My answer to the previous thread

[Jinyo]

Hello Robert - I hope you stay long enough to start feeling comfortable here and not feel like an outsider looking in. I've also had - from time to time - some of the feelings you mention, but in some respects I think it's helped me to become a little more robust.

It isn't really necessary to always agree with Jundo and Taigu - only to give due consideration to what is on offer. I know Taigu has said in the past that the last thing he wants is for everyone to jump in - in agreement - but the chewing over of what is offered is important.

I'm still chewing over 'just sit'. It's true that I would not say that to someone myself - because I'm aeons away from being able to do this. I'm actually not confident to advise anyone at all - on any aspect of Zen.

What I do feel is that I'm here to learn - and I have gained loads from the past year of being a member of this Sangha.

So - if I was to give any advice - I would say - give it a year. Suspend judgement 'till you feel more at home. There are some very caring core members in this Sangha who have reached out to me through heavy times.

Gassho

Willow

[Dosho]

Taigu,

To which post were you answering?

Gassho,
Dosho

[alan.r]

The difficulty is this: there are quite a few people who have been part of this sangha for years now and are sort of inside the flow of this sangha. When a new member arrives, while we all do our best to help out and answer questions, many of us do revert to a kind of zennie "just sit" answer and also we tend to go "hey, you're here at zen school, stop asking us about advaita or whatever." There are two basic misconceptions going on here: One problem is that we, as a sangha, have forgotten what it's like to be a person new to all this stuff, with lots of questions, and we also tend to forget new people are NOT zen buddhists and many might simply be trying to figure out if they WANT to be a zen buddhist - we tend to think new folks can just easily slip in line. On the other hand, new folks tend to have a mistaken idea that just because Jundo and Taigu are extremely great zen teachers that they know something deep and penetrating about ALL buddhist/meditation stuff.

So, I think this is a good challenge for us as a sangha to engage with difficult questions about other traditions to the best of our ability and to challenge ourselves to not fall into the easy answer of just sit or let go or whatever - that's good practice, too. And finding new ways of expressing "just sit": what a truly wonderful thing.

Lastly, I'm not entirely sure I've seen much dismissiveness or mean-spiritedness - I participate in some literary blogs and there's some serious ugliness there. Treeleaf's so so cordial in my view.

gassho

[Genshin]

As a relative new person to the group, I've found that folks here have been very helpful and supportive. I haven't seen any mean-spirited dismissive responses, but then I don't always have time to read every thread. I've asked lots of questions, on the forum and direct to one or two folks, I've always had a sensible often friendly response back. In contrast the last Buddhist group I attended in person was very cliquey, and it felt like questioning things was frowned upon.

However, I have found some threads just impenetrable. I've often attempted posts only to back-out or delete the posting. This used to really bug me but I don't really see this as a failing of the forum. It's more of a confidence things for me. But then does a person need to have a deep understanding of Zen doctrine and theory, or is this just the mind trying to gain something?

Maybe there needs to be a mentor/buddy system? But then folks probably don't have the time.

Just my thoughts.
Gassho
Matt

[Jundo]

I have seen some legitimate questions answered with (for lack of a better term) "zennie" answers which seem deep at a glance but are profoundly unhelpful to the person asking the question. I don't think anyone here has the intention of being dismissive or haughty but I think it can come off that way. It is one of the downsides to reading someone's text as opposed to actually speaking with him or her. There is no inflection in plain text so a comment can seem harsher then it was intended.

And whenever there is an authority figure involved (as there inherently will be in a teacher-student relationship no matter how much a teacher may try to make it more of a learned friend-learning friend situation) there will always be a certain amount of "Daddy pleasers" who will simply parrot what they feel the teachers want to hear without asking themselves whether or not it was even remotely helpful to the person asking the original question. I'm not trying to cast aspersions towards anyone at all. This is a fairly common dynamic.

Hi,

Here is how I have come to look at this over time.

Sometimes the teachings here are said to be too hard to fathom, while others say they are too soft core. Others find them just right. (Sounds like Goldilocks).

Taigu and I try to present things and respond to all questions (Me in more lawyerly prose, he in a more poetic style). Some folks get it, some don't, some a bit of both. (Just as with anything to learn).

Some folks find what they are looking for, some keep on looking and we wish them well. (We neither chase people in nor chase after people who may leave).

We teach X, and when someone wants us instead to teach Y, we politely explain that we don't teach Y. (Usually, we try to explain why we don't teach Y. Sometimes Y is a great Path, but we just don't practice Y here ... sometimes we don't think Y so great, so we don't practice Y here).

