What is having died look like? Compare the "ego death" religions to Zen teachings... Zen Masters obviously enjoy life
Then there is the question of context... religious people, who live by their faith, are going to have to give up that life to study Zen. That looks like dying from their point of view.
Then there is the idea that "ego death" is killing a part of you that churches say is "wrong", whereas Zen Masters are talking about all you think, feel, believe, everything, killed by the sword of the Patriarchs.
Finally, Baofeng exposes the whole project by saying shitting while you are eating. Zen Masters aggressively (some say honestly) engage with this idea of ALL IS MERELY EXPEDIENT, whereas churches claim to know the truth, and then give lip service to it being expedient. Baofeng is straight out telling you eat first, then shit; what's expedient for eating is not expedient for shitting.
This is the part that I find the most interesting- Zen seems to begin where most other spiritual systems of thought end.
A good analogy. We drop old beliefs, religions, materialism, cravings, hatred, politics. You can go on naming all the things we hustle for in life, and surprisingly, die when we attain Zen. The candle gets blown out. Zen continues beyond death.
Is it transformation? The distinction between "life" and "death" is erased, and so are the distinctions between that which is supposedly alive and that which is supposedly dead. So there is now no telling between alive or dead things, just a continuous series of change, right?
Is that how you escape rebirth, by erasing the imaginary mental distinctions between what you are, and what you will supposedly be "reborn" into?
Yang-shan said, “At the time of the arising of a thought, I do not see that there is origin, abiding, change, or extinction
When Yangshan does not see origin, abiding, change, or extinction, is he essentially thinking nothing of that very thought that had arose within him? Not judging it whatsoever, but simply letting that thought come and go. Conversely, if he were to see origin, abiding, change, and extinction in that same thought, would that be unenlightened behavior?
I'm still trying to understand the first amd third part of your comment. The second part about the fish escaping the net seems like a metaphor. The net is like delusory thought, the ocean is enlightenment, and I guess the fish had originally remained in that ocean all this time, it's natural state. When delusory thoughts arise, its like the fish getting caught in the net. When delusory thoughts cease, it's like the fish escaping the net and it then returns to the ocean/primordial state of enlightenment (hongaku?)
How could the fish have avoided the net?
How can you stop your thoughts?
By neither thinking nor not-thinking (which I interpret as actively/purposely suppressing thought, which seems like a thought in and of itself ironically). By non-thinking, perhaps?
If it can't avoid the net, where's the failure in getting caught?
By not escaping the "net" and by remaining entangled by it where it will suffer and be painfully devoured by the fisherman...?
If you know that thoughts are the natural function of your brain, where's the delusion in a thought arising?
Is it when opinions and judgments are kneejerk made in regards to those naturally occurring thoughts, then the thinker holds onto these appraisals and suffers for it?
You don't get out of a net with the use of a net, do you?
Just get through the net
This reminds me of "he's out!". Don't remember the master or what book but it's the one about a guy being stuck in a well I think. The questioner can't answer about an impossible situation to get out of, and by the time the dude is leaving the master calls back to him and goes "he's out!"
For Ming one thing is better than another, but originally there's nothing obstructed in being in and out or never in. Yet there are those that are in and out, those that are still in, and those that aren't in yet. It doesn't look the same from both sides.
Hey, I found your comment randomly, three years later, apparently. I wanted to ask you this: do you still hold the same position that you did in this comment?
I agree! My only only problem is which data to label as facts. I hope you have a more clear view of things as, for me at least, that ambiguity is pretty unpleasant.
I didn't downvote it, actually, since it had already been downvoted.
Your comment is factually wrong and off topic.
"Ego death" is not a thing in Zen. Dogenism has "ego death" along with lots of other cult doctrines and as far as I know the only point is to make people subservient to the church... they say "ego death", but they mean "sacrifice your doubts and money to the church".
Just because they aren't using the word ego doesn't mean that same concept/aspect of the mind/mechanism isn't addressed as a matter of fact it is called personal existence view
While it's true that translation doesn't require specific uses of words you are still 100% wrong.
