I had sent a few questions to Jundo. He asked me to post them along with his answers here. This is one of them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaishin
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jundo
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I had sent a few questions to Jundo. He asked me to post them along with his answers here. This is one of them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaishin
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jundo
Matt;
You've been reading and that is commendable. I gave it up years ago :lol: don't let all the rabbit holes get you down.
Heh, I figured I need to read the books before I burn them :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Shokai
I like reading Sutras too ... and so did about every Zen teacher in history. For example, Dogen's Jazz in Shobogenzo is filled with passages (often very obscure, as the man was a walking encyclopedia) from Sutras that he plays on/in/through-and-through. So many of the Koans and other talks and writings of Zen Ancestors are based on Sutra passages much cherished in the Zen world ... like the Diamond, Lotus, Lankavatara to name but a few.
The expression "A Way Beyond Words & Letters" was usually about seeing through the Sutras, or putting them aside, after one already had some familiarity with the words and letters.
But Suttas (the South Asian Pali word) and Sutras (the Mahayana Sanskrit word) are not all that different from the Judeo-Christian Bibles, although (of course) the themes and subjects are Buddhist! There were a thousand authors (sometimes in the very same Sutra!), some passages are nice, some are silly, some contradictory (because different authors had different philosophical views and ways of expressing the same view), some are wildly fantastically imaginary, some make no sense at all Zen sense or otherwise, some passages are timeless and always relevant, some seem dated or even bigoted to modern ears, some helpful, some not helpful, some are poetically lovely ... some passages will knock one's socks off! AMEN!
Yet, in Zazen we sit ... as the View of No View and All Views ... seeing the light that shines on/in/through-and-through both the words and the spaces on the page.
And if you want to put the Sutras down some or all of the time, that is fine too.
Something like that.
Gassho, J
Hello,
just my two Unsui cents here (read with caution :) )
We should keep in mind that a lot of the Sutras are written in "mythic language", meaning that they express impressions and experiences that originate not just in analytical and common intellectual understanding, but that they often find their ground of origin in deep ecstatic states. May I suggest that it is a little bit like the difference between prose texts and poetry. If you use cold intellectual reasoning to scrutinize a poem, you will get something out of it, but you might be missing the point entirely.
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
We could clearly come to the conclusion that comparing a homo sapiens sapiens to a temporal climate phenomenon is a load of BS, but then I do think we might be missing a bit of the possbile impact Shakespeare's piece might have had.
Just let the Sutra wash all over you and see which direction it is pointing to. Often it is a fertile ground of non-space and dropping-it-all awe which is perfelty aligned with our zazen practise.
Gassho,
Hans Chudo Mongen
Hi Hans - I have only read the heart suttra so far.
Appreciate what you say but to be honest - without Red Pine's commentary (and Thich Nhat Hanh's)
I would be lost. Perhaps it's because it's the suttra with the line 'form is emptiness, emptiness is form' but trying to let that wash
over me didn't work. I simply couldn't grasp (what I now feel is an essential understanding ). The commentry opened
a window onto a suttra that I now love - it washes over fine.
Some poetry doesn't require any intellectual work at all - but if you think of say T.S. Eliots 'The Waste Land' - it's full of references/allusions
that a reader wouldn't automatically pick up on. Same with some works of art - it can add to one's appreciation to know a little about the background.
Anyway - I have little experience of reading the suttras - what would you recommend?
Gassho
Willow
Dear Willow,
you are absolutely right.
Since a lot of people experiencing getting stuck in the intellectual arena however, I wanted to highlight the experiential approach. In my humble still-in-training opinion, you can never "get" a sutra intellectually. You can understand what it talks about, but what sutras are pointing to is beyond mere intellectual understanding - and at the same time more intimate and close than your own skin.
It is only this constant pointing-to that makes sutras so important, otherwise they'd just be texts among texts among texts.
Using and studying city maps is not about memorising different lanes, roads and alleys, or understanding a grid structure...unless you are into trainspotting as well :) - it is about applying it directly to where you are driving/walking, and only through the active and dynamic applying of the tire to the road are these maps useful. Otherwise we could all just become academics.
Just my two cents however.
All the best,
Hans Chudo Mongen
Willow;
Forget about the sutras for now (work with the Hannya Shin Kyo); Just yesterday, Shinkai recommended Dogen http://bit.ly/yLf4oL; specifically, Shobogenzo-zuimonki http://bit.ly/xMk0n1 (her choice of type face is hard to read but, if you mouse over it to select it becomes quite clear) It's all available on line and worth the read. As well, have a look at his seminal work, the Shobogenzo itself; of which one of many translations is available here http://bit.ly/b66ovx
Hi!
thank you Keishin and Jundo for this thread... It is always so funny to read in a sutra that it is the most valuable, the highest teaching, or things like "if one can repeat a single line of this sutra he will get more merits than building as many temples as sand in the ganges"... It is funny indeed...
