Progressive Liberalism is a Mental Dissorder (merged)

[u crank]

Originally Posted by Skybird

You are asking in what way to stirr a glass of water in order to clear it best. Must I tell you how to breathe? Must you want to tell the sun to rise in the morning and to settle in the evening? Can any written manual on how to breath help you to breath better? Will the sun shine brightier because you write down your theory on how to make it so? Ever tried to explain somebody how to keep the balance when putting one feet before the other, and how to not fall off a bicycle?

You do not need a second head on your shoulders. There already is one. Its the one you were born with. The idea that for 60, 70 years manifestates itself in your temporary form, has been there before you came, and it will be there after you have gone. Like soap bubbles embrace all the same space when they are there, and the space remains the same when the bubble bursts, and another one appears. The space inside and outside is always the same. The ocean is the same water, no matter what patterns waves form on its surface. Why this noise about debating how to be water best?

That sounds strange? What Hui Neng illustrated and what I try to get across time and again is that all this theory and all this making of many words and clever thinking and intellectual differentiation between categories can never tell what the essence, what the real nature of things and life and everything is. Words can only describe and point out what "it" is not. Thats why all claimed "holy scriptures" telling people what some cosmic superpower is and what it wants, are false scriptures. They in fact express the total antithesis to what they claim they are.

What you are saying here is the very basis of Eastern religion/philosophy. There is no answer or the answer is right/wrong. Whatever thoughts I have are the right/wrong answers and it doesn't matter any way because you can't know the right/wrong answer. All is relative to what makes 'me' happy or satisfied that all is well.

Is this enlightenment or is it madness?

"Ah get born, keep warm
Short pants, romance, learn to dance
Get dressed, get blessed
Try to be a success
Please her, please him, buy gifts
Don't steal, don't lift
Twenty years of schoolin'
And they put you on the day shift"

I like a little truth on my enlightenment/madness quest.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by u crank

What you are saying here is the very basis of Eastern religion/philosophy. There is no answer or the answer is right/wrong. Whatever thoughts I have are the right/wrong answers and it doesn't matter any way because you can't know the right/wrong answer. All is relative to what makes 'me' happy or satisfied that all is well.

Is this enlightenment or is it madness?

Its your summary that does not match the thing you claim to have summarised.

Enlightenment is an all-or-nothign at-all thing. It cannot be gained step by step, but in total completeness only, suddenly. And it is nothing that is gained, but is something that is left behind. It is no qulaity, and no divine reward for doing the right things and living the right life. It is a state of mind. And this mind is fully aware of itseld, of life and world, and it does not overshadow these by its own judgements. In the words of socalled radical constructivism, it is the mind that is free to stop the construction process of perception - or to run it freely by own will and in full understanding of the process (miost people are totally unaware of the mechnaism by which their mind censors their perception, and how their intrinsic motivations influence it further: we do not find the "reality" in the process of perception, but we construct, and invent it).

Such a mind accepts responsibility, because somebody knowing how he himself is the cause of the way in which he organises and constructs perceptions, cannot claim somebody else as guilty for having caused it. Such a mind is free and unhindered, because it can arrange the perception patterns any way it wants. And such a mind is tolerant, because the freedom it experiences in its free choice to construct in this or that way, or not at all, it necessarily must realise to be the basis for the other'S mind, too.

Western psychoanalysis claims the automatic link between perception and reaction - which most often is an act of judging something - cannot be broken. Eatern mediation shows that one can absolutely learn to break up that automatism very well, but that takes discipline and dedication. And thus, learnign this taskes time. Many years in most cases. I would even say most people learn this all life long. Almost all.

I just have destroyed a long reply to somebody else, accidentally, when correcting some of my usualy many typos. Too bad. Will come back to it later. Ignoring how local sectarians have turned it into religion nevertheless for poltiical and control ambitions, Buddhism by core and essence is no religion. Like atheism is no religion, too. But Buddhism is atheistic. It does not tell you what to believe - it tells you not to believe at all, but to test and check and analyse yourself, and after empirically checking your own experiences, you then shall make a decision based on the common sense ethics of what is good both for the one and for the many, where as "many" here can refer to a context going beyond that of human community, and can include other life, nature, the ecosphere that we share with so many others). There is no deity whose commands are to be obeyed, and there should be no rites and rituals keeping people locked like running hamsters in a wheel, running al, the time, but not getting anywhere. But the busy mind is the mind that does not think about asking questions - and that is what religions really want: to prevent sovereign, educated, independent. own thinking. At least it is what they acchieve, and they seem to be not too unhappy with it.