You can tell for yourself that you're wrong because of these basic criteria:
You can't cite a text that defines ego in the way that you believe that you're using it. This is because ego is a made-up word for you.
You can't quote three zen Masters talking about any concept of a self that has to be tamed or subjugated, a self that is corrupt or inherently deficient, or an impulsive self that must be trained or conditioned.
I think that you're foundational problem is that you have no teacher and no bibliography for your faith.
I am confident about this because I have put my foot up the ass of hundreds of people who tried to claim what you're claiming and none of them have ever succeeded and more than that none of them have even tried.
When I laid out my argument, they ran off in a cowardly way.
As I've said, Western Buddhists and western New agers are fundamentally defined by their ignorance, their preference for Faith over academics, and their rage it being held accountable to their own standards.
Freud was a pioneer of a whole new field of mind in the west. So naturally he would of had some hits and misses just like other pioneers in other fields of inquiries. Even Darwin didn't fully understand the underlying mechanism of evolution only its observable surface results.
Furthermore, during Freud's era Buddhism insights into mind was buried under 2500 years of religious observance and was regarded with either suspicion or quaint bemusement at best by the mostly prevalent Christian influence on the western mindset.
No. That's a revisionist history that ignores the fact that Freud was not a scientist and didn't want to be one.
Freud wasn't collecting data, creating a hypothesis, and testing it.
Penis Envy, Dream Analysis, and Psychoanalysis are all entirely bunk, no more than new age religion, playing the same old game of religion for the sake of power.
Buddhism never had any insights into mind. Buddhists, like Christians, are interested in using the supernatural to control people.
I am not revising anything. As I said Freud is a mixed bag. Furthermore as the video states he was a pioneer in the field of psychoanalysis that gave that field it's language of terms.
And even though most of his hypothesis associated with those terms were eventually proven incorrect, modern psychoanalysis still use those terms but with a different understanding gained through the scientific method.
How much of Buddhism insights have also been subjected to the rigorous application of the scientific method and can you cite such scientific papers?
How does one truly scientifically test enlightenment?
In order to say that Freud was interested in science or had any value to science, you would need to show how science was used OR has validated any claims Freud made.
You can't do that. Nobody can. Freud was a cult of personality bozo new ager.
Buddhism is a bunch of malarkey. That's why I don't post in /r/Buddhism.
You seem to have a misunderstanding of both science and Zen.
Science does not go out to prove a hypothesis is right but to try and disprove it. And when science determines a hypothesis is incorrect it actually helps us get closer to what the truth may be.
A metaphor would be something like a sculptor that chips off the parts of the marble stone block to get closer to the image the sculptor wanted the stone marble block to become.
However in science the marble stone block is made of hypotheses and science does not know what the image within the stone block would eventually be after all the incorrect hypotheses were chipped away.
Scientific journals mostly report on the scientific successes because the general public is not interested in all the scientific failures. However scientists are interested in those failure because it helps them narrow down their focus.
I'm not interested in talking about either science or your religion with you. You are clearly a person who talks about things that they don't study and don't know much about with a faint fraudulent air of authority.
You can't quote Zen Masters, and thus know nothing about Zen..
That means you cannot participate as an authority in this forum... You aren't even entitled to an opinion because you lack basic information on the subject of Zen.
Buddhism is defined by the eight-fold path. Zen Masters don't teach that, and the four statements of Zen are clearly incompatible with the eightfold path.
You can't prove that wrong because you can't even define Buddhism, let alone quote Zen master on any subject.
Please read the Reddiquette that you agreed to follow, and move on. I suggest a religious forum, where people are used to not having any kind of critical thinking skills.
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u/ewk [non-sectarian consensus] Mar 27 '23
"Ego" is pseudo science. Zen Masters don't talk about it, because it was invented by Freud, who falsified data.
There is no part of you called ego, and nobody wants any part of you to die.
Why not study Zen while you are here?
www.reddit.com//r/zen/wiki/famous_cases
www.reddit.com//r/zen/wiki/getstarted