Rinzai School

[Cramulus]

I've read in numerous places that Kerry and Greg based a lot of Discordia on the Rinzai school of buddhism. I'm not very well read on the subject, so I wanted to collect some information about it ITT. Feel free to chime in with thoughts or info! I'm interested in reinterpreting some of these ideas with our modern take on them.



First, from Encyclopædia Britannica:
One of two major Zen Buddhist sects in Japan; it stresses the abrupt awakening of transcendental wisdom, or enlightenment. Among the methods it practices are shouts (katsu) or blows delivered by the master on the disciple, question-and-answer sessions (mondo), and meditation on paradoxical statements (koan), all intended to accelerate a breakthrough of the normal boundaries of consciousness and to awaken insight that transcends logical distinctions.





Remember Mondos? In the PD they're described as a sort of non-sequitor, a chunk of nonsense which doesn't quite fit into your rational expectations. An example is answering the phone with the phrase "Wrong number please!" I hadn't realized that mondos were specific to rinzai buddhism:

from experiencefestival
Mondo: Related to the Japanese word mondai, meaning to question, mondo may mean the way of the gate (mon), or to the crest (mon). Each of these connotations fits the purpose of mondo. During mondo the master asks questions quickly, and the student must respond quickly. This is done to prevent the student from thinking, to allow intuition to control. Used notably in the Rinzai school.

    --the idea of rapid-fire questions that get you to answer intuitively reminds me of this mindfuck sheet from classic Discordiana





And here's a description of Rinzai from the mondozen rinzai school


A [Rinzai] practitioner experiences a deeper, clearer insight into the real nature of our minds.  As insight develops, the student becomes aware of a deep emptiness within mind that is always present.  Within this emptiness, consciousness, thoughts, emotions, and sensations—all activities of mind—are arising and passing away like clouds drifting across this empty sky.  Ego confusion arises because we attach to the misguided belief that our ego's dualistic point of view is all that we are.  We have learned from our parents and culture to believe this confusion.  From this basic ignorance, we unconsciously believe that this conceptual "me," this "figment of divine imagination" is a permanent separate self rather than a temporary perspective, a momentary reference point within the interplay of self-reflecting mind.   As our mind becomes more clear and stable, we realize we are also this deeper purity and not just the "thinking that thinks it's a thinker".

[Cainad (dec.)]

A [Rinzai] practitioner experiences a deeper, clearer insight into the real nature of our minds.  As insight develops, the student becomes aware of a deep emptiness within mind that is always present.  Within this emptiness, consciousness, thoughts, emotions, and sensations—all activities of mind—are arising and passing away like clouds drifting across this empty sky.  Ego confusion arises because we attach to the misguided belief that our ego's dualistic point of view is all that we are.  We have learned from our parents and culture to believe this confusion.  From this basic ignorance, we unconsciously believe that this conceptual "me," this "figment of divine imagination" is a permanent separate self rather than a temporary perspective, a momentary reference point within the interplay of self-reflecting mind.   As our mind becomes more clear and stable, we realize we are also this deeper purity and not just the "thinking that thinks it's a thinker".

This is a nearly universal aspect of Buddhist thought. There are some variations; some schools believe that there is no egotistical self at all, that it is an illusion produced by our attachments. Other schools consider the point moot, since whether the egotistical self is "real" or not doesn't change the fact that you have to get over it to become enlightened.


WARNING I AM VERY TIRED AND ABOUT TO SPEW OUT A BUNCH OF BUDDHIST STUFF I REMEMBER FROM CLASS
YOU HAVE NO CHANCE TO SURVIVE MAKE YOUR TIME

At the end of the day, what pretty much all Buddhism is trying to get at is that the suffering which is always a part of life can only be overcome by getting rid of our attachments to things. At the most basic level, this means detaching from our desires, but many schools of Buddhism go beyond that and teach detachment from ideas and thoughts.

Zen, and particularly Rinzai (as far as my understanding goes), very strongly emphasizes this detachment from ideas and thoughts. Zen monasteries have some of the most mind-boggling practices and they do it that way on purpose. To put it bluntly, the "purpose" of a great deal of what Zen monks practice is to wear you out and blow your mind so hard that you can't ever put it all back together the way it used to be.

Koans are given by the master to the novice monk, and he has 24 hours to meditate on the koan and come back with an answer for the master. Generally this involves the student being told "no, go back and try again" over and over again, possibly getting yelled at or hit with a stick from time to time. This is done until the student gives a satisfactory answer (I don't know what a satisfactory answer to "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" is supposed to be, but I imagine it would sound really dumb or nonsensical to you or I), and then he gets a new koan.

