Last night I reread the previous thing I put up here, “Stuff Part 2.” And I realized that what I wrote could be taken two ways. In one sense it’s about a guy trying to throw away stuff that he’s accumulated in a storage unit. But it could also be taken metaphorically.
I’m kind of dumb that way. When I read the Bhagavad Gita a long time ago, I thought it was a story about God coming down and helping a guy in a battle. Someone had to tell me that the five horses of Krishna’s chariot represent the five senses, that Krishna and Arjuna represent the personal self and the more elevated self riding in the same chariot of the body, and so on. I was too dense to get that on my own. Seems I’m the same way with my own writing.
Our personality, our ego, is like a storage unit in which we keep all the things we don’t want to let go of. We know that eventually we’ll have to let go of everything. But right now we don’t. So we keep it. Some of us are very protective of our storage units. We spend a lot of time organizing the stuff inside, reminding ourselves of what’s there, defending it against those who might want to steal it, or just defending it against the unavoidable decay that all things undergo. Others of us are less protective of our stuff. But we keep it anyway and we don’t really want to let it go anymore than the more protective folks do.
If you realize that you have to let go of the stuff in the storage unit that is your self, and you know you need help to do that, who would be best to call upon? Going back to my own actual concrete and metal storage unit in Durham, NC, I was very lucky to have my friend Catie help me.
Catie understood very clearly what I was going through last weekend. She has her own stuff. She doesn’t care much about Ultraman and Godzilla junk. But she’s a huge fan of Morrissey. She’s even gone so far as traveling to England or far flung parts of the USA just to attend his concerts. The way she tells it, even waiting in line for tickets to see Morrissey is a magical experience for her. She has, in her apartment (the Lady Cave) what she calls her Shrine to Morrissey. In this shrine is a collection of memorabilia collected during those journeys. She may not understand what I see in a kids’ TV superhero show from Japan. But she knows what it’s like to have stuff that’s important to you and that other people can’t really understand the significance of. In the more metaphorical process of cleaning out the self, you need that kind of helper.
A lot of people will reject certain teachers because they believe they are flawed and therefore cannot teach them the perfection that they seek. They search, instead, for teachers who they view as pure and untainted. But what they’re seeking when they look for that is someone to help them get rid of the stuff in their storage unit who cannot understand why they’re keeping stuff in a storage unit at all. I’m not really sure that would be the best kind of help one could ask for.
Besides that, I think these kinds of “perfected teachers” are mostly the stuff of legend. They’re mythical creatures much like the Loch Ness Monster. I use Nessie as my example because I, Brad, the guy writing this, truly wants to believe that the Loch Ness Monster is real. I want to believe that there actually is a living plesiosaurus swimming around in a lake in Scotland. Seriously. But I’ve looked at the evidence and none of it holds up to careful scrutiny. As much as I wish it were true, I have to admit that it’s probably not.
The greatest teachers, in my estimation, are those who understand what it’s like to have a storage unit of the self. Oh Jesus what a horrible clunky metaphor! But I’m gonna run with it. My teachers, Tim and Nishijima, are not ego-less “perfected masters.” They are, in fact, both people with very strong egos and very clear attachments. My troll Gniz was criticizing me recently for not pointing out the flaws in my own teachers. I refrain from doing so because they’re also my friends, and you don’t go on the Internet and reveal the hidden flaws of your friends. That’s not nice. That’s also a good way to lose a friendship.
But suffice it to say, they have flaws. It’s not that they have no stuff in their storage units that appeals to me and works for me. Rather it’s the way they deal with the stuff they’ve chosen to keep in there. It’s very different from the way that most people deal with it. The differences are subtle, so subtle sometimes that most people would miss them completely. But they are deep and profound. These men have discovered a way to both keep that stuff in their storage unit and not keep it at the same time. It’s the kind of trick that I would have thought impossible. And I’ve spent years and years and years with both of them watching very carefully for signs of sleight of hand. But I’ve come away convinced that what I’m seeing is actually true. And because it’s true it cannot be magic. It must be something that I can do too.
