Rinzai School

[Fujikoma]

Still... Thanks a LOT.

[Telarus]

Fujikoma,

Have you actually practiced any of the body/breath techniques from the teachings?

(btw, if I were in a 'master', i.e. koan giver, role and gave you the one hand clapping koan I would approve of any spontaneous sound you make with the hand. If I see you intellectualize over it, even for a moment, you fail and have to keep the koan..   even if the physical actions/sounds are the 'same'. Wanna know how I could tell?)

Many of these koans require familiarity with the culture they were written in, so paradoxically, to have enough data to achieve that !!! moment from them usually requires intellectually devouring related source material and then integrating (sitting on it) for a while, then re-reading the koan.

I use Joshu's 'Mu' koan as an example. In the dialect it was written in, he shouted 'WU!' It's the same ideogram, but Joshu chose to bark like a dog _and_ answer the student's question's with "Wu/Mu-negation". That beautiful moment when Joshu realized that he could bark like a dog, and still accurately answer the student's short-sighted question about whether 'dogs have the Buddha-nature' led to the spontaneous exclamation of WU!

I have a tentative grasp on the Zen BS (belief system), so let's start with the Blue Cliff record. Which koan interests you at the moment? (I make no claim to familiarity with all of them...  )

[Fujikoma]

Thanks for your answer. Yes, I see how they seem to dislike people stopping to think, even for a second... But if the reply were thought out beforehand, it could be enacted instantaneously... Still, a slight lack of confidence in the answer may be indicative of something.

As far as meditation, I don't do it frequently... Who was it who said that everyday activity is a form of meditation?... Anyway, I've had a slight bit of training in Zazen meditation, it was one of the many classes offered at an Aikido dojo I used to go to a long time ago... I won't say I'm great (or even half-decent) with meditation, although I can see how it's important, every time I think of it I still keep thinking of the thing about polishing a floor tile until it's a mirror.

For a while, for reasons I can't describe, I found Pai Chiang's fox koan rather interesting. Now, I find a whole bunch of them interesting, it's hard to pull one off the top of my head... "A mud Buddha does not pass through water, A gold Buddha does not pass through the furnace, A wood Buddha does not pass through the fire." (Chao Chou's three turning words), The Surangama's scripture on not seeing, The one about the seamless monument... There are a lot of other ones. I'm already pretty sure I'll have to read it several more times.

I'd actually like to know your thoughts on the sixth patriarch, I think it was, the one who was forced to flee with the robe and all that stuff.

[Jasper]

Among the methods it practices are shouts (katsu) or blows delivered by the master on the disciple, question-and-answer sessions (mondo)

This reminds me a lot of the PDcom noob treatment.  Mixing abuse and interrogation with enlightenment.

Just a thought.

[Telarus]

Among the methods it practices are shouts (katsu) or blows delivered by the master on the disciple, question-and-answer sessions (mondo)

This reminds me a lot of the PDcom noob treatment.  Mixing abuse and interrogation with enlightenment.

Just a thought.

I'll check back after the holyday. BOOM!

[minuspace]

me posts here for sticky cause intersecting preempts need of forging wiki 

am working on similar project, not specifically rinzai, however )

obligation obliges the way to do its work

[minuspace]

Rinzai, from what a superficial reading of this thread may allow, seems to focus on "immediate" enlightenment.  I think this means it works for people for whom the idea of gradual enlightenment does not make sense.  Its funny how the focus is on "striking", either physically or mentally, to reflect the extemporaneous act.  Having submitted myself to this, and demanding an explanation for the "tough-love" thing, the best I could gather is that the perceived hypocrisy of acting on a causal-deterministic model to effect something "immediately" is only part of the problem.

Back to the answer, though, the point is that in the moment of panic there is a greater chance for enlightenment.  The teacher strikes when he realizes you slipped out of zazen and into daydreaming 1) for conditioning 2) because that panic, not knowing where "the strike" came from, might just let you go and "get it".

Really, just an explanation for my own mediated reactions.

[Fujikoma]

I'll agree with point one on the Zazen classes I took. The sensei seemed to have this uncanny knack for knowing when I was daydreaming, maybe I'd start making weird facial expressions?.. As far as "getting it", I'm pretty sure he didn't expect me to just "get it", though I could be wrong.

[minuspace]

or you could be right?  Just getting it sometimes does not seem to be enough...

[Fujikoma]

I'm stumped on that one. Truth be told, I don't expect to ever really get it.

[minuspace]

I wonder if its something we have in the first place?

[Fujikoma]

That's what what I've read would seem to imply.

[minuspace]

recitation, repetition, recognition (and fold

[minuspace]

there is a complexity and also a simplicity we seem to avert...

when I get lost in thought, I was already there?

[Fujikoma]

Yup.