But at the same time, I speak for Chan School I know here, some lineage are kind of specialized in the comments of the diamond and heart, the platform sutra, the Shurangama sutra or even the Amitabha sutras. Chan/Zen school is beyond scriptures, that doesn't mean we don't read and comment the sutras with this "eye" coming from the daily practice of letting-go, jundo and taigu emphasized on it way better than me...
But what I want to express is the fact that for these lineages, the sutras are" the spine of the transmission of the teachings", they are a way to transmit the core teachings and practices by the way of commentaries. And that way, very "zenny" teachings can be shared and transmitted on the base of the Suttas, the Agamas or the Mahayana sutras... I know that for the Shurangama sutra who is used in a lot of lineages (including mine) as the key text to study and practice.
On the other hand, the tientai school division of the sutra in some "teachings eras", dividing the sutras in function of the time Shakyamuni shared them implies a notion of some mahayana sutras being "highest" than others... vast subject!
Anyway, I'm sorry I can't explain myself better (still at work, I've to be quick) but thank you for the opportunity to share,
Have a very nice day everyone!
Gassho,
Jinyu
I think you speak well for some Sutras ... but other Sutras (or parts of otherwise wondrous Sutras) are just silly crap expressing not much worth getting.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hans
Also, some Sutras wash through us and us them (and maybe all just washes washing) beyond the intellectual, and others can be understood intellectually, and some all at once. And some ... the many many silly crap parts ... are none of that and a waste of time and the timeless. Some express "ecstatic meditative states" and timeless Truths, and some are just hysterical or simply ridiculous.
Gassho, J
PS - I take the Shurangama Sutra as a case in point. Many passages worth the price of admission ... many parts that are just crap perhaps. Not even Holy Crap.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jundo
One of the nuns at Bodhi Monastery gave my daughter a sutra to recite daily to cure her lymes disease.
She means well, and we love her to death, but it makes me wonder. How many people are there that would actually depend on such a thing?
And now that we are on the subject, the Shobogenzo^Zuimonki is filled with many many varied sections, by some of which Dogen shows why he is *the Man*, and which are worth the whole price of admission ... and in some of which Dogen seems to show himself as an anal retentive ass, cold hearted and small minded on some topics. I don't find Dogen always particularly wise or admirable on every page of that book. (The section I most handily call to mind is the one where he advises a young monk to leave his aged mother to starve. I wrote about that a bit here):Quote:
Originally Posted by Shokai
viewtopic.php?f=17&t=4584
No book or person is perfect!
Gassho, J
Welll, though I tend to doubt the physical efficacy too ... who knows!? Anyway, couldn't hurt (so long as one seeks other treatment too) and may have some psychological effect. Don't discount the reality of the Placebo effect which can have real, measurable effects on body and mind.Quote:
One of the nuns at Bodhi Monastery gave my daughter a sutra to recite daily to cure her lymes disease.
She means well, and we love her to death, but it makes me wonder. How many people are there that would actually depend on such a thing?
But it reminds me of an old Jewish joke (suddenly this thread took a scatological turn for some reason) ... Has to be read with a Jewish accent ...
An actor clutches his chest and collapses on the stage. A fellow actor looks at him, turns to the audience and says, “Is there a doctor in house?”
No one answers.
The actor again asks, “Is there a doctor in the house?”
From the back of the auditorium a little old Jewish lady calls out, “Give him an enema!
Stunned, the actor cries, “But Madam! This man has had a heart attack. What possible good will an enema do?”
“It couldn't hurt,” came the calm reply.
thanks for the links Shokai
Willow :)
And there my fellow tree leafers is your Koan for the week.
....and for the joke Jundo ! :lol:
My sutra
Get out of your head
Into your body mind
Then drop everything
A great one said
'Vast emptiness, nothing holy'
deep deep bowQuote:
Originally Posted by Rich
gassho
greg
I find this quote interesting!Quote:
Originally Posted by Torei Enji (Discourse on the Inexhaustible Lamp of the Zen Lineage)
There's no truth in Sutras in my opinion. Nothing holy in the Buddha's words.
Sometimes we find crap in Sutras. Sometimes the Sutras find crap in us! :shock:
When we find something in a Sutra that disturbs us, that we judge as wrong, maybe the Sutra, functioning as a mirror, is pointing out that we are disturbed, clinging to a view, stuck, that there is something obscuring the mirror. When our mind is in the state of being a clear mirror only, those passages may not be so disturbing. They are just what they are and there is not so much need to categorize them as crap?
Then again, in Samsara, a lot of what is holy is indeed holy crap! 8)
/Pontus
There is nothing wrong with crap. Did I say that there is anything wrong with it? The Buddha is an old shit stick, as the Koan goes. When the mind is clear as a mirror, crap is perfectly beautiful crap.Quote:
Originally Posted by Omoi Otoshi
The crappy passages in question are not disturbing, so much as not very profound ... even narrow, superstitious or silly.