Another Zen practice is called "The Stick of Compassion". A monk walks around quietly while the other monks meditate, holding a broomhandle-like staff in his hand. When he sees a monk nodding off to sleep, he hits him. When a monk seems distracted from his meditation, he hits him. When he feels like it, he hits somebody. I forget what this is supposed to teach, even though I answered a short-essay test question about this very subject about 6 hours ago as of this writing.


One Zen parable goes sort of like this:

A master told his student to meditate on top of a mountain until he could make the mountain disappear.
The student did this, and reported his success to the master.
The master said, "Good. Now bring the mountain back."

The first mountain is one you make disappear by getting rid of your attachment to the idea of "mountain." You recognize that form is emptiness. You then bring the mountain back by allowing yourself to be aware of the distinctions and ideas necessary to interact with the world so that you don't become a vegetable.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is.

[Telarus]

I've got more to add later, but I'll expand on the Mountain Koan.

One Zen parable goes sort of like this:

A master told his student to [climb up and] meditate on top of a mountain until he could make the mountain disappear.
The student did this, and reported his success to the master.
The master said, "Good. Now bring the mountain back."

First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is.

The master's point in this parable is to teach the student that the word 'mountain' confuses the issue. The issue of The Moment.

Zen, much like surfing, is about training yourself to act efficiently in the moment. Words, as time-binding '3rd-circuit symbols', take you (mentally) away from the current Moment.

The master was presenting an opportunity to the student in 'telling him to go climb a mountain until it wasn't a mountain anymore'.

The student realized that WHILE BEING CLIMBED it wasn't 'a mountain', i.e. a thing, a concept out there hanging in space to be studied intellectualized over. It was a process, a challenge, a component of the universe in flux... specifically when it has become a Change In Viewpoint.

When you're at the bottom, it seem like 'a whole thing' that you can neatly tuck under a label.

While you're climbing it you realize that no label will suffice to completely describe it. It is a series of go-around-this, climb-over-that, scale-this-wall, hop-over that-stream, plan-route-up-that-valley... a process.


MOAR LATERZ

Koans are cool.

[Fujikoma]

Perhaps I'm ignorant... But I've been reading this stuff for years, and I've also read a little bit of other Buddhist stuff... To me, Zen as a whole seems like the shortcut that isn't a shortcut.

Then again, I haven't really taken the time to understand a single case... I've read it over several times, enough to get a pang of some kind of understanding, but I've not really "gotten it", I don't think... Reason being, I thought I understood "the Gateless Barrier" years ago, I was on meds at the time, but really, it was more like a kind of "mu sickness" described somewhere in either the beginning or end of the book.

I've been studying the "Blue Cliff Record", the Thomas Cleary translation, for the past few years. I progress slowly with it, sometimes putting it down entirely in order to replenish my energy by reading something more entertaining. When I feel like I slightly hit on something, I move on, I can tell I'll already have to start over from the beginning, so I may as well hit each case until I feel that same thing, then start over. It takes a while to recharge my batteries... But it seems like something is starting to make sense...

I see it as a sudoku puzzle without a grid or numbers... It's going to make sense one day, if I get enough time, it's just a question of when. I hope I'll get it the next time through, but that would be highly fortunate, so, probably pretty fucking unlikely... Almost all of the koans seem to strike some chord, but at the same time, they're so far off that I don't even know where to begin searching. I'll likely have to read it about 4 or 5 times, and the book is freaking big and nonsensical...

I wouldn't keep at it if they struck me as utter stupidity, but they don't... Something in me sees and feels something when reading these koans, it's just so mysterious and far away. I haven't even begun to understand them, but I can see that there is value.

EDIT: Cainad? You took some sort of college class on this stuff? You must've been some kind of masochist... Was the teacher someone who actually "got it"? Was the teacher a monk? I'm not going to criticize the class, but I have my doubts... I don't think a semester in Zen is going to teach anyone jack shit... Then again, never been the college type here, all my friends went to college, but at this point, it's not such a moneymaking venture, so, is kind of unproductive in that regard, just, well, does it make you smarter? I've heard it teaches people a lot of things, and instills a sense of urgency in self-education much like infantry basic training will instill a sense of urgency in physical movement, teaching a number of concepts on the way, but I must say that higher education confuses me...

Seems like one should be interested enough to study on their own, and, if stupid sites would stop restricting their access to all but top universities, I'd have access to things I'd like to study as well, found a whole page with brain related articles today, most of them were locked off... This is why I'm really ticked off about the institution trying to control the web, it's an old system of commerce flailing desperately to stay alive in a new sea of possibility... The sonny bono act (fuck you, sonny, just for having your name on that) was retarded, we have all sorts of copyright extensions, paid for by lobbyists who seek to extend the amount of money their corporation can extract from the global market...

