_t ... the_Buddha

Ha!

This is for all those who don't speak Japanese. Here is the answer to my Koan.....

[youtube]

[/youtube]
:wink:
Gassho,
John

[Stephanie]

Re: False Teachings

This thread is bringing me out of "read-only" mode for a moment as this question - this issue - is central in my practice. Dogen was driven by his question, "If we are already perfect as we are, why practice?" I have been driven by many questions, one of the most central being "How can a person with deep insight into the nature of things still be blind to his or her own faults and motivations?" Or "How can a wise person make grave moral errors?"

These questions have again and again pointed me to insights of Western psychology into the unconscious and the shadow. A good metaphor would be that a person might be able to see the dirt on others' faces, but not his or her own.

But "dirt" is a questionable metaphor. We tend to think of people who transgress our moral sensibilities as being somehow "dirty" or "impure," and capable of being scrubbed clean. I do not think this is true. For one, a common error is not to see how many of our moral ideas are merely social conditioning. Sexuality is a great example. In our modern culture, our moral sensibility is that homosexual love is as valid and good as heterosexual love, and that it is actually our moral duty to defend the rights of individuals to love who they love. In many traditional cultures, however, homosexuality is viewed as a transgression.

I personally believe that our views about the moral correctness of monogamy are similarly conditioned, rather than absolute. We are deeply conflicted about sexuality and so judge as immoral that which may simply make us uncomfortable. And I believe in America sexual mores have actually regressed, given how we gasp and cluck at Chogyam Trungpa and other people living in the "free love" culture of the 1960s and 1970s.

I think this comes back to "the shadow." We act strongly to that which we see in others that we have not resolved in ourselves. And we are still so uptight about sex - its power, the weird vulnerable and aggressive ways it can make us feel. So we become repressive. I find Treeleaf to be a very repressive environment. There is a bland ruling fantasy here that lives in a sort of dull early morning sunlight, and nighttime things are aggressively kept outside of the picket fence, so as not to disrupt the tranquil garden scene with the baby angel birdbath and the fluffy domesticated rabbits.

This is the path many take - the dull comforts of quiet repression that come with faith in a moral certitude. Evil is what shakes the bird's nest out of the tree. We love the purity and innocence of their cheeping, not the blood on the maw of the night predator who eats them. This is how we get absurd ideas like "The Peaceable Kingdom," moral Utopias that ignore or distort the full, healthy, balanced expression of our natural world.

So part of the issue, is that we take to be moral transgression that which is not immoral, because we are afraid of the way it smells, the sound of its panting from behind the bush, even if blood is not part of it, if the "evil" we fear is in no way destructive. Another part is that, when it comes to the truly predatory behavior, the truly destructive, we think this cannot coexist with the good. But in my searching the opposite has been true. 

Over and over I have seen the truth of Tom Waits' line, "If I exorcise my devils, well my angels might leave too, and when they leave they're so hard to find." It is often the creative energy, the power and tension generated by our demons, that fuels our greatest acts of goodness. Is it better to be a neutered person who quietly and harmlessly passes through this world, or a fiery, demon-driven agent of transformation? I know I cast my lot with those with the inner fire. Because I have seen how the passion and creative tension in my life arises out of my own struggle to work with my demons.

A major insight that has blessed my seeking this year is that the life energy of practice is the questions we carry. Without questions, practice is dull and inert. In Zen, this energy of questioning is known as Great Doubt, one of the three pillars of practice. And it is in this I find Treeleaf weakest of the three. People ask and talk about questions here as if simple, pat answers van resolve those questions. If they can, then your spiritual lamp is dim; your fiery demons of urgency locked away, neutered, or repressed. 

John Daido Loori said in a talk from 2006, "[His] question took Dogen from his home to Tendai Mountain in Kyoto, and from Tendai Mountain it took him to Kannon-ji to study in the Rinzai school with Myozen and Eisai, and having completed his training there, he still wasn't satisfied, and it carried him across the ocean to China.

The question - there's nothing more important than the question. If you're a resident of a human body and you're not asking questions, you're dead; we should do a memorial service for you. The question is the cutting edge of life, to say nothing of the spiritual journey.