To assert that every passage of every Sutra must be sacred, holy and profound is very much like saying that every verse of every chapter of every book of the New and Old Testaments much be sacred, holy and profound. While there is much in the Judeo-Christian books that is amazing and transforming (even if one is not part of those religions) ... and all can be seen as just wonderful myth making ... there is much in there that is superstitious, seemingly violent and bigoted, just plain silly or factually wrong (except, of course, to those who would argue that every single line is God's word, true and meaningful). The Buddhist Sutras, as literature, are not particularly better (though all based on the wonderful premises of Buddhist teachings). One just cannot say that their silly beliefs and legends are silly, but our parallel silly beliefs and legends are not ... because they are ours!
I think that one cannot discount any story in the Christian Bible as "hard to swallow" if one is then going to turn around and swallow everything in the Buddhist Bibles hook, line and sinker!
Gassho, J
Thank you Jundo, I agree.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jundo
When there is nothing wrong with crap, nothing in the crappy passages that is disturbing, if crap is just crap, Buddha's crap, then I'm fine with crap! Nothing wrong with it! Perfect, beautiful crap! :mrgreen:
I haven't read many Sutras, but I sometimes find a certain passage in a Sutra quite disturbing. I appreciate these moments, because they point out that I'm stuck in a view of how things should be, or that I'm unconsciously wishing Sutras were more perfect sources of wisdom than they may be, not letting things be just as they are. The Sutras in this way reflect my own mind, showing me some of its obscurations. With the clear mirror mind instead reflecting the Sutra, the superstitious parts are in a sense as real as the realistic ones, the silly parts in a sense as profound as the profound ones. Or rather, there is not so much need for the text to make sense. With the discursive, analytical mind, some passages are just narrow, supersticious, silly. And there's nothing wrong with discursive, analytical mind in my opinion, as long as we don't mistake its conclusions for the truth or let it run the whole show.
And I have never understood why so many people read the Bible so literally. Maybe more Christians would benefit from sitting Zazen.
Gassho,
Pontus
Studying the Lotus... I think there just may be more verses of self-praise and descriptions of benefits arising from its study, than there are of actual content! Although the parables are rather substantive.
Hi Kaishin,Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaishin
If reading the Lotus Sutra, you may be interested in looking through this small book too ...
A couple of online essays on the same theme by the author, Soto Priest and Historian Taigen Leighton ...Quote:
Visions of Awakening Space and Time (Dogen and the Lotus Sutra) by Taigen Dan Leighton
This very thoughtful, informative, and highly original study makes a significant contribution to both Dogen and Lotus Sutra studies by showing how Dogen's Zen is rooted in Mahayana worldview, and also how the Lotus Sutra was a key resource for Japanese Zen. Leighton does an outstanding job of juxtaposing the seminal Lotus Sutra with the main writings of Dogen, along with other prominent thinkers in Zen and Chinese and Japanese Buddhism. He also sheds important light on contemporary applications and interpretations of Buddhist theory. ...
... This book is an exploration of Dogen's writings on space and time, especially as they relate to the central message of the Lotus Sutra . It demonstrates unity of practice and book learning in Japanese Zen and the unity of the Zen tradition and Buddhist teaching traditions such as Tendai and Kegon. Anyone interested in philosophical or literary aspects of Dogen's teachings and their relationship to Buddhist scriptures will find much to savor. Buddhist practitioners who wish to know how traditional scriptures can speak to contemporary concerns will find much to digest.
The Lotus Sutra as a Source for Dogen's Discourse Style
http://www.ancientdragon.org/dharma/...utra_and_dogen
Dogen's Appropriation of Lotus Sutra Ground and Space
http://www.ancientdragon.org/dharma/...ound_and_space
Gassho, J
Ah, great--thanks, Jundo!
"Shall I compare thee to a summer day?" Indeed! Well chosen quote!
Lots to think about with almost every reply posted here, so that bears much reflection. I didn't see anything mentioned about the Middle Way here though. Beyond the Self: Teachings on the Middle Way really helped me think through some of these issues. I believe a lot of the sutras really do contain the Shakyamuni Buddha's words and meanings. However, one of his biggest points was not to get caught in the trappings, the words, the exercises etc. I think this is what is drawing me to Zen. The words and stories were tools, a means to an end, and the Middle Way (his true way to enlightenment) was like a highway that surpasses everything. It's not a middle ground between extremes, though extremes are recommended to be avoided, by a way to surpass the extremes in entirety. In the end, according to Buddha, there isn't even dharma! It's like the roadmap, but if you get too caught up in memorizing the map and travelling all willy-nilly to the places listed, you will miss the point entirely.
I think the sutras make great study and can teach us a lot about active living and guide Buddhists of every denomination on their path, but they are not the end-all-be-all, and Buddha says neither is himself! So is any sutra better than another sutra? Is any sutra the highest? This is an extreme view, and the middle way is the road past extreme views, as laid out by Buddha, but that has to be realized and practiced by your own higher conscience. Shall I compare thee to a summer day? Buddha says no!! Hehe..
At least, that's my current understanding, which evolves depending on the day!!!!
Gassho,
Dani