No Rank

[Jundo]

In the outer world of function, roles and ranks are necessary. In the inner world of being there is no rank. My respect and interaction with the pope is the same quality as with the beggar.
Pope Francis is pretty cool with this.

SAT today

There is no difference between Pope and Begger, all just Buddha, all Jesus, all without rank.

And yet the Pope is the Pope and the Begger the Begger. The College of Cardinals is not led by a Begger, nor do millions flock to hear him. One sleeps in a palace, one in an alley. Perhaps it would be a better world if we elected a Begger to head our institutions, letting our Popes fend for themselves in the streets.

Gassho, J

SatToday

[Rich]

In the outer world of function, roles and ranks are necessary. In the inner world of being there is no rank. My respect and interaction with the pope is the same quality as with the beggar.
Pope Francis is pretty cool with this.

SAT today

[Jishin]

No Rank

Hi,

In Alcoholics Anonymous a person with 20 years of sobriety may tell a person with one week of sobriety that they have the same rank to emphasize respect for the disease of addiction. Both recovering alcoholics have been sober since waking up. Both risk losing the sober rank of no rank by being less than humble.

Sobering fact.

Gasho, Jishin, _/st\_

PS: If you want to see some truly awakened people, people that have been to hell and back and have seen the light, you don't need to go any further than your local 12-step meeting.

[RichardH]

Hi. I agree with Jundo. Ranking in some form is part of an always developing world. For instance in the painting class I am giving instruction because there is thirty years of handling paint and solving problems. The people learning to paint do not have that experience. Maybe the "no rank" difference is that these "ranks" are not fixed boundaries but relationships where we all learn something, and my heart is not bound by it. The point in the OP is not that everyone has equal skills.... some are very skilled (have a good sense of paint properties, can describe an object in accurate proportion...etc.) and some people are not so skilled and need much more support. But everyone can make an authentic mark from where they are. Even a simple drawn line can show the difference between when someone makes a mark directly, and when they get in their own way with judgements. That doesn't mean there is no evaluation.

Gassho
Daizan

Sat today

[Jundo]

Thank you Daizan, there's much food for thought in that.

I liked this too, from the Existential Buddhist blog: http://www.existentialbuddhist.com/2...an-of-no-rank/ "Imagine walking into an encounter with no idea of your status in the relationship. I don’t mean being oblivious to what you imagine the other person thinks of you. I mean having no evaluation, positive or negative, about your own worth. You just are who you happen to be in this moment. Any concerns about what the other person thinks about you are irrelevant to your own worth since you have none. You don’t exist anywhere on that scale. The other person’s evaluations only matter in terms of how they’ll affect the likely outcome of the transaction.

You are now free to do whatever seems necessary or skillful. You don’t have to ask whether it’s your place or right to say something. You don’t have to worry about how you’ll feel if the other person thinks poorly of you. You only have to ask if it’s skillful and likely to turn out well.

What would it be like to negotiate the world in this way, moment after moment? We can simply be what is needed in each situation to the degree our energy and judgment permit. We would go through life neither up nor down but just here."

Very powerful and liberating.

Gassho,
Libby

sattoday

Hmmm.

Just offering a personal opinion, it sounds like a lovely ideal. But I really wonder if such human interaction is possible, and I doubt we are wired for it. It sounds very idealistic. I am reminded what happened in Chinese communism when they sought to impose such an ideal, with everyone dressed in identical "Mao Suits" and equal on paper. However, soon it became hard to identify who was in charge in any group and making decisions, so the system they devised included the leaders having the most pockets on their ideally equal clothing ...

The Mao suit was also, supposedly, about classlessness. In reality different cuts demonstrated differing statuses. ... While lowest ranking officials had to make do with a Mao suit made from itchy grey cloth, and middle ranking officials from polyester, those who stood at the top of the food chain received suits in more luxurious wool. A higher number of pockets also signified a higher political status and rank.
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/201...o-suit-endures

Certainly, I do not know any place in the Zen or Buddhist world which has been so rankless. In fact, throughout its history, since the Buddha began to lay out rules for which monks of which seniority could sit in which chair ... and later, in the the top down hierarchy of the Zen monastery ... it has been anything but that. Everyone has a very firm rank, thank you, and the "up/down" relationships are very clear.

A hierarchical view of the world – of people, but also of things – has been an important part of Buddhism from its origin. While the Buddha challenged many of the hierarchicies of his day (caste, for example), this often did not translate into significant differences at the institutional level (the vast majority of early monks appear to have come from the two highest castes). At the same time, it was the Buddha himself who appears to have put into place a fairly strict hierarchy that governed the relationship between the different kinds of clergy, and between the clergy and the laity. In Buddhist terms this hierarchy is constructed as an etiquette: who should show respect to whom, who should bow down to whom. All non-monastics were supposed to bow down to monks and nuns. Even kings (the highest of men) were supposed to bow down to novice nuns (the lowest of ordained women). Within the clergy, nuns of all ranks (including fully ordained nuns) were supposed to bow down to monks of any rank (including novices). Within the order of monks and nuns, respectively, novices had to bow down to their fully ordained peers, and within a single level of ordination, those who were ordained later were supposed to prostrate to those who had been ordained before them.
http://www.chinabuddhismencyclopedia...stic_Community

[Traditional instructions for serving "sweet hot water" tea in a Chinese Zen monastery around Rinzai's time... Buckingham Palace may be more relaxed ... ]