If you don't have a question and you hear something like that, it means you probably accept it. 'Well, I'm already enlightened according to the Buddha, so I don't have to do anything. That's the beginning of Buji Zen, of New Age Zen."

I would add that sitting is inert if there is no question driving the practice. No, Soto Zen does not have to be bump-on-a-log complacency, but that is what it will be if the sitter has no question, no doubt, nothing but a desire to feel and be peaceful.

So to those who have no such burning energy, the flaming messes of the demon-driven cannot be understood or accepted. We cannot accept what we see as the moral failings of others because we have not reckoned with our own shadows. This is how we can get quite comfortable in preaching about our rightness - this is how Dharma brothers Brad and Jundo are so alike, in their plastering their belief in their own rightness from one end of the Internet to another. I wonder, Jundo, if you ever stop and think of your reams of posts at ZFI, "Why do I do this?"

Which brings me to my final point. The opening question in this thread was, Why do we target people we see as more similar to ourselves over those we see as less similar? I think this is a clear matter of the ego, the sense of self, in operation. We are much more defensive of that with which we have identified ourselves. The further one gets from the center of the circle of what one has claimed as part of his or her identity, the less emotional energy it commands. Hence, family feuds, sport team loyalty, tribal warfare, holy war, and all of that.

In conclusion - I think the saving grace of all this is that it can make all of us less arrogant, as this is something we ALL struggle with, our tendency to identify with something and fight what we see as its opponent, even if our fighting is purely ego-driven. This is lost if we get fired up on our holy crusades against those we see as morally inferior to ourselves. I personally have struggled with a fixation on Treeleaf and what I think is wrong with it - why? In the big picture, I see Treeleaf as overall a force for good. At the very least, people are practicing, and asking some questions, and finding hope and fellowship with one another. So why my quixotic impulse to charge at it? Certainly some must be ego; perhaps some part of my thinking is good here, but what part? In my own practice, it is continuing to turn the lens of the question on myself and everything that keeps my practice alive.

[RichardH]

Re: False Teachings

Hello Stephanie. I know that we tend to want to eradicate those things in the world we cannot accept in ourselves. A common example these days seems to be the anti-gay crusader, who has repressed his own homoerotic side...and says " I'm not gay but someone is". Things bug us because they impinge upon something, or else they would not bug us. What gets under my skin might not get under your's, and vice versa. So here is a question for you... What is getting under your skin here?

Sexual matters don't upset me, but when I hear someone say (as in the vid) they have a special ability to quickly bring people to Enlightenment at their trademarked seminar, it makes me squirm. So, what is getting under my skin?

[Amelia]

Re: False Teachings

Great Doubt is upon me!

[tedmac]

Re: False Teachings

I think the word 'false' may be problematic here, as it implies a dichotomy of true/false. Putting on my anthropologist hat for a minute (OK, it is hard for me to take it off), all religions and religious philosophies have a few things in common:
-the core teachings or philosophies
-a hermeneutic component, that has to do with how texts (including oral presentations) are interpreted
-a subtextual component related to a shared culture among practitioners.

Teasing these apart is difficult. The Christian denomination in which I was raised, for example, includes a directive to "love your neighbor," explicit rejections of homosexuals, and a overwhelming popular support of the idea of American exceptionalism. At different times and in different contexts, each of these may be part of the core, an interpretation of the texts of the religion, and/or a cultural common ground among members that is not directly referenced in the religion proper. So, to say that the teachings are 'true' or 'false' belies the complexity of reality in-the-moment.

We each perceive the world, and our chosen path, through a veil of ego; we also communicate our understandings through a veil of ego. My current understanding is that, though that veil has no substance, it is also complicated by all our social and material ties.

-Untei

[Jundo]

Re: False Teachings

Hey, that's great....do you believe he resurrected or that merely by believing in him you'll be reborn in a paradise? ...

... have to go out of your way to find similarities between Christianity and Zen.