I am usually a softy in tone, but I can be firm. Taigu can be gruff sometimes, but he is a pussycat. (Zen Teachers of old could be real SOB's sometimes ... Sons of Buddha).

My biggest "complaint" about folks who do not find what they are looking for in the soup we serve at Treeleaf?

Most find it so hard to drop the "running here and there, chasing this and that" in life and "Just Sit" in Wholeness, "Just Sit" Buddha. Most are so used to looking for the answers "somewhere over the next hill" that they can't stop running, looking for the "next shiny thing". (Like the eye looking all around for the eye).

http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?9471-SIT-A-LONG-with-Jundo-WHAT-s-NEXT%21-%21

Some folks "get it", what it truly means to find Stillness amid both life's stillness and motion, Silence that sings as quiet or music or the noise of bombs exploding.

Other folks don't "get it", or take it that we are serving complacency, resignation and passivity, which is not the case either. I usually respond something like:

We are not preaching slogans from greeting cards, not tranquilized dullness, not a foresaking of vibrant curiosity and questioning, not prescribing a drug to bring numbness ... but Crystal Clarity and Wholeness.

[On the other hand] there is no Zen Teacher I know who would say that one should simply allow oneself to spiral into an endless whirlpool of questions, doubts, emotional dramas, self created soap operas, self-psychologizing, angsty existential searching, self-flagelating philosophizing on artificial mysteries. Even if pushed into the whirlpool by this Practice, the point is to arrive at the storm's still still center of Crystal Clarity and Wholeness ... not to wallow drowning in the shit storm.

Anyone who says otherwise seriously misunderstands the point of this Zen enterprise and Buddhism. Some of us have a bit of Crystal Clarity Wholeness amid the chaos of life ... even as we savor the questions and mysteries that this rich life naturally offers in each fresh moment.

Some other folks just like their angst as an anchor to cling to. They don't get their own mental game that they are caught in like a treadmill or a comfortable addiction, or are afraid to see through it. They do not understand this Path, only what they imagine it to be. They simply appear to lack True Clarity and Wholeness.

The central point of Zen Teachings and Practice ... all Mahayana Buddhism really ... is not anything but the need to realize (grock and bring to life) and break free of the war of self/other, the dance and frictions of the Relative and Absolute ... all while living in a world of self vs. other, good and bad, soft and gruff, beautiful and ugly. Sorry, find me some Zen Teacher through the centuries who taught something else in the classic literature, and I will eat my Zafu on toast.

Some folks get it, some folks don't. Sometimes students have good chemistry with the teachers and what is taught, sometimes not. It has been so through the centuries, since the Buddha's time. Peoples' Karmic conditions, their needs and personalities, are not "one size fits all", and the meal not fit for everyone's tongue.

Gassho, Jundo

[Oheso]

thank you Jundo, for your pretty incredible reply to hbhippo's post.

my loss.

gassho

[jus]

x, y, and z are all great paths and it sucks that i cant practice them all, all at once, in the same lifetime. i also hope that you stick around.

gassho,
justin

[Heisoku]

Good idea Matt! Gassho.

[Jundo]

Maybe there needs to be a mentor/buddy system? But then folks probably don't have the time.

Hey Matt,

Actually, we have so. Didn't someone contact you from our little "Welcome Wagon" when you first signed up? They are supposed to help with any basic questions.

It is also a good idea just to befriend folks who seem to know what is going on.

You can also write Taigu or me any time ... although we don't always know what's going on!

Gassho, Jundo

[Genshin]

Hi Jundo,

I did receive such a message, but just wasn't aware that it was the buddy system at work, just thought it was a friendly welcome message.

Just to stress no criticism of anything or anyone here. All good.

Thanks and Gassho,
Matt

Hey Matt,

Actually, we have so. Didn't someone contact you from our little "Welcome Wagon" when you first signed up? They are supposed to help with any basic questions.

It is also a good idea just to befriend folks who seem to know what is going on.

You can also write Taigu or me any time ... although we don't always know what's going on!

Gassho, Jundo

[Heisoku]

I listened to this after posting on the 'previous thread' and it answered more questions than I was thinking about at that time!

http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?9612-Meeting-the-real-self&highlight=meeting+real

Should have listened more carefully first time round then kept quiet!

Gassho.

[Myosha]

Hello,

Got it AND not got it.

So far, soooo good.^^
Gassho,
Edward

[Jishin]

An answer is an answer. Good, bad, helpful, dismissive, zennie, etc. is extra.

Gassho, John

[Oheso]

and the beat goes on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHdi2W1-Uuc

[Jundo]