Shunryu Suzuki Roshi said that, in practicing Zen, you have to clean out your room. He followed up by saying that sometimes you’ll bring all the stuff back into the room after you’ve taken it out. But, he said, you have to take it all out first. I would also add here that most people will end up throwing away a lot of things, but still taking back the most important ones. This is precisely like what you do when clearing out an actual storage unit.
If you threw everything away, you’d also throw away those things that make you most effective in helping others clean out their storage units. You’d throw away the attachment to your stuff that makes you a good sympathizer to someone who needs it.
Understand that this stuff doesn’t necessarily need to be actual physical stuff. Some people have no possessions at all, yet still manage to cling very hard to their personal stuff anyhow. Sometimes the very fact that they own nothing becomes a huge thing that they own and are completely unwilling or even unable to get rid of.
Anyway, those are the thoughts on this matter that were swimming around in my head and demanding to be written down when Crum the Cat woke me up this morning. I was unable to go back to sleep, even though I seriously needed to, until I typed them out. And so now here they are for you to enjoy.
And with that, I will begin another day of getting rid of stuff. Yesterday I sold six big boxes of books, DVDs and CDs. Today I’m hoping to cut things down even more. I will not get rid of all of it. Not just yet anyway. But the time will come eventually. Do please consider making a donation to help me move the important stuff I have to keep. I hate to say that shit and sound like a damned televangelist. But this move is costing me a god-damned fortune no matter how much junk I unload and my battered PT Cruiser is going to need some upkeep in order to make it out to the West Coast in one piece.
brad, you are in a fix, zen's not delivering too you, writing's not delivering to you and music's not delivering too you
i think you are naturally talented but you have been spread in too many directions to ever be effective !
of course this is zen in its truest sense but so is dogen's getting TB from his journey in china, one can live the truth of failure and disease but it's not actually essential and why do it if you don't have to?
it probably is actually essential, but i think the trick is to keep away from the extremes of being totally broke and chronically ill !
Malcolm said…
"Yeah, but you're dead keen on Three Philosophies, One Reality, right?"
Actually, there is a somewhat generic pattern here that predates Nishijima's discovery of this pattern in Shoboginzo.
view, for example Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa 1950 Engl Subs) which exploits the same multi-perspective genre.
an alternative view of dogen as a plagiariser and commenter who could pull good quotes but didn't understand himself !
Thats Shobogonzo, Mysterion.
There's a zen master that make public his own flaws:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/magazine/26zen-t.html
He's very honest and sincere.
i think the honest and sincere ones are the biggest suckers of all cause they are still wrong which is the case for brad warner and lou nordstrom
i don't think genpo is honest or sincere, but he's making money and enjoying life with all the floosies thrown in free, tho he's old enough to start tiring of that i think ; o )
he's sane there's some point to what he's doing but brad and lou
they are crazy stupid without a point except our edification and entertainment about what not to do!
brad if you think you're up to it, try relpying to this as a real person and not some guy who has to know what zen is and be real about the fact everything has failed !
i'm not saying i haven't failed btw : o )
brad, why not do a sock monkey skit with genpo telling you what a failure you are and how much money he is making and how much fun he is having
can you laugh at that?
maybe he can say that he enjoys ripping hardcore zen for material to help him con the suckers
maybe you could crawl away on the floor defeated with a flash to you standing by a road offering to wash car windows?
it can be done really funny and that should help it go viral with your audience !
just don't be afraid to really lash into genpo and debase youself !
with luck he might sue for libel, that's extra publicity and in your state of finances what can he do?
you have to do something funny, yet really breaks a few bones and gets people uspet that drives you into front page zen news
if you want to see the way it falling at the moment with jundo somehow having bought sweeping zen……….
maybe you could crawl away on the floor defeated with a flash to you standing by a road offering to wash car windows?
this is Nirvana (Kurt Cobain version)
something slightly surreal, like sock monkey/genpo between nina's breasts !