[Skybird]

August,

Hui Neng was no barbar and no vandal, nor was he a conqueroir destroying other cultures by burnign their museums. what he is said to have done there, means that he iullustrated in a drastic way that if monks in the monastery wanted to become "enlightened", they had to give up the false belive that there is sometbign that could be gained, could be acchieved by doing the right procedures, or writing smart clever little theories about the nature of things and the meaning of life or to just trust and put blind faith into written scriptures.

Zen and Chna love to act by example, and they usually dispise long teahcings in words and writings. A simple act says so much more than a thousand words.

In Chan, which is the original China-based root of the tradition that later reached Japan and there turned into what today is called Zen, there is a strong mistrust against written delivery of traditions, because the intellectual as well as cognitive condensate - what together we call thinking - is organised in patterns and runs in structures that are not free, but gets heavily influenced by culture, education, envrionment input. Different body language and digfferent facial expression and mim ics as well as differing abilities to realise and correctly interprete these, for example is one consequence from these differences. Anbother is the totally different structure of languages - you cannot linearly translate Chinese into western languges like you tr alsate German into English.

Next, In Chan, enlightenment is seen as something that comes in total only, not in small quantities. It is a sudden, total experience sometimes described as a breaking-through. when the time is ripe and a student ios close to it, it was not rare that the master picked radical measures to make him jumpingk, running, falling, crawling over the last meter towards thwe "goal". The used their whip. The slapped them in the face. They yelled at them in sudden surporise. They kicked them, or threw them out of a window or down a shallow hill - whatever they saw fit. See it as a final slam of the fist on the table to wake up the student and make him suddenly aware.

Why isa this acceptable, you ask. Because, in this lkife, everything is uncertain and we cannot be sure of anything. Death is all alrund and can reach for us just any molmnent. There is no time to waste. To reach realisation of oneself, as enlightenment sometimes is described, is the only thing that counts. I the face of omnipresent death and the fact that all we do and acchieve is doomed to fail, apart again and to have been in vain, nothing else counts. Mediation, enlightenment - that is an issue of life and death. That sounds pathetic, but it is the simple truth. I would even go one step further and say: it is not about meditating, but about dying. And what has to die, is the illusion of what we call our ego.

What to you appears to be as an act of lacking civilisation (in case of China!?), of barbary and vandalism, in fact was an act of great love and affection, of deep insight, dedication and determination. What Hui Neng said when he destroyed the scrolls, was this: don'T accept bullsh!t, don't waste time, come to your senses and focus with all your power on what really counts. He also showed that way that any attempt to explain and to form theories and models about enlgithenment, must fail due to the limits of human language - and it is a neurophysical fact that our intellectual thinking runs along the schemes established by the structures of the languages we speak. Language patterns decide on thinking patterns, and vice versa. Since both are limited, they cannot form a correct image of the unlimited. Every verbal hint on what enlightenment is, necessarily must be misleading for that reason.

You cannot say in words what "it" is. You can only say in words what "it" is not. So, throw away the darkness of all blind conceptions and terms and labels. Free yourself of everything.

[August]

Originally Posted by Skybird

You cannot say in words what "it" is. You can only say in words what "it" is not.

It all sounds great Sky and you have every right to believe in that stuff if it floats your boat but it's also besides the point.

Please don't get the idea that I think your guy is some kind of brigand. I don't. I just think that he had no right to destroy other peoples property like that. It's just another form of "ends justify the means" argument and while you can dress it up in the most noble of intentions it's wrong none the less.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by August

It all sounds great Sky and you have every right to believe in that stuff if it floats your boat but it's also besides the point.

Please don't get the idea that I think your guy is some kind of brigand. I don't. I just think that he had no right to destroy other peoples property like that. It's just another form of "ends justify the means" argument and while you can dress it up in the most noble of intentions it's wrong none the less.

Property...? This is all what it is about for you...??? Simple materialistic possession claims...? Wowh.

That is as absurd as the church selling the divine forgiving of sins for money (if you were poor, than you have a problem), or a priest saying that believers cannot enter God's paradise in the afterlife if entrance violates earthly laws and treaties and the curch's statutes on who can enter when and how and what dress to wear on that occasion.

You value the message as lower than the paper it has been fixed on. A Krämerseele you are! ( a bean-counting salesman that is). Very German it sounds, too - not in a complimentary way, though.

But very religious it sounds as well. The surface counts more than the fundament. Obey. Don't seek rescue by your own. respect the authority of the - well, the authorities.

August, I tried to make it clear earlier. In the face of the transitoriness of all things being, and your life as well, nothing is important than to learn who you are and to learn how to avoid booking (due to lacking insight) another round on the wheel of life, because that turning fo the wheel means entering the realm of transitoriness again, and thus: means endless suffering. That is the basic logic behind Buddhism. Various sectarian major traditions later introduced variations of this, some focussing on a more social, altruistic view, others more on a more self-centered view, but that is not important here now.