[A]n invitation is extended to the old and new officials of the major and minor positions, and especially to the west hall ranking official and the retired officials as honorable participants. The seats and name tablets must be set up in terms of the four divisions. The new training faculty officials’ seats are set in the first section (i.e., front right of the hall), the former faculty officials in the second section (front left), the former administrative officials in the third section (middle right), and the estate management official and treasury administrative official in the fourth section (middle left). Additional seats are prepared for the new administrative officials as a group in the main section, but only the new director of practitioners’ affairs is supposed to take a seat as participant. The seats of the retired officials who participate in this serving must be arranged in the fashion previously referred to in the serving of sweet hot water at the abbot’s office, [namely, the retired officials of the east and west orders should be placed on the right side of the main seat and the left side of the participant’s seat, respectively]
http://www.bdk.or.jp/pdf/bdk/digital...zhang_2006.pdf

I very much doubt that Rinzai and the other Zen Masters who spoke of the "Man of No Rank" while sitting in the High Seats at the front of the room meant so. In fact, in that age, the Abbot of the Zen monastery had become the central object of worship in the community, even sometimes topping the Buddha statues and Buddha himself. Great equality and democracy in a Buddhist Sangha is a western innovation unheard of in Asia.

Ah, the good old days, when nobody challenged what the Abbot said! If only I had it so easy.

Frankly, I think such statements as the following seem very unrealistic. If you go into a kitchen, and their is no clear head chef, no clear apprentices, no clear dish washers, no clear desert chef, no assistant chefs under the head chef doing what they are told to do ... who knows what to do, who decides the menu, who tells the others to do a better job? No need to be a tyrant, that is for sure, but somebody has to be in charge and somebody has to follow orders.

You are now free to do whatever seems necessary or skillful. You don’t have to ask whether it’s your place or right to say something. You don’t have to worry about how you’ll feel if the other person thinks poorly of you. You only have to ask if it’s skillful and likely to turn out well.

I fear that the roast beef won't be done on time, the dishes will be left piled in the sink.

Gassho, J

SatToday

[Gukan]

Thank you Daizan, there's much food for thought in that.

I liked this too, from the Existential Buddhist blog: http://www.existentialbuddhist.com/2...an-of-no-rank/ "Imagine walking into an encounter with no idea of your status in the relationship. I don’t mean being oblivious to what you imagine the other person thinks of you. I mean having no evaluation, positive or negative, about your own worth. You just are who you happen to be in this moment. Any concerns about what the other person thinks about you are irrelevant to your own worth since you have none. You don’t exist anywhere on that scale. The other person’s evaluations only matter in terms of how they’ll affect the likely outcome of the transaction.

You are now free to do whatever seems necessary or skillful. You don’t have to ask whether it’s your place or right to say something. You don’t have to worry about how you’ll feel if the other person thinks poorly of you. You only have to ask if it’s skillful and likely to turn out well.

What would it be like to negotiate the world in this way, moment after moment? We can simply be what is needed in each situation to the degree our energy and judgment permit. We would go through life neither up nor down but just here."

Very powerful and liberating.

Gassho,
Libby

sattoday

Daizan, I think you described the person of no rank perfectly. Thank you all for your posts and sharing here.

Gassho,
Joyo
sat today

[alan.r]

Thank you, Jundo, for the clarity, and Daizan, for starting the discussion.

Gassho,
Alan
sat today

[Jika]

Hi Jika. I'm talking here as a teacher of painting on canvas only... on the Dharma I happily embrace the rank of junior student... so please do take with a grain of salt.

And I was talking as a patient caring for patients... who is the one who has knowledge, on what side of the bed?
I do not put myself into ranks of the Dharma, no worry
I'll go "Just Sit!".

Gassho,
Jika
#sattoday

[Washin]

Thank you, Daizan, for a great post and all for their comments.

And it is also vital to know this "person of no rank" beyond all compare ... no up no down, no better no worse, no me or you, beautiful or ugly, no eye or hand ... who is in your every glance of eye and gesture of hand, and fills this world of up and down, better or worse, me and you, beautiful and ugly. The "person of rank" and the "person of no rank" are not two!

Thank you Jundo

Gassho
Sergey
sattoday

[RichardH]

This resonates with me.

Thank you all for your thoughts and explanations.

Gassho
Jika
#sattoday

Hi Jika. I'm talking here as a teacher of painting on canvas only... on the Dharma I happily embrace the rank of junior student... so please do take with a grain of salt.

Gassho
Daizan

sat today

[Myosha]

Hello,

Drawn to practice by our Teacher -

“A fool sees himself as another, but a wise man sees others as himself.”

- Dōgen, How to Cook Your Life

Distinction is good fun.

"There's only Bozo's on this bus." - Firesign Theatre


Gassho
Myosha sat today

[Jishin]

No Rank

Maybe what Dogen means [Uchiyama says much the same in this week's readings] is that to just realize the "no me/other, no up/down, no beautiful/ugly" of no rank is not enough if we do not bring it alive through our words, thoughts and acts in this world of "me/other, up/down", bringing a little beauty right here.

I think this is the most important point in Zen that is often missed (by me too).

Gasho, Jishin, _/st\_

[Jika]

A person of no rank can assume the role of any rank, while being bound to none.

This resonates with me.

Thank you all for your thoughts and explanations.

Gassho
Jika
#sattoday

[Kyonin]

Thank you Jundo!

Oh and what I meant with what I said about comic books, was not to say I have hard feelings for the past. I meant that to me a rank or approval was important. Now it isn't.

I have no rank whatsoever and when I see myself giving ranks (even for me) I go sit

Gassho,

Kyonin
#SatToday