Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen. Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitors' cup full, then kept on pouring. The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!". "Like this cup", Nan-in said, "you are full of your own speculations and opinions. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?"
I find this passage to be resoundingly truthful. As I go on reading"Writings from Zen masters", I find myself not being able to understand the Eastern philosophy and Zen concepts. A “gateless gate”, being able to “Walk freely between heaven and earth” I find that I can envision it, but am far from actually being able to comprehend these notions. That is why I find that I am like the professor, already full if my own beliefs, and looking upon Zen with a lens that has already decided what it is going to see. If this book has helped me with anything, it is emptying my cup. It has helped to break down my pre-conceived ideas and realize that there is definitely more than one way to think of the world, more than one way to exist, and more than one way to think of the ultimate higher living.
Showing posts with label By Yaseen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label By Yaseen. Show all posts
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Monday, November 29, 2010
Words can never amount to experience
"A hundred hearings cannot surpass one seeing
But after you see the teacher, that one glance cannot surpass a hundred hearings.
His nose was very high
But he was blind after all"
This quatrain from "Writings from Zen Masters", follows a story in which a scholar who writes a large book on Zen sayings, is baffled when a peasant asks a single simple question about his form of Zen. This scholar spent years writing his book, never venturing out into the world. Before the question he ran his own temple and had his own disciples, but afterwards he realizes that he still has much to learn and submits to the nearest temple master. This just shows that people may be able to write large books, and speak eloquently and elaborately on certain subjects, but still be naive due to their lack of experience. This goes to show that there is no substitute to real experience, and even the greatest of books cannot teach us as a single incident can. This is typical with the human experience; we can be told a thousand times not to touch the flame, but until we are burnt we will never truly understand the power of fire.
But after you see the teacher, that one glance cannot surpass a hundred hearings.
His nose was very high
But he was blind after all"
This quatrain from "Writings from Zen Masters", follows a story in which a scholar who writes a large book on Zen sayings, is baffled when a peasant asks a single simple question about his form of Zen. This scholar spent years writing his book, never venturing out into the world. Before the question he ran his own temple and had his own disciples, but afterwards he realizes that he still has much to learn and submits to the nearest temple master. This just shows that people may be able to write large books, and speak eloquently and elaborately on certain subjects, but still be naive due to their lack of experience. This goes to show that there is no substitute to real experience, and even the greatest of books cannot teach us as a single incident can. This is typical with the human experience; we can be told a thousand times not to touch the flame, but until we are burnt we will never truly understand the power of fire.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
“Between Earth and Sky”
“The great path has no gates,
Thousands of roads enter it.
When one passes through this gateless gate
He walks freely between heaven and earth.”
This is the first of the many Zen-filled quatrains in “Writings from Zen masters”. Following Buddhist tradition, it is simple yet profound. The quatrain has to do with attaining “enlightenment” the most elevated stage of human self-development.
“The great path has no gates”, line has to do with the path to enlightenment. The great path is the path to the enlightenment, the most meaningful path any man can make. The path having no gates is consistent with the Zen view that the Zen master is not one thing or the other, but just is. It’s hard to conceive but in the enlightened state there are no absolutes, just existence. Just as the gateless gate
“Thousands of roads enter it.” is a testament to there being no one right way to attain the ultimate stage of human development. The robes, the monastery, and the rural Asian upbringings are all un-necessary; the only thing that matters is that the journey is made to get you to the gateless gate. The path you take may be direct, may be a lifetime, but all else is irrelevant once the path is complete.
“When one passes through the gateless gate
He walks freely between heaven and earth”
Passing through the gateless gate means reaching enlightenment, allowing you to walk freely between the human realms. This gained ability to walk freely between heaven and earth is an abstract and puzzling concept. As with much of Zen’s teachings, only the enlightened can fully understand the meaning of such elevated thoughts. What we can try to imagine is that it means that the enlightened individual does not belong to any one realm, as do others. Enlightenment is the state where the human condition; the ego, the self, are all surpassed and we reach a higher state. Being able to walk freely between the realm of the human and the realm of the supernatural means that you have not yet passed on to the supernatural world, but are able live in the in-between of the universal collective Zen dimension.