Chet

Hi Chet,

This view overlooks the actual way that Zen/Chan Buddhism is practiced by the vast vast majority of Zen/Chan Buddhists in Asia ... Japan, Korea, Vietnam and China ... both lay and priest. There, it is often coupled with (or is centered on) belief in a "god-like Buddha(s)" who will take you to be reborn in heaven just by faith in them ... plus also help one in this world too with family and business worries. I recently wrote a little about this during my trip to China ... The similarities and parallels between belief in and worship of Jesus as Messiah and Amida Buddha (or Maitreya, Shakyamuni) as Messiah are so close and remarkable that it leads me to surmise that both come from some place in the human brain, East or West, where people are "wired" to such beliefs ...

viewtopic.php?p=65263#p65263

In the West and in "convert Buddhism" (and especially at places like this Treeleaf Sangha) we may move away from some of that "old time religion" ... and be rather "modern" ("modern" does not always mean wiser) and skeptical on subjects like Rebirth, Cosmic Buddhas in the Sky, literal Buddha Heavens and Buddhist Hells ...

viewtopic.php?p=12078#p12078

... just as many "modern" Christian theologians may seek to give a more skeptical and less literal interpretation to their religion. However, it may be (and I do not mean to sound like a snob in saying this) that the vast vast majority of people in the world ... Christian, Buddhist or any other religion ... need the magic and miracles, and what we do here would not suit them or their spiritual/psychological needs. Perhaps we are losing something important at places like Treeleaf which forsake such aspects of Zen and Buddhism?

While I find some of the practices of Rinzai very peculiar, like hitting people with a stick ...

That is not just a Rinzai Practice. Although here at Treeleaf (and generally in the West), we omit the Keisaku(Kyosaku), or use it very lightly ... such is not the case in the "marine bootcamp" which is Japanese monastic training ... RInzai or Soto (the following may surprise you) ...

viewtopic.php?p=23611#p23611

Even in China, they carry a big stick ... such as at the 6th Ancestors Temple where I sat this month (they used it lightly there, but I am sure it is not always the case) ...

... I think that even deeply wise, enlightened even, teachers can still be very morally flawed and have a lot of weaknesses.

I tend to agree with you, Chet. I think that when we act manifesting our Buddha Nature, free of greed, anger and ignorance, we are manifesting Buddha ... and when we (even the same person at another time) are trapped by greed, anger and ignorance, we are not. I have said (emphasis on "once in awhile" and not too BIG) ...

I believe that the only "perfect" masters are those that may exist in the the pages of old Zen stories, written when the real folks were long dead, scrubbing them clean of every blemish and failing. In fact, if we might travel back in time to meet these fellows "in the flesh," we would find that each and every one was probably just "people" like you and me, with good points and (likely) a few rough edges and minor bad habits... like all people. Okay, maybe extra-ordinarily Wise and Compassionate and Enlightened, sure ... but people.

Of course, "Enlightenment" is a realization that there is no place to fall, no self to stumble, no "mistake" that can ever be made. That is true. But it is just as true that there is no place to fall, no stumbling or possible mistake... even as we may fall and stumble and make mistakes!

A few days ago, an excellent article by Lewis Richmond appeared here on SunSpace entitled "'What If?' Guidelines for Choosing a Buddhist teacher". I would really like to recommend that article to everyone. If I may add my own "test" for finding a teaching, I would say find a man or woman who sometimes falls down, makes mistakes, makes a donkey's ass of him or herself... and observe closely what happens, watch how he or she does it. Oh, don't get me wrong... probably you do not want as a teacher someone who falls down each and every day, nor someone who falls down too BIG (robbing banks, lying profusely and intentionally starting fires, for example). No, I mean someone who... every so often, now and then, like everyone... makes a fool of him/herself, loses his Zen Master cool, over-indulges, does a real face-flop, says something she regrets, breaks some (hopefully not too big) Precepts in some very human way.

How does this person recover their balance? With what grace do they fall or, at least, get back up on their feet? Do they profoundly reflect on their mistakes, learn from them, apologize sincerely to anyone hurt (hopefully not too badly) ... and move on? As a matter of fact, since this crazy practice is greatly about living with some grace in this imperfect, often disappointing, trap and temptation filled world, a teacher with a couple of serious imperfections may be a good guide on how to avoid, lessen or escape the worst of it!

...