Thanks for the link to Rashomon, Chas.
Malcolm
Brad said…
"My own opinion is that the systems of ranking levels of enlightenment that are in use now are ridiculous."
Well, that is the Soto bias Brad… you belong to the school of "the first rule of Soto is that you don't talk about enlightenment… and the second rule is that you DON'T TALK about enlightenment" – so naturally anything that talks about enlightenment is going to rub you wrong.
But personally, if Dogen were alive today, I wager he would not be Soto. In fact, he would be disgusted by the Soto-shu.
I think that Dogen cannot have been completely against the 5 Ranks, because it looks like he used them.
http://www.firethroatpress.com/wp-content/files_mf/dogenandthefiveranks63.pdf
and…
http://www.mro.org/mr/archive/24-2/articles/dogenandkoansdaido.html
…are both interesting reads, and I can completely see where they are coming from in the context of Dogen.
Even the Wiki article on the Five Ranks says: "The work is highly significant in both the Caodong/S?t? and Linji/Rinzai schools of Zen that exist today. Indeed, Thomas Cleary notes that Eihei Dogen, the founder of the Japanese S?t? School, references the Five Ranks in the first paragraph of one of his most widely studied works, Genjo Koan.
Even in Taigen Dan Leighton book Dogen's Extensive Record, in the intro sombody write a lot about it (though I cant remember who atm…)
…And it seems to me that the hard position that people take about Dogen and the Five Ranks must be changing significantly if serious Dogen scholar/translators like Taigen Dan Leighton are allowing those views to be stated into their works of scholarship…
My 2 cents.
My tuppence-worth, anon –
How can we know whether Dogen "used" or "referenced" the Five Ranks? We can't ask him and he doesn't explicitly say so. Explicitly, he includes the Five Ranks in a list of similar attempts to define and categorize aspects of experience/reality as "small thinking, "not "the truth of Old Master ??kyamuni". So it seems safe to assume he didn't think much of the them.
On the other hand, there's nothing to stop casual readers and/or Zen experts who are keen on the Five Ranks and who do find them a useful conceptual tool finding evidence of their "use" all over the place – in the works of Dogen, the note-books of Wittgenstein, the poems of T S Eliot, at the bottom of tea-cups…
Anon#108 said…
How can we know whether Dogen "used" or "referenced" the Five Ranks? We can't ask him and he doesn't explicitly say so. Explicitly, he includes the Five Ranks in a list of similar attempts to define and categorize aspects of experience/reality as "small thinking, "not "the truth of Old Master ??kyamuni". So it seems safe to assume he didn't think much of them.
But what does it mean to say they are "small thinking" in the sense of "attempts to define and categorize aspects of experience/reality", and then make use of them in his opus…?
Everyone who posits the view that Dogen used the Five Ranks in his Shobogenzo don't deny that he disparaged them verbally…
Although Dogen had some reservations about the Five Ranks, it was not because he did not find them true. He simply did not want them to become a formula—a mere intellectualization or abstraction."
Sure, 'inconsistency', as Brad said, is a feature of Dogen's writing. So perhaps he disparaged and made use.
If it's clear to you that Dogen uses the Five Ranks, fine.
If you're not sure and would like to know, find out for yourself. I wouldn't take anyone else's word for it.
Anon#108 said…
"Sure, 'inconsistency', as Brad said, is a feature of Dogen's writing. So perhaps he disparaged and made use."
But that view doesn't make any sense… One does not make use of things you *truly* disparage.