And since you opened by indicating I "believe" something in there. I have a very sober view on these things, even cold-blooded, I sometimes got told. I do not know whether the wheel-of-life thing and reincarnation is to be taken literally or not - for evaluating that I lack own experience and background knowledge on the fundamentals running the universe. Karma to me only means: every cause has a reaction, and the link may be so complex and going over multiple levels and instances that it is hard to see maybe - and still: every cause has reaction. On enlightenment, I do not sign for for example Tibetan ideas on entering the land of Buddha in the four directions of the sky, nor do I think that a hundred thousand kneeling-downs on your way to the next shrine does you any good in your karmic balance sheet. What drives me is the uncertainty over the question of why things are, why I am and what this life is all about. Why is not simply nothing? What is my mind that thinks, and what are the things that I normally pressume to be like I see and hear them, while I know that their appearance is only an image, a construct in my brain - what is their real nature, then? How can I find out when I have no chznace to ever expereince their real essence direclty by my senses and my intellect? How to leave both behind and gain the immediate expereiunce? Can this even be had as long as I separate myself from them by thinking of them as "them" and think of myself as "me"?

And I think it is helpful to gain an attitude of mind, a mental discipline if you want, that does not immediately judge and thus rule in favour and against perceptions and ideas the very moment our senses have sent another sequence of chemical-electrical stimuli into our brains. I think to start by staying inactive and observe, may be helpful to see how things are moving, and gaining insight into their inside, their real nature, the patterns they form. It may also show helpful for myself - in order to stay calm, to become less and lesser a playing ball of my rampaging emotions and fears and other mental projections that I superimpose onto the world. The fear of never getting answers, not knowing what is after this life, still is there. But this way, it sometimes has become bearable, and cannot command me around anymore. Enlightenment seen this way is an attitude of mind, a state of mind. And although you alwaqys have it in full, it never stops to emrbace more and unfolds, like about evolution can be said that in any moment there is total perfection in every species existing, for it has reached as best a design as that design could have unfolded and developed in the time that has so far been available.

Believing has as much to do with it as it is a question of believing when you make a choice on whether you prefer the taste of lemon tea or peppermint. You check both, and then you know what you like. It is an empirically founded decision. Religions make even this complicated again, bringing in divine wills and heavenly laws when to drink what and why something else is claimed to be forbidden. That is believing, August. Basing on the common German translations of these terms, "belief" meansto take something that cannot be checked and analysed, as factual and proven truth nevertheless, a claim on a deity existing for example. "Faith" is somethign else. It is an empirically justified trust that comes from own and direct experience and is strengthened further by the results of such checks and analysis.

"Dear God, give us trust, but save us from believing" - this was written in these or very similiar words by Aldous Huxley, in "Island".

No easy answers there. Just images of reflections inside reflections, endlessly. He who wants easy answers and rules to follow, indeed just should pick up and read a manual and at the end make a test with multiple-choice items always offering just one answers. But that is a human life wasted, I say, a waste of human ressources and potentials (that waste is what makes me so hostile and angry towards religions). It's energy could as well have been spend to form a pigeon learning to pick a key to get a corn rewarded.

[August]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Property...? This is all what it is about for you...??? Simple materialistic possession claims...? Wowh.

Well either you respect other peoples personal property and right to worship God as they see fit or you do not. Apparently you and your book burning hero do not and calling me stupid foreign names isn't going to change or justify that.

Entering someones place of worship and destroying religious texts because you don't believe in what they say is nothing more than criminal vandalism. A hate crime on par with Islamists destroying Buddhist statues or burning the Library at Alexandria. I don't care if that's not what Hui Neng was about. As far as i'm concerned such behavior invalidates anything else this guy has to say.

You're like every other Zealot i've ever met. So convinced that your beliefs are the only "correct" beliefs possible that you're willing to justify just about anything. The truth of the matter is you do not have, and never will have, the right to tell others what they may or may not believe in.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by August

Well either you respect other peoples personal property and right to worship God as they see fit or you do not. Apparently you and your book burning hero do not and calling me stupid foreign names isn't going to change or justify that.


You're like every other Zealot i've ever met. So convinced that your beliefs are the only "correct" beliefs possible that you're willing to justify just about anything. The truth of the matter is you do not have, and never will have, the right to tell others what they may or may not believe in.

Man, komm mal wieder auf den Teppich. It was a Chinese Buddhist Chan monastery where they had scrolls with Chinese Buddhist teachings written by monks like those sitting in such monasteries - and you make it a civil rights case, basing on a superpedantic bean-counting thinking separated from the events by 12 hundred years. It was an educational demonstration and/or a display of Hui Neng's enlightenment in the meaning that he had broken through to an understanding of how limited all word-making necessarily always is. And you make it a bureaucratic formality of today's standards.