It is apparent that this simple quatrain written more than 750 years ago is packed with layer upon layer of wisdom. Hopefully as we progress on our path we can begin to understand what the ancient wise men of the East have worked so hard to preserve for the rest of humanity.
Thousands of roads enter it.
When one passes through this gateless gate
He walks freely between heaven and earth.”
This is the first of the many Zen-filled quatrains in “Writings from Zen masters”. Following Buddhist tradition, it is simple yet profound. The quatrain has to do with attaining “enlightenment” the most elevated stage of human self-development.
“The great path has no gates”, line has to do with the path to enlightenment. The great path is the path to the enlightenment, the most meaningful path any man can make. The path having no gates is consistent with the Zen view that the Zen master is not one thing or the other, but just is. It’s hard to conceive but in the enlightened state there are no absolutes, just existence. Just as the gateless gate
“Thousands of roads enter it.” is a testament to there being no one right way to attain the ultimate stage of human development. The robes, the monastery, and the rural Asian upbringings are all un-necessary; the only thing that matters is that the journey is made to get you to the gateless gate. The path you take may be direct, may be a lifetime, but all else is irrelevant once the path is complete.
“When one passes through the gateless gate
He walks freely between heaven and earth”
Passing through the gateless gate means reaching enlightenment, allowing you to walk freely between the human realms. This gained ability to walk freely between heaven and earth is an abstract and puzzling concept. As with much of Zen’s teachings, only the enlightened can fully understand the meaning of such elevated thoughts. What we can try to imagine is that it means that the enlightened individual does not belong to any one realm, as do others. Enlightenment is the state where the human condition; the ego, the self, are all surpassed and we reach a higher state. Being able to walk freely between the realm of the human and the realm of the supernatural means that you have not yet passed on to the supernatural world, but are able live in the in-between of the universal collective Zen dimension.
It is apparent that this simple quatrain written more than 750 years ago is packed with layer upon layer of wisdom. Hopefully as we progress on our path we can begin to understand what the ancient wise men of the East have worked so hard to preserve for the rest of humanity.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
“Between Earth and Sky”
“The great path has no gates,
Thousands of roads enter it.
When one passes through this gateless gate
He walks freely between heaven and earth.”
This is the first of the many Zen-filled quatrains in “Writings from Zen masters”. Following Buddhist tradition, it is simple yet profound. The quatrain has to do with attaining “enlightenment” the most elevated stage of human self-development.
“The great path has no gates”, line has to do with the path to enlightenment. The great path is the path to the enlightenment, the most meaningful path any man can make. The path having no gates is consistent with the Zen view that the Zen master is not one thing or the other, but just is. It’s hard to conceive but in the enlightened state there are no absolutes, just existence. Just as the gateless gate
“Thousands of roads enter it.” is a testament to there being no one right way to attain the ultimate stage of human development. The robes, the monastery, and the rural Asian upbringings are all un-necessary; the only thing that matters is that the journey is made to get you to the gateless gate. The path you take may be direct, may be a lifetime, but all else is irrelevant once the path is complete.
“When one passes through the gateless gate
He walks freely between heaven and earth”
Passing through the gateless gate means reaching enlightenment, allowing you to walk freely between the human realms. This gained ability to walk freely between heaven and earth is an abstract and puzzling concept. As with much of Zen’s teachings, only the enlightened can fully understand the meaning of such elevated thoughts. What we can try to imagine is that it means that the enlightened individual does not belong to any one realm, as do others. Enlightenment is the state where the human condition; the ego, the self, are all surpassed and we reach a higher state. Being able to walk freely between the realm of the human and the realm of the supernatural means that you have not yet passed on to the supernatural world, but are able live in the in-between of the universal collective Zen dimension.
It is apparent that this simple quatrain written more than 750 years ago is packed with layer upon layer of wisdom. Hopefully as we progress on our path we can begin to understand what the ancient wise men of the East have worked so hard to preserve for the rest of humanity.
Thousands of roads enter it.
When one passes through this gateless gate
He walks freely between heaven and earth.”
This is the first of the many Zen-filled quatrains in “Writings from Zen masters”. Following Buddhist tradition, it is simple yet profound. The quatrain has to do with attaining “enlightenment” the most elevated stage of human self-development.