Treasury of the Eye of the True Dharma
Getting the Marrow by Doing Obeisance
(Shôbôgenzô raihai tokuzui)
Introduction
The title of this essay is taken from a well known story, in which Bodhidharma asks four disciples to state their understanding of Buddhism. After each does so, Bodhidharma characterizes their degree of understanding. To the first, Daofu, he says, “You get my skin”; to the second, the nun Zongchi, he says, “You get my flesh”; to the third, Daoyu, he says, “You get my bones.” The fourth disciple, Huike (who will become Bodhidharma’s successor), makes no reply but instead does obeisance before Bodhidharma and is then told, “You get my copy of 'Hardcore Zen Strikes Again'.”
"How does one begin the work of storing ch'i and achieve this result? We answer that the practice of T'ai-chi ch'uan is the method of storing ch'i. With this method of circulating the ch'i, it overflows into the sinews, reaches the bone marrow, fills the diaphragm, and manifests in the skin and hair. This is truly concentrating the ch'i and developing softness." ("Master Cheng's Thirteen Chapters on T'ai-Chi Ch'uan", by Cheng Man-Ching, translated by Douglas Wile- pg 17)
Of course, T'ai Chi is considered by some to be a fantasy martial art. One wonders what Bodhidharma actually practiced at Shaolin (other than being a parasite, as Yuanwu described it).
We've all read about how the Buddha outpaced Angulimala when Angulimala tried to catch up to him, without the Buddha even breaking a trot; that would be the virtue of the style of walking that the Gautamid employed so frequently (20 miles in a day regularly), which style of walking apparently involved enough marrow that his skin and hair fairly flew, at least as far as Angulimala was concerned. Now does anyone teach how this is done, or do we assume the language can't be taught unless a person starts at the age of seven and just picks it up by instinct?
ginza = silver
a play on words…
…nevermind
Bodhidharma to the four disciples…
1) “You get my skin”
2) “You get my flesh”
3) “You get my bones”
4) [you get my silence]
these parallel the four basic 'degrees' of Masonry.
But then the entire 'first degree ritual*' is Buddhist at its vvery foundation…
The 14th and current Dalai Lama of the Gelugpa lineage of Tibetan Buddhism was quite interested in the rituals of Freemasonry about five years ago because of the obvious parallels.
*Rituals vary from state-to-state and country-to-country.
California** is more Preston and less Anderson than is Nevada.
The real zanies require a belief in the mythical Jesus as a requirement for membership. California, being liberal, accepts everyone (except avowed atheists).
**see page 15 HERE
Let's see…
I've been a Buddhist for 51 years and a Mason for only 12 or so. There is no incompatibility between the two philosophies. The Masons don't go as deeply as Buddhism in terms of "Renunciation is a recognition that all existence is suffering."
Basically, Freemasonry is an alternative funeral cult to Roman Catholicism. It was, between the 13th and 18th centuries, a way in which wealthy and educated men could obtain a grave and avoid Catholic "Legacy Hunters***" at the same time.
***see Vehse, Eduard (1856). "Memoirs of the court, aristocracy, and diplomacy of Austria" Volume 2, p. 63
so was gonzo …
gon·zo/?gänz?/
Adjective:
1. Of or associated with journalistic writing of an exaggerated, subjective, and fictionalized style.
2. Bizarre or crazy.
… you totally missed it.
"Of course, T'ai Chi is considered by some to be a fantasy martial art."
T'ai Chi being the basic form and T'ai Chi Chu'an being the Chu'an (Zen) Zen adaptation???
Chi = circulation [seriously]
and T'ai = essential
"Supreme Ultimate Fist" is perhaps the most infamous Occidental mistranslation of an otherwise bland term.
Chu'an = fist (but that is a mode of recognition)
So what we are talking about is the Zen adaptation of Chinese Essential Circulation and kinesiology.
And yes, it matters. Move your body or give up the ability to move.
Think with your brain or give up the ability to think.
Do BOTH of the above or give up the ability to be human.
…
gonzo …
yes, I totally missed it.
I apologize. Shiro was anxious to got to PEETS – to pee*. He doesn't like coffee.
my bad.