That is hilarious!

Entering someones place of worship and destroying religious texts because you don't believe in what they say is nothing more than criminal vandalism. A hate crime on par with Islamists destroying Buddhist statues or burning the Library at Alexandria. I don't care if that's not what Hui Neng was about. As far as i'm concerned such behavior invalidates anything else this guy has to say.

He did not enter that palce of worship, because he already lived there, the story goes. He was a helper in the kitchen, was somewhat too unadapted, nevertheless the abbot was aware of his potential and gave him permission to stay, and gave him separate teaching lessons. When he had Satori, he stormed out of the abbot's room and into the library. And no, the abbot was not angry. He confirmed his enligthenment instead.

And you think it was a culture clash, eh? Another Zen story given for educational illustration goes like this. The abbot sits on a small path at a mneadow, when a working monk comes along with a wheelbarrow. "Please, master, move your feet slightly to the side, so that I have room to pass", he asked. The abbot said "What rests, one should lket rest". The monk replied "And what rolls one should let roll", and rolled the wheelbarrow right over the abbot's feet. As far as I recall, the abbot on that day declared this moink to have fpound enlightenment. - You probably only see the act of physical assault in this, and form a law case of it.

I do not expect somebody who knows nothing about Zen to have an immediate understanding of why so much appears as absurd and counterintuitve in Zen and its tradition. You cannot understand that from all start on if it is all new to you. But what leaves me stunned is the narrow mind that tries to reduce it to materialistic acts of bureaucratic, formal meaning exslcusively. You see, all other people I told these stories asked "I do not understand, what is it aboiut, why did he do it, isn'ÄT that absdurd?" You file a comlaint at the court and think that is all about it. that illustrates an extremely minimilastic and reductionistic mindset, I would say, probably one that cannot even imagine the chance that something could be any different than what that mind already has decidced to take as the only possible option for defining how things can be - it'S own interpretation, that is.

Seen that way, your reaction is truly unique.

But what appears as absurd and illogical in Zen, has only this as a goal: to break apart right this thinking pattern, to push the student beyond the limits of right this kind of thinking that makes him believe that his ego is the master of the world. Breaking through the narrow, limited scope of the dualistic and polarising ordinary mindset that is the cause of all the conflicts we get ourselves entangled in. To give up judging, and for a start leave it to witnessing. It is a difference whether you say: "I don't like that woman in the street, that hilarious dress she wears, isn'T it impossible! Somebody really should have a qword with her about it", or whether you say "I see that women over there, she is dressed in that dress that really catches attention because of X, Y, and Z, and now she is heading for the busstop." - The first already emotionally rants, and reacts by habit without n ot being aware that it is habit controlling your reaction, and you start with already judging. The latter is just a sober witness report. Who of the two illustrates the mindset that is more free, independent, autonomous and sober? Which of thre two has the greater chance to rersult in you not dpoing harm to the overall situation, and if you act in the the context of this situation, has you acting on the basis ob fairtness and objectivity? Are you more free if you are controlled by habits that you leave unquestioned, and that you are not aware of, or by being reflective about yourself?

I offer no beliefs, although you have chosen with iron determination to claim the opposite, and by that distort reality for you do not want to deal with what I indeed really say. I do not even explkain the content of any such belief of my own that you claim I hold. All I do is two things: I ask questions on the nature of mental processes and our assumntpions about things, and I try to explain the working mode, the m,odus operandi, by which I am aware I construct the reality I prefer to live in. A working method, and the result of a working process, are two totally different things.

You can claim as often as you want that I believe this or that, and that I am a believer of "my things". Endless repetition as the only argument coming fro m you, does not makje a false statement of yours any less wrong. As I see it, what I tried to desribe is too alien from what you are used to, and it is so new and different from what you are used to take for the common way that you simply rtefuse to acept that it nevertheless does exist. Your modus operandi in other words is this: "It should not be so it cannot be, and thus I cut of some here, and add some things there, until it fits the schemes I am used to. Afterwards, I judge the result (that is my result and not the original source) by the standards I am used to."

A total confusion. And form of fanatism that is extremely resistent to any form of influencing it, and that labels any act of defence against it as an aggression by the victim.

Scripture believers. Pffft. They often have burned infidels. I prefer to burn instead said scriptures that makes them that insane. In Cairo and Libya, a mob of blind hysterics running on lower instincts that got set aflame again, have stormed US diplomatic missions, a US envoy or ambassador was murdered. Over scripture.