All human beings have the tendency to fall down from time to time. I guess it is just a matter of what the person does then ... picking themselves up, recovering balance, getting back on the trail, apologizing and learning from any damage caused. Like any great athlete, the point is not that we never get knocked around, never trip or stumble ... but how we handle the fall (as in the martial arts ... there is no training offered on how to never fall, but endless training on how to fall well). Show me the man or woman who falls down sometimes ... but who demonstrates how to fall well and recover one's footing ... and I will show you a great Zen teacher.

viewtopic.php?p=29575#p29575

I believe that Genjo stepped over a line of ... again and again, for years ... hurting students, damaging his Sangha and commercializing teachings. That is why I, and many other teachers, have criticized his behavior ...

http://www.tricycle.com/blog/zen-teache ... npo-merzel

Gassho, J

PS - Many Zen Teachers, past and present, have been irascible, blunt (with those who need bluntness), tough SOBs (Sons of Buddha) ... pussycats who sometimes know how to show their claws. This is true for me, Taigu, 1000 other examples, Dogen (a REAL hardass sometimes who could show his claws and teeth when needed) ...

[Omoi Otoshi]

False Teachings

That is not just a Rinzai Practice. Although here at Treeleaf (and generally in the West), we omit the Keisaku(Kyosaku), or use it very lightly ... such is not the case in the "marine bootcamp" which is Japanese monastic training ... RInzai or Soto (the following may surprise you) ...

viewtopic.php?p=23611#p23611

Thank you Rev Jundo for the correction!

Yes, I knew the Kyosaku was used in japanese Soto temples too, but I had got the impression that it was usually a milder "tap" on the shoulder and that in some or most Rinzai lineages, it is far more powerful, even violent. With "beating people with a stick" I meant the more extreme forms. But i realize now there are Soto lineages, such as Deshimaru, that apply the Kyosaku quite heavily, and there are probably many moderate Rinzai temples.

I should not have generalized and I apologize for having done so. It is a very easy thing to do. Anyway, beating students senseless with a stick is not my cup of tea, regardless of tradition.

Gassho,
Pontus

[Keishin]

Re: False Teachings

Hellos to all posting here!

On the subject of the kyosaku...
Just yesterday while on retrat (Chan group) I asked to receive the kyosaku (I don't know the name of it in Chinese--it was a silent retreat and no place or time for conversation--but I will find out later)
All i knew was that i needed it, i asked for it, and the monastic teacher leading the retreat kindly administered.

Giver and receiver

As with pretty much everything, speculation is speculation
Experience -- not as straight forward as one might suppose:
Due to one's history, associations, expectations, prejudices,
emotional state at the time, interpretation, etc.

I have been on the receiving end of the keisaku ('compassion stick--rinzai) and kyosaku (awakening stick--soto)
There is the giver through whose body intention is transmitted into action.

Somewhere here in the forums I vaguely remember writing about this before.

I can say this: it is an aid to practice which I hope does not fall away through disuse (or abuse)

My shoulders are immediately relieved of their chronic pain, it feels like tiger balm : warm and tingly,
my sitting feels refreshed: like a pillow 'plumping'

There are all the ideas about it and it.

[Ray]

Re: False Teachings

You mentioned how people get disappointed if they are following a strain of commercialised zen when they realise their is nothing to attain. But that disappointment can turn out to be a good thing for them because that is when their practice can really start. Once they realise their is nothing to attain.

Gassho

Ray

Ithi just glanced at the post in question. I think the thing that bothers you - and me as well - is the blatant commercialization of something that has traditionally been offered for free (donation accepted). Trademarking the infinite is certainly commercial, and I know that there has been a dispute in the yoga world in recent years about someone who tried to trademark or copyright asanas (yoga positions).

The
Commercialization (money surrounding it) doesn't bother me as much as commoditization (Zen as a thing you buy). Zen isn't something owned. I'm not offended because I think Zen is sacred, it really isn't (and yet is...blah) - it's because approaching it with any sort of attaining mentality just gives you a pretty new philosophy or 'cool shit I do that makes me interesting' sort of thing. Zen as a hobby. And the trappings of Zen ARE a hobby, the zafus, the accoutrements of the practice, the timers, hell - even the teachings and the collection of the teachings. But actual Shikantaza is a gift that releases you from that.