“The great path has no gates”, line has to do with the path to enlightenment. The great path is the path to the enlightenment, the most meaningful path any man can make. The path having no gates is consistent with the Zen view that the Zen master is not one thing or the other, but just is. It’s hard to conceive but in the enlightened state there are no absolutes, just existence. Just as the gateless gate
“Thousands of roads enter it.” is a testament to there being no one right way to attain the ultimate stage of human development. The robes, the monastery, and the rural Asian upbringings are all un-necessary; the only thing that matters is that the journey is made to get you to the gateless gate. The path you take may be direct, may be a lifetime, but all else is irrelevant once the path is complete.
“When one passes through the gateless gate
He walks freely between heaven and earth”
Passing through the gateless gate means reaching enlightenment, allowing you to walk freely between the human realms. This gained ability to walk freely between heaven and earth is an abstract and puzzling concept. As with much of Zen’s teachings, only the enlightened can fully understand the meaning of such elevated thoughts. What we can try to imagine is that it means that the enlightened individual does not belong to any one realm, as do others. Enlightenment is the state where the human condition; the ego, the self, are all surpassed and we reach a higher state. Being able to walk freely between the realm of the human and the realm of the supernatural means that you have not yet passed on to the supernatural world, but are able live in the in-between of the universal collective Zen dimension.
It is apparent that this simple quatrain written more than 750 years ago is packed with layer upon layer of wisdom. Hopefully as we progress on our path we can begin to understand what the ancient wise men of the East have worked so hard to preserve for the rest of humanity.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
What do you do when you find yourself in a hole you cannot climb out of? -Dig deeper
"...understand that literature is still doing the same job that mythology did earlier, but filling in its huge cloudy shapes with sharper lights and deeper shadows" p.32
The immediate meaning of this quote is apparent and is something with which i agree wholeheartedly. Myths were the original literature, combining the natural world with the human to such an extent that the very basis of natural phenomena were explained by the repercussions of human behaviour. In the world of the ancients, myths made it so that the entire world was a form of literature, allowing our ancestors to live in a much more familiar world than what we modern people see it as today. Nowadays we have distinctions between the natural and human-made worlds, provided by science and curiosity that can be validated with modern tools, uncovering the truth behind the world that surrounds us. Literature is the more distinct, advanced mythology, creating separate worlds from which we can dive into and again dive out.
Upon further thought, Fryes words arguably apply to many other fields, not just literature. Is human kind not actually taking any new steps, but instead just planting their ancient feet further and further down into deeper and darker soil? It would seem that in all our years of existence the same wants, needs, and fundamental questions still concern us. The ancients solved this through wondrous tales of immortals, we use wondrous particles and constants to explain that which we have a thirst to know. Upon even further review, maybe its obvious that we can never truly progress, for humanity will always be human, dealing with the human experience in ever innovative ways, trying to go beyond our limitations yet always failing to escape that which defines us. It would seem that literature is just another way that we humans try to break through our own complex, hoping to become something greater than just a human, perhaps immortal, perhaps all-knowing. But the truth is that we need not look any farther than the mirror to realize that all we've done is shade the shadows, for we are still here, and we are still trying to be more.
United We Stand
"One person by himself is not a complete human being"
Frye casually mentions this as he hurriedly rushes along to prove other points, but this quote which has no further elaboration, is quite a profound one. At first it sounds like a paradox, a whole person is indefinetely whole, therefore complete human-wise, but upon further analysis we see that a single person is nowhere near anything that we define humanity by.
Theoretically, if a person were to be solitary all his life, devoid of any human connections of any kind, he would be very little more than a resourceful monkey who walked on two feet. We are designed to interact. Eyebrows are solely for the purpose of obvious expression, huge swathes of our brain are designed to handle language, keep track of relationships, and reason social decisions. If the physical evidence weren't enough the psycho/emotional proofs are more than plentiful. Progress of humanity would be limited to natural selection without the passing of information onto the next generation in any capacity. A lack of feeling, of compassion, would produce harsh creatures void of morality, another vital human trait. McColloughs speech would have no place in a solitary world, without the passing of knowledge learning, information, enriching oneself past the limits of physical health, would all be non-existant. In short, without other humans, being "human" would mean nothing at all.
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