[u crank]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Its your summary that does not match the thing you claim to have summarised.

Agreed. It was a very broad generalization done in haste.

Originally Posted by Skybird

Enlightenment is an all-or-nothign at-all thing. It cannot be gained step by step, but in total completeness only, suddenly.

Have had a similar experience.

Originally Posted by Skybird

And it is nothing that is gained, but is something that is left behind. It is no qulaity, and no divine reward for doing the right things and living the right life. It is a state of mind.

Again, a similar experience.

Originally Posted by Skybird

And this mind is fully aware of itseld, of life and world, and it does not overshadow these by its own judgements.

Such a mind accepts responsibility, because somebody knowing how he himself is the cause of the way in which he organises and constructs perceptions, cannot claim somebody else as guilty for having caused it. Such a mind is free and unhindered, because it can arrange the perception patterns any way it wants. And such a mind is tolerant, because the freedom it experiences in its free choice to construct in this or that way, or not at all, it necessarily must realise to be the basis for the other'S mind, too.

An on going process and a challenging one for sure.

I would ask this question, Skybird, in regards to any so called enlightenment. Is it only enlightenment when it meets the criteria set by some people who claim to have achieved it or claim to know what it is? What right do they have to make such a claim? This smacks of the same kind of religious indoctrination and dogma that some here have railed against. I realize that meditation and Buddhism are Atheistic in belief but since atheists believe that God is an invention of man then in all cases we are left with the mere opinions of other humans regardless of how they arrived at them.

Originally Posted by Skybird

..and there should be no rites and rituals keeping people locked like running hamsters in a wheel, running al, the time, but not getting anywhere. But the busy mind is the mind that does not think about asking questions - and that is what religions really want: to prevent sovereign, educated, independent. own thinking. At least it is what they acchieve, and they seem to be not too unhappy with it.

Now I am afraid it is you who is making a generalization. There are many people who have a religious/theistic/spiritual life who do not live like this nor do they allow others to dictate the path that they should take. Quite the opposite in fact. Yes there are many obedient sheep, but I would question their actual belief and their knowledge about that belief.

Originally Posted by Skybird

Buddhism by core and essence is no religion. Like atheism is no religion, too. But Buddhism is atheistic.

Maybe so but Buddhism has some remarkable beliefs. One is rebirth, a process whereby beings go through a succession of lifetimes as one of many possible forms of sentient life, each running from conception to death. I wonder if you believe this.

I for one do not care what I come back as, as long as it is not a hamster.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by u crank

Have had a similar experience.

Congrats, if that is so, then you are a fully realised Buddha, the returning messiah in Chrsitian terminology, and you are far ahead of me - since I never had a Satori experience like this, I think. My mere doubt proves that I never had it for sure.

I would ask this question, Skybird, in regards to any so called enlightenment. Is it only enlightenment when it meets the criteria set by some people who claim to have achieved it or claim to know what it is?

You already went into the trap here. that is why Zen does not like written traditions and thweopreticl studies and clasiscal teaching, but focusses on the ordinary things to do. The relation between master and student, in Asia traditionally differently settled than in the West, is beyond words, and is utmost direct, and must be so. That is hard to explain and cannot even be "described" in words. There is nothing to be described in words, you see. Words just mislead, they call into life all the catogorial thinking and polariszatrion of the images in your minds. A rose is not a rose when you call it that. A rose is the immediate, direct sensation of seeing it, smelling it, hearing the wind in its leaves, seeing it bowing in the moving air - but you cannot pack that into words: youmust experience it.

that is what it is about: own, direct, immediate experience. Awareness in everything you do, every moment you realise, everything that happens to you. Another Zen story goes like this:"Wonder oh marvellous wonder! I chop wood and carry water!" I liked to lead students' focus either to their breathing - or to their hands. Watching it, looking at it, seeing it moving, turningk, the fingers, the figurs you can form with it, the things it can do: what a wonderful tool a human hand is! A true and rteal miracle by design.

You see, there is nothign that can be taught, and there is nothign that you miss. You just need to ralsie it by giving up illusions. Enlightenment is not about something to be gained, but about something to be let. There is nothing you can gain. You must not "do". Just let things, and lead your awareness to what is going on in the focus of your mind. Be aware. Witness, do not judge.

What right do they have to make such a claim? This smacks of the same kind of religious indoctrination and dogma that some here have railed against. I realize that meditation and Buddhism are Atheistic in belief but since atheists believe that God is an invention of man then in all cases we are left with the mere opinions of other humans regardless of how they arrived at them.

