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-----Original Message-----
From: lonewolf <lonewolf@utkux.utcc.utk.edu>
To: lithien <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Date: Wednesday, October 21, 1998 1:31 PM
Subject: MD Taoist rocks & Zen trees
hello, donny:
you wrote:
I would submit that this anicdote is much closer to the ultimate spirit of
Taoism and Zen than "becomeing one with all the consciousness of the
universe." Zen is not a pantheism. It is not that all is alive and
consciouss
-- it's overcoming the dualities of life-death and conscious-unconscious.
To
quote Muneyoshi Yanagi: "In Buddhist discipline, the central problem, the
problem of primary importance as well as of greatest urgancy, is how to
eradicate man's two most represenative forms of dualism -- the opposition
between life and death and the opposition between one's self and other;
every
effort in Buddhism is directed to the solution of this problem." (*The
Unknown
Craftsman*)
The rock is not alive nor conscious -- and neither am I. We are both
emminations from the Void, which is beyond such dualities. But (as Pirsig
would say) this is only good from the point of view of the Buddha. In the
everyday world on the street we may say that I am living mater and the rock
is
not (Bio vs. InOrgPoVs) and that I have a conscious self/personhood/"ego"
(SocPoVs) and the rock does not.
donny, needless to say my view of zen differs intrinsically from yours. in
"Zen and Japanese Culture" by Daizetz T.Suzuki, there is a much different
definition. it says:
What is there even before the world came into existence? what the zen
master wants to know about is the cosmic landscape prior to the creation of
all things. When is timeless time? Is it no more than an empty concept?
the master's answer was:
The old pond, ah!
A frog jumps in:
The water's sound!
Let me try to give a little more intelligible account of the master's koan.
An ancient pond is likely to be located in some old temple grounds, filled
with many stately trees. Such surroundings add to the tranquility of the
unrippled surface of the pond. When this is disturbed by a jumping frog,
the disturbance itself enhances the reigning tranquillity; the sound of the
splash reverberates, and the reverberation makes us all the more conscious
of the serenity of the whole. However, this consciousness is awakened only
in him whose spirit is really in consonance with the world spirit itself.
These images are not figurative representations made us of by the poetic
mind, but they directly point to original intuitions, indeed they are
intuitions themselves. When the latter are attained, the images become
transparent and are immediate expressions of the experience. An intuition
in itself, being too intimate, too personal, too immediate, cannot be
communicated to others; to do this it calls up images by means of which it
becomes transferable. But to those who have never had such an experience it
is difficult, even impossible, to reach the fact itself merely through
images, because in this case images are transformed into ideas or concepts,
and the mind then attempts to give them an intellectual interpretation.
As long as we are moving on the surface of consciousness, we can never get
away from ratiocination. but the master is not living there as we are, he
has passed through the outer crust of consciousness away down into its
deepest recesses, into a realm of the unthinkable, into the Unconscious,
which is even beyond the unconscious generally conceived by the
psychologists.
It is by intuition alone that this timelessness of the Unconscious is truly
taken hold of. And this intuitive grasp of reality never takes place when a
world of Emptiness is assumed outside our everyday world of the senses; for
these two worlds are not separate but one. therefore, the master sees into
his Unconscious not through the stillness of the old pond but through the
sound stirred up by the jumping frog. Without the sound there is no seeing
into the Unconscious, in which lies the source of creative activities (DQ?)
and upon all artists draw from their inspiration.
For me, this is zen and its parallel to MOQ very evident as well.
i thank you for making me aware of Bryson's book "A Walk in the Woods". i
will read it for i have had similar experiences when walking, as well as
with sounds when in meditation.
Lithien
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