*That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Good practice is simply sitting here—it is absolutely uneventful. From the usual point of view, it's boring. Over time, however, we learn in our bodies that what we used to call “boring” is pure joy, and this joy is the source, the feeding ground, for our life and actions. Sometimes it is called samadhi; it is the very nonstate in which we should live our entire life: teaching a class, seeing a client, taking care of a baby, playing an instrument. When we live in such nondual samadhi, we have no problems because there is nothing separate from us.
joko, your husband committed suicide and really seeing the crap you write, i don't blame him!
she's one toxic woman, a different cast on the sincere ones, murderously stupid !
"Although Dogen had some reservations about the Five Ranks, it was not because he did not find them true. He simply did not want them to become a formula—a mere intellectualization or abstraction."
all you little hermit crabs pulling the holy and flawed shell of dogen over yourselves : o )
pathetic stinking mice who drown when they go below the tide : o )
an3drew, a.k.a. 7thzenpatriarch, said…
"i had a vision in which the sixth patriarch authorised me to teach ! so i'm the seventh patriarch"
I forgot, are you epileptic or schizophrenic?
Delusions of grandeur are NOT your strong point. Delusions of adequacy are not your strong point either.
Stop listening to the voices.
Take your medications.
"Anon#108 said…
"Sure, 'inconsistency', as Brad said, is a feature of Dogen's writing. So perhaps he disparaged and made use."
But that view doesn't make any sense… One does not make use of things you *truly* disparage."
————–
what about marriage?
dr. oz i am epileptic AND schizophrenic
very insightful!
fundamental to what i say is the primacy of vision over voices, don't believe the voices but believe the visions !
: o )
the sixth patriarch appeared directly to me , i don't know that's grandeur, but given the crap around he must have been thrilled that someone genuine came to exist : o )
hmm, no medications but the compendium and blood donation
they work, i have stopped seeing thick black wavy bars across my vision when i wake up the morning which was very worrying : o )
joko, your husband committed suicide and really seeing the crap you write, i don't blame him!
she's one toxic woman, a different cast on the sincere ones, murderously stupid !
Andrew uhuh there are some Strong emotions there…but we have to go deeper! What's the Core belief behind that? What is Running your Life? Really you have to find out!
Just sit with that thoughts about me and Label them. Really feel that physically with your Body, Listen to it!
Is it Easy? Nooooo…but we have to do it. And with Time it gets better and you'll See the Joy in all of that!
Joko
Joke….
When dealing with trolls, the only winning move is not to play.
Joko rather…
lol a fake joko ghost !!!!!!!!!
speaking of ghosts
she's really in the brad warner, lou nordstrom class
sincere, honest and almost completely mistaken !
she's a living corpse and always was
there's just something really dead about her!
that's why you believe in her i guess, matches your own deadness
c'mon let the non corpses stand up ! it's just like being in a graveyard
can you write without spitting out maggots you zombies : o)
dogen had it right about the yellow springs !
don't you feel even a little ashamed to spend so much time getting it so wrong?
sitting there counting the pathetic coins of your flawed intellectual investment !!!!
"Just sit with that thoughts about me and Label them. Really feel that physically with your Body, Listen to it!"
what you get is just the brain churning and digging itself in a deepr rut
there's validity to solitude and reading the pearls that world literature has to offer, but there's no validity to zazen !
can you see the book of kells as zazen? it was a big mistake for the authors !!!
Andrew, how can you help me?
Best Wishes,
Mr. Corpse
p.s. Happy to hear the vision issue cleared up for you! Did you find the 'vertical hold' control knob? 🙂
Mysterion, the "fantasy" martial art label was applied by Matt Thornton, a BJJ black belt, in a lecture here.
Interesting, that addendum that Brad added on his last post, about the way the young, artistic intellectuals of Japan regard the Zen masters there. That would probably account for the popularity of Kodo Sawaki (adopted by a gambler and a prostitute after the demise of his own parents, ran away to Eihei-ji at 16!).