Sigh. Atheists do not believe something. Atheists say that if somebody claims God existsa, they want evidence, and until then they say it is unlikjely that he does excist, like it is un likely to thinkg that babies are brought by the stgork as long as you do not prove it. Relgious people claim to kjnow how things are and that God is. Atheists know that they do not know. in logics, you cannot prove the nonexiostence of something, it is impossible, like you cannot divide numbers by zero.

originally, Chan does not hold a dogma or law code that is being told. You seem to compare it to church business, or any of the great world religions' practices. It is not like that - though there were many sects in Buddhism that brought it down to the level of ordinary religion indeed, for reasons of political control and influence over the crowds - Asia was not immune to make the same mistakes like the europeans did with Jesus). People, crowds crave for being led, they want to be led, and thus they fall so easily for false prophets and illmeaning leaders.

There is no manual with categories for englightenment, and when the candidate scores enough points, tha n he is made a Buddha. Nonsense. Master and student have a most direct relation and - bull, I try the impossible although I should know it better. Forget what I said, its all bull. In reply to your question I give you to different alternatives instead to learn about it.

First a wonderful film with almost no words in it, from Korea, I think 1988. "Why has Bodhidharma left for the East?" The film is beautiful like a poem that has been transformed into pictures, it is very calm and uses almost no words. Watch it not with your eyes, but with your heart, and you will learn a lot about what you ask for here. You can find out about it here: LINK.

Second, the only book that I have kept from my former Buddhist library (that I collected in my foolish years is a book by my secind mentor, after I had left Berlin and my first one had died: Wolfgang Kopp: Free yourself of everything. Radical guidance in the spirit of Chan and Christian Mysticism. Cheap kindle version available. The book is not too long, is straight and has no time to waste with mild politeness and flattering. It is somewhat uncompromised and leaves the reader no space to evade in srearch of comfortable consolation and shortcuts. This book is a bazooka against candy-sweet esoteric fantasy-religion and rainbow-coloured naivety. It compares Christian and Chan texts, and teaches you why it is important to die the "mystical death". Period. I have recommended this book often - most people do not read beyond the first few pages - they do not like the uncompromised directness of the text. You want easy solutions and some more entertainment? Spiritual fireworks and happy group sit-ins? Then look elsewhere. what the book does not tell you is about the practice, you cannot teach that in words, you must DO it, and preferrably under supervision by a realised master. Adn these guys are rare, I tell you. I consider myself to be an extremnelyl blessed and gifted man that I were found by such rare persons not juzst once but even twice in my life. I'm a lucky dog. The author btw, was the one who kicked my a$$ and threw me out again vcery early, saying that he coulkd not teach me any more and that nmow I should teach meditation mywself to pepple, which I did for several years. Without his well-meant aggression i maybe would never have gotten that act of my life together - due to fear.
Its the only book I hand to people when they ask for a book about Buddhism. academical study is all nice and well when you want to write a paper, but for your own spiritual cause it helps not at all. It even is a hindering obstacle, and deafens your mind. Find a real master. Or better: let yourself get found. When you are ripe for it, you will be found.

Maybe so but Buddhism has some remarkable beliefs. One is rebirth, a process whereby beings go through a succession of lifetimes as one of many possible forms of sentient life, each running from conception to death. I wonder if you believe this.

I do not know whether it is like this, but I warn to take symbols too literal. I find it very unlikely that I get reborn as a worm when I behave too badly, however, I think nothing goes lost in this unioverse, and nothing gets added, and every cause is followed by a consequnce, no matter how subtle it may be, no matter how well it may be hidden in complexity. Buddha was asked oine day whether there is a surviving indiovidual soul, and he said a clear and sounding "No". However, the thing to be mentionjed here is the idera of atman and an-atman, ego and non-ego. For buddhism, our egolk our ordinary self-conceptions, are just an illusion thatz feeds itself and lets us beolieve in dualiostic terms basiong on the dseparation between "me" and "the world". This individual ego/atman runs by motoions of the mind, which are classified in five categories of decreaisng matetrial density, called skandhas. Buddha denied the lasting nature of such a sould or ego or atman, however he taught that the real self is beyond the individual level, is a non-self (anatman), and maybe it can be grabbed in that nordic and Indsian idea of the collective "world soul". However. That already is much os destracting theory again that helps you nothing in mastering this life that you must live right now, in this moment. I personally am very surfe that not the smallest individual qualkity of myself will survive beyoidn my death. But I do not rule out that there is something beyond death. Of course that makes it difficult for me to beleiie a too linear and simplified idea like causal, linear rebirthing or reincarnation. maybe Carl sagan pout it well when saying "We are all star stuff". When hearing that the first time, for a long time I saw no need to find words in reply to that.

I for one do not care what I come back as, as long as it is not a hamster.