I see potential disaster here. I'm also drunk and should shut up immediately. Thanks for listening.

EDIT EDIT: Cainad, I'd assume the sound of one hand clapping is slapping the dogpiss out of someone... Though there is that koan about groping for a pillow in the dark, there are eyes and hands all over the body. Assuming any of that crap is true, the sound of one hand clapping is two hands clapping, one hand claps, one hand claps, they didn't say only one hand clapping, just one hand.

[Cainad (dec.)]

EDIT: Cainad? You took some sort of college class on this stuff? You must've been some kind of masochist... Was the teacher someone who actually "got it"? Was the teacher a monk? I'm not going to criticize the class, but I have my doubts... I don't think a semester in Zen is going to teach anyone jack shit... Then again, never been the college type here, all my friends went to college, but at this point, it's not such a moneymaking venture, so, is kind of unproductive in that regard, just, well, does it make you smarter? I've heard it teaches people a lot of things, and instills a sense of urgency in self-education much like infantry basic training will instill a sense of urgency in physical movement, teaching a number of concepts on the way, but I must say that higher education confuses me...

No, and the point of the class isn't to "get it" or become an enlightened Buddhist. If that was the point, it wouldn't be RLS 260: Buddhism, it would be Buddhist Sunday School or whatever. The class was about looking at many different sects of Buddhism (not just Zen) historically, not about trying to be Buddhist.

I'd agree that you can't "get" Zen through a class, and a Zen monk would almost definitely agree... they wouldn't have monasteries and people who devote their lives to the grueling Zen practices if you could get it in a few classes.


Zen as a shortcut that isn't a shortcut is an interesting idea though... Zen espouses a notion of sudden, unanticipated enlightenment. You have to practice jiriki (self-power) and discipline to get there, but the reason it's sudden and not gradual is that if it was gradual, it would mean you already had a good idea of what enlightenment was and could work steadily towards that goal. That, from a Zen perspective, would qualify as an attachment, so it wouldn't work that way.


P.S. Consider drinking less, dude. You're clearly a smart guy with worthwhile things to say, but it'd be nice if you could post without having to constantly apologize for being wasted every day. Just a friendly suggestion.

[Fujikoma]

P.S. Consider drinking less, dude. You're clearly a smart guy with worthwhile things to say, but it'd be nice if you could post without having to constantly apologize for being wasted every day. Just a friendly suggestion.

I'm considering it... Thanks for the compliment. I could always go without apologizing, but that could have unpleasant consequences. I'm actually drinking less than I used to, I probably should consider not drinking at all. I get the impression that I owe you another apology here, possibly, I'll let you know when I figure out whether or not I do (it's not always apparent to me). My previous statement, the edited part, was composed while slightly intoxicated, and may have been slightly offensive, I don't know, though it doesn't seem too bad, just a bit of ignorant and pointless rambling.

I can see how the concept of sudden enlightenment makes sense from that standpoint, being free of attachments, which means I might very well be wasting my time with this first read-through of the Blue Cliff Record, and, indeed, anything I've read about Buddhism in general... But I'm not so certain that Zen is without its flaws. Realization through a lack of attachments is all good and well, but in the end, it strikes me as an attachment... Maybe that's because I just don't get it.

So, is it wrong to read each case until it starts to seem to make sense and move on? In an earlier post the process was described as having a monk study a single case until they could provide an acceptable answer... As I have no one to provide an acceptable answer to, save myself, who is a bit of a harsh critic but still often doesn't know what he's talking about, I'm not so sure it really matters, I'm just going to botch the meaning anyway. Still not going to stop me from trying to educate myself on the matter.

[Cainad (dec.)]

So, is it wrong to read each case until it starts to seem to make sense and move on? In an earlier post the process was described as having a monk study a single case until they could provide an acceptable answer... As I have no one to provide an acceptable answer to, save myself, who is a bit of a harsh critic but still often doesn't know what he's talking about, I'm not so sure it really matters, I'm just going to botch the meaning anyway. Still not going to stop me from trying to educate myself on the matter.

Yes, based on the way a koan is supposed to work. Thought and reason are attachments; trying to come up with a rational answer to a koan, like this:

EDIT EDIT: Cainad, I'd assume the sound of one hand clapping is slapping the dogpiss out of someone...

would probably not be accepted by the roshi, who would either dismiss you, or maybe yell at you. Or maybe hit you with a stick. The idea is not to analyze and dissect the koan until you can resolve the contradiction rationally. To do that violates the whole purpose of the koan.

