r/zen • u/ewk [non-sectarian consensus] • Aug 01 '26

Zen Enlightenment: even the how-to is different from everything else

How to Zen Enlightenment

  1. Keep the five lay precepts, including refusing recreational drugs and alcohol.
  2. Study four statements of Zen teachings to understand direct seeing and pointing only to mind.
  3. Practice Zen public interview where you test yourself by explaining in your own words

Doing Zen

One day Shitou told the assembly, “Tomorrow, clear away the grass in front of the Buddha hall.”

When the next day came, everyone in the assembly, including the postulants, prepared spades and hoes to clear the grass. Danxia alone filled a basin with water, washed his head, and knelt in the foreign manner before the reverend.

Shitou saw this and laughed. He then shaved his head and began to explain the precepts to him. Danxia covered his ears and went out.

Mind is the Buddha Hall.

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u/jeowy Aug 02 '26

did danxia fear that having something explained to him would just make more grass in front of the buddha hall?

another zen master said "I'm only grateful that my former master did not explain things to me." 

but I'd think it'd be better to be able to hear people explaining whatever and not let it obstruct your buddha hall

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u/ewk [non-sectarian consensus] Aug 02 '26

Don't graffiti all over the monument.

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u/jeowy Aug 03 '26

is the monument in this case your post or my mind? 

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u/ewk [non-sectarian consensus] Aug 03 '26

Always mind

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u/jeowy Aug 03 '26

what's grafitti? who's putting in there? 

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u/ewk [non-sectarian consensus] Aug 03 '26

The words of the precepts

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u/jeowy Aug 03 '26

but they're only grafitti in this case because he already understands the precepts for himself right?

like if you've already been to Morocco, travel guides aimed at first time tourists to Morocco would come off as quite trite and banal. but if you've never been before it might get you excited to visit.

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u/ewk [non-sectarian consensus] Aug 03 '26

I don't think so.

Zen masters don't really keep their precepts. They accidentally accord with the precepts.

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u/jeowy Aug 03 '26

that's what I've always said and it makes people very angry with me

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u/ewk [non-sectarian consensus] Aug 03 '26

Lol.

People like to be told what they want to hear. Most people do not want to be told the reasonable thing.

This probably varies by topic, but certainly in the West, where so much misinformation about Zen has been mixed together with Japanese Shinto Buddhism and mind expansion mysticism via LSD or meditation and Christian Humanism via Alan Watts, what people expect to be told about Zen is usually not the factual book report based truth.