This world is transoitory, and thus life is suffering - the most basic truth in buddhism. Maybe the trick is not to come back at all. And maybe it is altruism making you agreeing to come back nevertheless.

One can play the thinking game until all heaven falls down. Better focus on what you are doing right now. Send all that holiness to hell, and get your things done, and don't do one thing - with your mind being somewhere else. Thats more worth than a hundred temple visits , fifty clever books you learn to recite freely, or a spell given by the pastor.

[u crank]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Congrats, if that is so, then you are a fully realised Buddha, the returning messiah in Chrsitian terminology.....

The key word there was similar. I think you know what I meant, but I will give you the benefit of the doubt.

Originally Posted by Skybird

Sigh. Atheists do not believe something...

My original thought here had nothing to do with Atheism, but rather with Buddhism and meditation and Atheism's view of them. Buddhism is a religion, granted one without a deity. Meditation and Zen are directly related to this religion. For Atheists to criticize other religions and give Buddhism a pass is kinda funny.

Again I stress that Buddhism is not a theistic belief but many of the things criticized in Theistic religions are present in Buddhism. Some examples.

- The historical Buddha. Accounts of his life, discourses, and monastic rules are believed by Buddhists to have been summarized after his death and memorized by his followers. Various collections of teachings attributed to him were passed down by oral tradition, and first committed to writing about 400 years later. Gee that sounds familiar.

-Some of his teaching and beliefs.

Originally Posted by Skybird

Buddha was asked oine day whether there is a surviving indiovidual soul, and he said a clear and sounding "No".

Why should I believe this? Did he prove it or is it just his opinion? Billions of people would disagree.

-The Inequality of Women. Although in Western Buddhist practice this is not common in traditional practice and history, Buddhism is gender bias. Again this sounds familiar.

-Divisions within Buddhism. Buddhist traditions all claim that through a long and accurate teacher-student lineage, their practices were those ordained by the Buddha. Yet major divisions exist between the branches of Buddhism as to what practices are good, what are bad, and what the beliefs of the religion are.

There are many others but I think I've made my point. I realize that you are not a practising Buddhist but the relationship between Zen and meditation and Buddhism is quite plain. This has nothing to do with Atheism or belief in a deity. It is about practising something whose origins are just as questionable as any religion.

If Zen and meditation have made your life better this is good. I am happy for you but it is not for me. I do not wish to replace my present reality of mind with another. I am at peace and have no enemies. I am confident about the future. Am I delusional? Well that's possible but it's a chance we all take. It's a dangerous world.

P.S.

To any Buddhist who may read this, I hope I have not offended you. The points made were for the sake of the discussion.

To quote MH, May the Schwartz be with you.........

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by u crank

My original thought here had nothing to do with Atheism, but rather with Buddhism and meditation and Atheism's view of them. Buddhism is a religion, granted one without a deity. Meditation and Zen are directly related to this religion. For Atheists to criticize other religions and give Buddhism a pass is kinda funny.

Again I stress that Buddhism is not a theistic belief but many of the things criticized in Theistic religions are present in Buddhism. Some examples

Many Buddhist authors woudl disagree with you, and like me would point out that the essence of Buddhism does not matchz the purpose to serve as a funda,mewnt for rtelgion. However, I admitted that nevertheless it was picked up by politicians and preists and distrorted and complemented with rites and riotuals and hierarchies and all that institutional stuff that indeed turned them then into relgious business like any other. But to me that is not the real essence of it.

I find the parallels b etween essential Buddhism and essential Jesus'
message stunning. I am not the first comparing Zen and Christian Mysticism therefore. The book I recommended also bases on that. And indeed, I would claim that Christian Mysticism also is no relgion.

Why should I believe this? Did he prove it or is it just his opinion? Billions of people would disagree.

You should believe nothing, not him, not me, not anybody. You should care for yourself. From the Kalamas Sutra which is famous for its encouragement of freed inquiry, the one passage that to me is one of the most important revelations about Buddhism there is:

Rely not on the teacher/person, but on the teaching. Rely not on the words of the teaching, but on the spirit of the words. Rely not on theory, but on experience. Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. Do not believe anything because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything because it is written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and the benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it."

-The Inequality of Women. Although in Western Buddhist practice this is not common in traditional practice and history, Buddhism is gender bias. Again this sounds familiar.

That is a cultural thing going beyond Buddhism. Today there are Buddhist female abbots both in Asia and the West. However, as I admitted two times now, Buddhism was hijacked by politicians indeed to serve as a tool for controling the crowd, securing priviliges and gaining power and authority. But that is not what Buddha taught, and not what Jesus taught. Until today I cannot get the church and the story of the cleansing of the temple under one hood. And whgile I do not want to defend the Chineses' actions over Tibet, one thning theya claim in defence, is correct: the ruling of the Tibrtan schools of Buddhism has had a very supressive effect on the ordinary population, secured priviliges and control for kind of an elite caste. To me, Tibetan Buddhism is a Buddhist parallel to the Catholic church.

