Hi,
I want to pour a little water (in a Zenny way) on some of this "chicken-egg" philosophizzzzing on
brain-mind-self-language-chairs-chickens-eggs! There is this old classic:
Bodhidharma faced the wall. The Second Ancestor ... said, "Your disciple's mind is not at peace yet. I beg you, Master, please put it to rest."
Bodhidharma said, "Bring me your mind, and I will put it to rest."
The Second Ancestor said, "I have really searched for my mind, but I cannot find it."
Bodhidharma said, "There, I have put it completely to rest."
Here are some big questions like those being asked in this thread ...
So,
is the chair "really there"? Or is it only "in the mind"? And where is that "mind"? Is "the chair" only wood in a certain shape or is it just wood ... and what would be remaining if a woodchuck chucked it's wood? Is the chair comfortable or hard, and where are such qualities found ... in the chair or in the mind (or in the backside sitting on the chair)? Would a space alien lacking a sit-able backside, if visiting earth and encountering a chair for the first time recognize its chairness? How about an ant crawling up its side? Does that mean that the chair disappears if there is nobody to label it, sit in it ... if it falls in the forest?
These are big questions. All good questions ... but also not good questions for some aspects of Zen Practice.
All Buddhist schools, in one way or another, teach that the chair is ... in one way or another ...
not there, empty ... and the mind, in one way or another (
depending on the school, either by encountering something "out there" and catergorizing/judging it, or by dreaming the whole darn thing up completely)
makes "a chair", comfortable or not, for one to rest one's backside. So, chairs are a product of "mind" ... and also: wood, atoms, backsides, stars and sunlight and rain to grow the trees, and a carpenter's hands are each a product of "mind".
Same with the concept "mind" ... which is just a product of "mind". But, ultimately, chairs and mind and backsides and sun and stars are "not there", because all are "empty" ...
... yet, all Zen Masters sit on 'em and profess 'em, like 'ol Dogen here!
That's about all one needs to pierce for Zen Practice. 8)
And now that I have cautioned against getting caught in philosophy ... let me caution again something else ... (and maybe have to fall into a bit of philosophy myself) ...
Originally Posted by
Rich
the reason they say that Buddhas are not reborn is because they have attained their true selves which is unchanging, without time and space. ... Check out the nirvana sutra which explains the diff between ego empty self and eternal true self.
One may perhaps need to be a bit cautious here, for there is a tendency in Buddhism, and corners of Zen Buddhism, to get caught in something like "The Unborn", "The Unchanging". Most Zen teachers throughout history (
at least, the good ones! 8) ) would caution against
reifying Buddhist concepts of "buddha nature" "emptyness" "enlightenment" etc. ... even "Buddha" or "unborn" "unchanging" ... into a thing ... (
"reification" meaning to turn something into a fixed, rigid, concrete idea, separate from other things ... a separate and half dead mental object). In so doing, you kill the subtly of what is there ...
Better than "eternal self" ... I would advise to find that beyond and swallowing whole all human judgments and categories of "eternal" or "not eternal" ... "unchanging/changing" ... "without time and space vs. with time and space" etc. etc. Drop all need to call some something as "eternal, unchanging" or not.
Let me give you an example ...
I sometimes try to express this inexpressable "Emptiness" thingy as "a dance in which you are me are dancers" ... ever changing, yet going on and on. Yet, if we say that "the dance" is "timeless and eternal" ... we lose something vital. What is more ...if we say that the dance is "just change" ... we lose something. In fact, if we say that "the dance" is some thingy called "The Dance" ... we lose something. What to do?
Get out there and just dance! Pouring one's little self into that dance (a dance that was "you" all along) ... losing oneself in the dancing, thus to find one's self.
Something like that.
I am reading Batchelor's "Confession" today, and he has something nice to say about why not to "reify" ...
To embrace the contingency of one's life is to embrace one's fate as an ephemeral but sentient being [but is not easy]. ... One needs to make a conscious shift from delight in a fixed place to awareness of a contingent ground. Places to which I am instinctively attracted are places where I imagine suffering to be absent. 'There,' I think, 'if only I could get there, there I would suffer no more." The groundless ground of contingency, however, holds out no such hope. For this is the ground where you are born and die, get sick and get old, are disappointed and frustrated.
Sounds a bit bleak, perhaps, but is truly liberating if one dances this dance.
Gassho, Jundo