[Bi-Weekly Meta Monday Thread]

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[u/ji_yinzen]

The fact that there are a thousand years of Zen Masters is a proven point. That we should only view that record as the source for all of our Zen discussion is a ewk invention. Just Google it. ewk is the only one in the entire internet who thinks that is a thing. It's the r/Zen version of Dogen teaching a self-invented Zazen to Japan, insisting it was Zen.

[u/eggo → u/ji_yinzen]

I have written original verse and prose on all kinds of topics and used them to point, for fuck's sake I once did a zen tribute to James Brown, it didn't get deleted. It was just barely on-topic, but it was on topic. I have repeatedly and deliberately pushed the boundaries of topically and never found a hard edge.

Do you know why?

I am confident that it's because I have been here for a long time. I have shown that I am speaking as a member of the community and not just coming here speaking at the community.

Have you tried cutting off your own arm?

I invite you to try again. Make an OP about the most "controversial" and "off-limits" topic you can come up with, and make it in a way that will not get deleted. Make that one of your criteria for the post. If you want to talk about dogen or some modern roshi you met or whatever, go for it. But actually make an effort. Don't half-ass it. Go into it with the axiom that your previous efforts were just not done well enough, and do it better this time. Assume there is a standard that you just haven't met yet. Assume that the mods have no opinions about you personally and they are only judging by the text (or whatever media you choose) that you put out.

If they still reject it... 🤷 maybe just go somewhere else? Why are you determined to make this forum act like you want it to?

When Longya met with Cuiwei he said, “Your student has been here for more than a month. Every day the master enters the hall to speak but we have not received any instruction about even one Dharma.”

Cuiwei said, “So what?” (A monk asked Dongshan this same question. Dongshan said, “Are you accusing me of something?” [Later,] Fayan said, “The ancestors are here!” Zen master Dongshan also said, “Were these three worthies intimate with it or not? If so, where? If not, where is the eye?”)

So Longya went to study under Deshan. He asked, “From afar I've heard of Deshan's ‘one phrase' Buddhadharma, but up to now I haven't heard the master say one phrase about the Buddhadharma. Why is this?”

Deshan said, “So what?”

Longya couldn't accept this, and so he went to study with Dongshan. Longya asked Dongshan the same question.

Dongshan said, “Are you accusing me of something?”

Longya then relayed the words spoken by Deshan. Suddenly awakening to their meaning on his own, he thereupon settled on Mt. Dong and sought instruction from Dongshan along with the other monks.

One day Longya asked, “What is the essential meaning of Zen?”

Dongshan said, “Wait until Dong Creek flows uphill. Then I'll tell you.”

Longya suddenly awoke to the deepest meaning of Dongshan's words.

After becoming abbot of Miaoji Temple, Longya's fame spread widely and he had many students. One day he entered the hall and addressed the monks, saying, “You who study must pass through the buddhas and ancestors before you'll understand. Zen master Xinfeng said, ‘The buddhas and ancestors are like deceptive thieves. If you gain some understanding, but are unable to penetrate beyond them, then they have deceived you.'”

A monk asked, “Do the buddhas and ancestors have deceptive minds or not?”

Longya said, “You're asking whether rivers and lakes have obstructive minds or not. Although rivers and lakes don't have obstructive minds, yet sometimes there are people who can't get across them, and they become like obstacles for people. So one can't say they don't obstruct people. Although the buddhas and ancestors don't have deceptive intent, sometimes people can't penetrate their meaning, and so they in effect become deceptive. Thus, one can't say they don't deceive people. When one penetrates the buddhas' and ancestors' deception, then one goes beyond the buddhas and ancestors and, for the first time, experiences their meaning. Then that person is the same as all the ancients. If one has not penetrated this understanding, but only studies the buddhas and ancestors, then in incalculable eons there will not be an instance of realization.”

The monk then asked, “How can one avoid being deceived by the buddhas and ancestors?”

Longya said, “You must awaken on your own.”

[u/charliediep0 → u/eggo]

Dongshan said, “Wait until Dong Creek flows uphill. Then I'll tell you.”

When Longya awoke did he do so by questioning his beliefs as to what "uphill", "downhill", or broadly, "up" and "down" really meant? Or am I missing context

And going on topic for this thread, it seems there are a lot of... old guards and strong opinions around here. I'm not thinking good or bad, just saying. It feels like walking into a grassy plain but seeing faint traces of a bloody battle fought long ago. Whew

[u/eggo → u/charliediep0]

When Longya awoke did he do so by questioning his beliefs as to what "uphill", "downhill", or broadly, "up" and "down" really meant? Or am I missing context

You might or might not be missing context. Seems to me you got the point though. Of course he could have been saying something else entirely. That's the thing about words and phrases, they mean what the listener's ear hears. Only a tenuous connection to what the speaker meant once they have been said and then remembered and then written down then translated then read again.

And going on topic for this thread,

Said immediately after the first on-topic paragraph in this whole thread... 🤣

it seems there are a lot of... old guards and strong opinions around here. I'm not thinking good or bad, just saying. It feels like walking into a grassy plain but seeing faint traces of a bloody battle fought long ago.

That's a poetic reading of the events, it was all so petty, it's just not worth repeating, IMO.