People seem to come to Zen for something and are disappointed when they don't find it. The lucky stick around to see what they actually do find, I think. Either way, it can't be sold. It doesn't really offend me when people try, but it makes me feel funny.

Chet

[christopher:::]

Re: False Teachings

Many useful observations and insights shared here. I think Stephanie raises some interesting points, concerning our tendency to push away or judge as "wrong" that which makes us uncomfortable, or what we perceive as harmful. How do you develop a mind that embraces and accepts all facets of life yet is not pulled toward paths or activities that may harm oneself and others and create suffering? For me that's what wise teachings are all about, and they can be found in all spiritual traditions.

Taigu shared this in another thread, concerning the teaching of the rain:

"... rain, Buddha nature is always with us, no need to hurry up, when it rains, it is Buddha rain. Rain is not separated from us. The problem comes from the fact that when it rains, we think it rains, « it » being something different from what we are. On one side, there is rain, on the other, there is me. From the Buddha’s perspective, there is just a moment and it is called rain, and it includes everything, including myself, here and now. Pouring down, Buddha rain, Bright sun, Buddha sun. When it rains cats and dogs, Buddha cats, Buddha dogs ! And everyday I find myself rushing under the rain, not only the rain made of water, cats and dogs, but also the rain made of work, relationships, difficulties and joy... The point is not to think we should, or should not do this and that. The point is pointless, just enjoy your life and welcome every moment as it comes. Rain is everywhere means that the path is the goal.

... Being Buddha is accepting things as they are, if sadness comes, sad Buddha, if joy comes, joyful Buddha, if rain comes, soaked Buddha. No need to hurry up. No need to pretend or escape. Ordinary life, everyday life is Buddha. When Dôgen says that ordinary people are deluded about enlightenment, and Buddha enlightened about their delusions, he literally means that : enlightening our illusion, moment after moment, realising Buddha within our simple and daily life. Being aware of how much we hurry up in the rain. When we sit, we are enlightened about our delusions, for rather than being the thoughts in our mind and tensions in our body, identifying ourselves to the flow of illusions, we see it, we notice it without judging. The mind that does not judge or discriminate is Buddha mind."

If he's right then to pass judgment on other people, paths, teachings is a kind of delusion, because we don't recognize these as aspects of our greater Self, the great flow of life, where there is no separation between this and that, self and other. At the same time, to identify with our predatory side or with a deluded view of ourselves is also creating waves of separation where they need not be.

In the present stillness, anchored in the here and now, the view of this/that and self/other falls away. In that moment, with our hearts and minds open, there seems to arise greater clarity.

[RichardH]

Re: False Teachings

You mentioned how people get disappointed if they are following a strain of commercialised zen when they realise their is nothing to attain.]

The commercialized Zen I've encountered sells a facile two dimensional version of "nothing to attain", where sprinkling non-dual fairy dust on everything and saying "nothing to attain" is called realization. Sometimes maybe a bit of attainment is good too.

[Jundo]

Re: False Teachings

... a facile two dimensional version of "nothing to attain", where sprinkling non-dual fairy dust on everything and saying "nothing to attain" is called realization. Sometimes maybe a bit of attainment is good too.

The radical attaining of "Nothing to Attain" is the Ultimate Attainment. However, "nothing to attain" does not mean there is nothing to attain. Rather, 'tis "No Thing to Attain" in either attaining or not attaining, moving forward step by step and standing still as fully the Constant Arrival. The Way of Non-Seeking, All Treasure Found.

Such is What's What Here There and Everywhere In Between ... Buddha Nature

Gassho, Jundo

[Ryumon]

Re: False Teachings

The radical attaining of "Nothing to Attain" is the Ultimate Attainment. However, "nothing to attain" does not mean there is nothing to attain. Rather, 'tis "No Thing to Attain" in either attaining or not attaining, moving forward step by step and standing still as fully the Constant Arrival.

Such is What's What Here There and Everywhere In Between ... Buddha Nature

Sometimes you make my brain hurt. :-)

[Jundo]

Re: False Teachings

Sometimes you make my brain hurt. :-)

That's in my job description. 8)