﻿Author: Astus
Date: Saturday, December 14th, 2024 at 5:10 am
Title: Re: The Zen of Seeing
Content:
clyde said:
But searching the Shobogenzo in some different ways I eventually found this from 51 On the Buddha’s Way, So, you need to keep in mind that the Buddha’s Way, which was Transmitted and received from a previous Buddha, was not called ‘contemplative meditation’, much less was it ever called, or discussed as, ‘the Zen sect’! Clearly, you need to realize that calling It ‘the Zen sect’ is a mistake of enormous proportions. By thinking that religious practice must be part of either a concrete sect or an abstract sect, the inexperienced defame the Way, as if It were something not worth exploring if It were not called ‘a sect’. The Buddha’s Way cannot be like that, so be certain that It has never been called ‘the Zen sect’.

Astus wrote:
That's a misleading translation, since the point of that work is to emphasise that there is just Buddhism and no Zen school apart from that.

From The Way of the Buddhas (Butsudō 佛道) (Treasury of the True Dharma Eye, tr SZTP. vol 3, p 330):

'If there were [a dharma] other than the way of the buddhas and ancestors, it would be a dharma of an other path.” As descendants of the buddhas and ancestors, we should study the bones and marrow, face and eyes of the buddhas and ancestors.”” We have cast ourselves on the way of the buddhas and ancestors and should not skulk off from here to study an other path.'

Just as it's mentioned briefly in the Bendōwa (vol 7, p 199-200):

'We should realize that this name, “Zen school,” occurred in Cinasthana to the east and was never heard of in India. ... We should recognize the fact that this is the entire way of the buddha dharma that has been transmitted.'

So, the translation by the Soto Zen Text Project (vol 3, p 333):

'Thus, we should know that the way of the buddhas transmitted and received by prior buddhas is not even called Zen meditation, much less described as the “Zen school.” We should clearly understand that calling it the “Zen school” is an error in the extreme. Crude types, thinking that it must be like the school of being or school of emptiness, lament that, without a school name, there would seem to be nothing to study. The way of the buddhas cannot be like this. We should be firmly convinced that it was never called the “Zen school.”'


Author: Astus
Date: Monday, December 9th, 2024 at 4:39 am
Title: Re: Unconditioned and unchanging qualities of dharmas and Madhyamika
Content:
Kalyāṇamitra said:
According to Madhyamika and the idea of ​​emptiness, are the properties of dharmas unconditioned inherent in them or are dharmas endowed with properties depending on changing causes and conditions?

Astus wrote:
See chapter 1 of Mulamadhyamakakarika where the reality of conditions is refuted.

'Therefore neither a product consisting of conditions nor one consisting of nonconditions exists'
(MMK 1.14, tr Siderits)