Realization through a lack of attachments is all good and well, but in the end, it strikes me as an attachment...

That could be said of all Buddhism, not just Zen. That's why enlightenment is sometimes also called "Emptiness", to distinguish it from the idea of a "realization", which implies an idea that one grasps.

[Fujikoma]

I don't know, in the Blue Cliff Record, there's a lot of slapping people, striking people and breaking of stuff going on. While I really wouldn't want to hit someone, I really wouldn't have any other idea what to do about that, other than just clap, or maybe shout, but those have all been done before, and could be seen as an attachment to the old stories... "He speaks the living word, not the dead word." or something like that... I also don't think that merely being silly with something completely unrelated would be acceptable, like walking away backwards, but, I mean, do they just hit people with a stick till their arm gets tired and then say to move on to the next koan? I'm guessing not, because I do get the impression that there is something significant there.

It seems to me that the underlying message is: these realizations cannot be expressed in words, and so cannot be thought of in words, which, well, a lot of people I've talked to about their thoughts (which isn't a lot of people) have told me that they think in written word, spoken word, visualizations, I'm guessing the point is to leave those attachments behind. The version of the Blue Cliff Record that I have is constantly badgering on about every possible rational explanation, saying it's wrong, kind of makes things confusing, but I'm thinking it helps make the point that one should not to get distracted by an endless classification of ideas.

I can understand trying to break down the rational thought process... True/false reasoning sometimes irritates me, considering we have all this awesome wetware at our disposal, I find thinking in patterns that resemble binary to be practical in many situations, but not really my thing... The whole dualistic mindset, good/bad, law/chaos, cause/effect, I can really see how they're all useful to everyday life, as well as science, but I find that if I get too hung up on that I can make some seriously bad assumptions because I'm always trying to pigeonhole something into one bin or the other and may miss some crucial aspect I would have noticed had I not been so busy trying to sort everything.

I seem to remember reading an introductory book to the chaos theory many years ago, which stated that deterministic logic is extremely effective, until the problem exceeds a two body problem, at which point deterministic logic fails, whatever that means... Though, all problems have more than 2 interacting factors... I suppose that is why they test things in a laboratory environment, to remove as many interfering factors as possible. This would mean, for the most part, in everyday life that deterministic logic is impractical (aside from that which may have already been determined in a controlled environment being useful information to take into account), and perhaps even detrimental. Maybe I'm assuming too much here?

Same thing with thinking in words. I do this sometimes, for example, when I'm making a post (though I'm not always sure what word I'm going to type next, it just sort of spills out onto the page, usually), but I find I do my best thinking when not thinking, as paradoxical as it may sound. I didn't write this post straight through, I circled back and edited it a few times. I can only hope I did a decent job.

I've had to let many things go over the course of my life. I've never really had a sense of permanence as far as anything is concerned, and I've spent a lot of time simply trying to regulate the constant impulse to panic. I've let go of a number of attachments, but likely not anywhere near enough.

One last thing, about emptiness... I think I recall reading that stopping at emptiness is a mistake. Maybe that was their idea of a practical joke to put that in there? Or perhaps it's something I'm not recalling correctly.

EDIT: Though I say dualistic thinking is not really my thing, I'm sure you could find a few posts of mine quite easily where I've done just that kind of thinking. It's something I try to avoid, but I sometimes surprise myself.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I like this Fujikoma person.

[Fujikoma]

I'm extremely terrible at picking out sarcasm, so, if you're being sarcastic, please, just let me know... ... Especially text format, that's one of the worst ways to communicate, IMO.

If you're being genuine, Nigel, thank you... I hope it isn't all one big joke at my expense, a little dense here at times.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I'm not being sarcastic! You think, and you write... good combination, in my book, even if I don't always agree with your conclusions.

[Fujikoma]

Awesome! Sorry to question you... I'm just too used to... Terrible social instances caused by failure to recognize sarcasm. Thanks for confirming. And I don't mind in the slightest when someone reaches a different conclusion than I do, it's another opportunity for growth in my book.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

See? there ya go. Why I like you.

[Fujikoma]

... Nigel, making me feel all warm and squishy inside is something I'd advise against, you might feel bad about it later... But thanks a lot, I needed that. Now... It's just a matter of waiting for one of these guys to school me on where I've gone wrong with zen, which is another thing I need, and by need, I mean, I really freaking need some input, this crap is far too mysterious for me to make sense of without some correction, and I can't think of a better place to find it.