I attended a slide presentation by Demian Kwong at Sonoma Mountain Zen Center last Saturday, about his six months at Eihei-ji. He described being always tired, always hungry, and always cold (inside the monastery, like outside, sometimes 6 below zero?). Three hours of sleep (did I hear that right?). Being left in seiza for up to three hours, sometimes left in seiza for awhile on wooden floors.
His mom said they voted him as the most outstanding monk, or something like that. I can see why, Demian stayed positive and emerged with flying colors from the Japanese Soto Zen bootcamp.
I asked his mom when he started sitting, and she said he was hanging out in the zendo starting around 8. I'm guessing that his early start and the vigorous schedule at Sonoma Mountain are what enabled him to pull it off. Demian now has a teacher's robe, so both Demain and Shinko have been recognized as teachers in the last year.
I have to think that the fact that they voted Demian the outstanding monk maybe is the cross-cultural pollination that Shunryu Suzuki hoped to see happen when he left Japan for the U.S.A.
If someone made some good 'based-in-their-own-practice-experience' sense of the Five Ranks, or the 10 Ox Herding pics for that matter, I'm sure Dogen would have given it the thumbs up in the great Sincere Practice project… for what that's worth (not much!) I think he would have done something quite special with them if he had taken them on as a subject for commentary as he did with the 'magical powers' that were traditionally believed to result from Buddhist practice.
But more importantly, using Dogen to arrive at our own narrow opinions based on latter day sectarian cartoons more than stinks. Sure, the D-dawg criticized 'kill your intellect' style of using koans, but then he also criticized the sort of dead-headed sitting-around-dozing that passes itself off as 'Soto Zen' in some quarters.
Dogen was using the Buddhist teachings and his personal gifts creatively; Shobogenzo was not intended as a dour set-in-stone creed for some sort of crap zazen-only club.
Regards,
Harry.
what you get is just the brain churning and digging itself in a deepr rut
Uhuh Andrew there's some deep resistance in you towards the present moment, towards your life. Of course it's the brain working, what else should be? But does it matter? Why not practice your brain towards opening to life by sitting and just being with what is? Instead of spacing out all the time in your fantasies about Brad and this blog? Just be there and really feel what's going on, physically. And notice those thoughts. Label them. You might think "Joko is being bossy today"…or "ah that's of no value" but Andrew, these are just thoughts. Label them like "bossy again" or "no value" and start seing them for what they are. Then you can find true joy in your life and no longer have to talk to ghosts on Brad's blog in his comments section.
Otherwise you just might continue to create Merry Mayhem for you and others…
Yours,
Joko
joko, there's no brain, there's no present moment
especially in your case : o )
happy maggot chewing!
Anonymous said…
Andrew, how can you help me?
Best Wishes,
Mr. Corpse
————
look if zazen works so well, why do you have to hide behind "anonymous"
i say smelly rancid mice because that's what you guys all are, all pretend wankers
afraid to identify themselves on this pathetic board
afraid of the FBI? or being exposed as the grey drab colourless nonentities you are?
where are the zen adepts of old who could actually reply in a coherent fashion that demonstrated facility and not these present day fakes who can only mumble the most dreadful rubbish about zazen??
a lot of you guys just excuse your complete lack of any facility or understanding with "grunt" just do zazen, well you can do that but it's not the old ch'an of the adepts !
i tell you what, if joko beck was really posting here, she would post as herself and not hide behind anonymous or some pretend nick
don't you guys get that you are fake and there really is some HUGE HUGE issue, you pretend to zen yet this basic of not being able to be yourself publicly is not there?
like not being able to catch and playing baseball?
its so obvious that its weird!
i challenge you to come out and say who you are !
bit real huh?
just try it, no point in mouthing about practice if you are so unsure of yourselves you have to hide your idenity?
some of you may be zen teachers, well, what are you doing then if you have to hide?
i notice brad felt he was unable to reply to my earlier post, really brad what are you doing?
: o (