-Divisions within Buddhism. Buddhist traditions all claim that through a long and accurate teacher-student lineage, their practices were those ordained by the Buddha. Yet major divisions exist between the branches of Buddhism as to what practices are good, what are bad, and what the beliefs of the religion are.

Test and check yourself, with reason and logic. Yes, much there is distportion, is esoteric hamsterwheeling- but you are free to choose. As I see it, the basic teachings of Chan are what it is about, and these teachings are such that they do not support the founding of a relgious circus and all that. they are empirically founded, they base on your own experience of explorating your mind, and are open to validation andf falsification. that quotre from the Kalamas Sutra has much, very much to do with it. You should not believe - no them, not me, not in anything - how often must I repeat this before you hear it?

There are many others but I think I've made my point. I realize that you are not a practising Buddhist but the relationship between Zen and meditation and Buddhism is quite plain. This has nothing to do with Atheism or belief in a deity. It is about practising something whose origins are just as questionable as any religion.

I tested it, and since a long time. From my yoluth on I got trained privately by a colleague of my father, a Japanese who trained me together with his son, for over ten years, in Zen, Bushido, swords, meditation - daily. He was like a second father to me. I then left Berlin for studying at university, and there learned students practicing Tibetan Buddhism, Nyigma lineage and Kagyu lineage. I lived in a Buddhist center for several months, trying to combine psychology and therapy with Buddhist psychology and meditation. But I have strong reservations over Tibetan practicing, see above. It is indeed religion and cult and showbiz and money-making, and that is why I don'T like it. Then came the years when I started to travel, North africa and the Middle East, my exploration into Islam, if you want, and at that time I was introduced to Wolfgang Kopp whom I recommend to you by his book. He heads a Tao-Chan centre here in Germany and is so-called dharma-successor of a well-known French Zen-master. He became my second mentor, and although I only met him some times, these meetings were incredibly intense, personal, and mutually intimate. He then threw me out, saying that he could not offer me any more than what I already had, and that I should start teaching myself. Which I did. I ran meditation classes in a "culture-free" setting for several years, every morning.

So you see, there was a time when I was young and stupid, and when I took risks on trips that I should have not taken, and when I took pride in claiming myself to be "Buddhist" - while all I did by doing so was illustrating what a fool I was. Today, I do not care for such labels, and that is why your description of whether you think I am a practicing Buddhist or not, is competely pointless to me - think what you want, its your pictures in your brain, not mine. If people ask me for a self-description today, I leave it to saying that I consider myself to be a spiritual atheist. I enjoy to see eyebrows frowning then, but it is the most precise description for sure that I can give. Not that any of that matters, not for me, not for anyone else.

If Zen and meditation have made your life better this is good. I am happy for you but it is not for me. I do not wish to replace my present reality of mind with another.

As long as you accept responsibility for your choice and realise that your choice is an active act by you and nothing that happened to you, that's fine for you. I did not approach you, and I never meant to missionise you. I explained some things (more or less...) after you stated some things and asked me over some things. What you make of that does not affect me, as I see it. I just claim the right to take you by your words - that'S why there was some head-banging in the past between the two of us.

To any Buddhist who may read this, I hope I have not offended you. The points made were for the sake of the discussion.

Heck, have people become sensible these days. Some quotes by House on my mind, but okay...

[u crank]

Originally Posted by Skybird

But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and the benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.

This is wisdom and well worth considering.

I read with great interest you history with regards to your training and interest in Zen and meditation. This helps me greatly in understanding where you are coming from on this and other topics. Thank you for sharing.

Originally Posted by Skybird

If people ask me for a self-description today, I leave it to saying that I consider myself to be a spiritual atheist. I enjoy to see eyebrows frowning then, but it is the most precise description for sure that I can give. Not that any of that matters, not for me, not for anyone else.

I for one am not frowning. It matters a little.

Originally Posted by Skybird

... I did not approach you, and I never meant to missionise you. I explained some things (more or less...) after you stated some things and asked me over some things. What you make of that does not affect me, as I see it. I just claim the right to take you by your words - that'S why there was some head-banging in the past between the two of us.

A little head banging is good. Keeps us sharp. No doubt we will have the pleasure again.

A final thought. One thing I am convinced of as I get older is that the old saying it is better to laugh than to cry is sound advice. I do not consider that this life is a joke, but it is definitely a comedy of sorts. Absurdity is best handled with a grin.

Take care.