Zen thoughts

Great equality

The Great equality really exists. There is a Great equality of the great. And there is no, for example, "higher-lower" between, for example, Oleg Dal (a Russian actor) and Hegel (they are both in that layer). By the way... someday I'll tell you about Gegel. And there is a Great equality of all people. The mechanizms of these two types of equality are completely different.

Emptiness is a complicated concept. Super-complicated. A mind based on formal logic can't overcome this complexity. But Emptiness is not terrible at all... Just the other way about. :))) You see, everything becomes absolutely clear. :))))))) And suddenly you begin to understand :))))))) you dig it! :)))))))) - why Camus has formulated the basic question of phylosophy as "To live or to die?" When you dig it :))))) - you solve this question. And you start to execute this decision at your best. But there (in that layer) it is impossible not to act at your best... :)))))))))))))

 

Why buddhism?

First of all - it's not buddhism... :))) The main thihg is that nobody has reached higher than Buddha. Understand? Two and a half thousand years ago he reached so high that during all the human history and during all the final part of the human history :)) nobody could do better.

It's not buddhism, it's "a Teaching" which is "not a Teaching" (see The Diamond Sutra). And then there was Hui-Neng also! And then - Lin-Chi! And that is all!... And after them there's only me :))) That's it - such a straight branch. :)) There were many worthy men also. Before Hui-Neng there was Bodhidharma. :)) He did not understand everything, however it was Very sufficient! Hui-Neng, Lin-Chi - this is "the Ch’an of Patriarchs". Bodhidharma is "the Ch’an of Perfect Man". "Um Mo, you already know the Ch’an of Perfect Man, but you even do not know the first thing about the Ch’an of Patriarchs" - these were, more or less, the words that someone said to someone in about 11th century in somewhere around Funzjan province. There were some people after Lin-Chi also. Chinese. Not a long time. :))

Oh, yes! I forgot to say: these are people with another TYPE of thinking. Hovewer, another TYPE of thinking is not Enlightenment. This is only a remarkable ability for Enlightenment. A remarkable one, but just an ability. :)) Marx and Lenin had such type of thinking. Engels - had not. :)) Around Lenin there was no one (and around Marx either) with such type of thinking. This is the same as a human being alone (a single one) between the world of gods (which actually can't be seen) and the world of monkeys. :)) This is what life is. :))

 

The real choice

If you want to understand plainly, then go to a sect!... :))) ... that is to say - go where you want... :)) But what does Cha'n have to do with this? ... or The Path? ... or me, after all?... :))))))))))))))))) Haven't I written to you about your duty?... Have you thrown it away, or what?... as a kind of useless garbage?... And about an ingenious solution?... Have you thrown it away also?... Decided to manage with an easy one?... an easy solution?... not ingenious?... :)))))))))))))))))))

If one cannot combine a circle with a triangle, he will have to choose in the end: circle? or triangle?.. He might delay this choice for a very long time. But! The first thing. This delay is finite. If you do not choose yourself - you will be chosen!.... But with crash, pain and other severe consequences accumulated... That is to say - "delaying the choise" is bad. :)))) The second thing. This choice per se is just an illusion of choice. It only looks like choice. It is a choice only from a formal ("formally logical") :)) point of view. In fact, this is a "choice" (choice in quotes) :)) Can it be a real choice if you need to choose between two traps? Between one dead-end and another one? Between one incompleteness and another one?... :)) And "having chosen" - attention! - to occupy FOREVER this or another type of your roughness, to sentence youeself to being in a wrong zone forever... Oh, yes!... What a joy! - I forgot to say... - EXACLY IN THIS!!! CONCRETE!!! - hurrah!-hurrah! - zone. "Consciously" chosen!!!... I.e. making a "choice" is bad. :))))

There is only one real choice - PLANE or SPACE? Circles, triangles and other "flat" misinterpretations or a "cone" - "spatial" objects with one additional dimension. :)))

 

Implications and hidden sense

So, you don't want to "take it literally"? - don't take it so. But I shall continue to take your words literally... :))) Why should I look for implications or hidden sense?... What should I be afraid of?... :)))))

 

Path for with "remarkable abilities"

Ch'an is the path for those with "remarkable abilities"... And there are few of them... :)

 

What is Ch'an?

Ch'an is a specific world outlook. A world outlook is a platform. "Knowledge" is a weapon on a right platform, and it is trash on a wrong one. A complex of knowledge and technologies on a right platform is ch'an. A complex of knowledge and technologies on a right platform is action. Ch'an, unlike other stuff, is action! Right action is the aim of the final "study" of ch'an. Ch'an is not a "world outlook". Ch'an is not knowledge. A good pianist can feel. A Karate master does not know any techniques. A complex of knowledge and technologies on right platform is the consciousnes. The intellect is a counter of variants. What to count - it's not the intellect that decides this. It doesn't make decisions either. "Knowledge" is like dusty volumes of books on the intellect's shelves. The intellect is one of the consciousness's aspects. The intellect is one of the projections of the base base of consciousness. Nothing alive, real, three-dimensional can be made of flat projections. Ch'an takes the conscoiusness from the world of flat projections to the world of volume, to the real mind, to the mind's basis. :)) Ch'an is the path. The path is studying. A real study is transmission of qualities plus transmission of understanding. Understanding can't be transmitted by words. Anyone reading a book sees only what he is able to see. Reading the same book after 10 years, he sees another stuff. Understanding is a result of following a right path. A hard path. Which is insurmountable for those NOT with "remarkable abilities"... :)) Understanding is a unique result. :))) Ch'an is understanding. Understanding is action. Real understanding which means being really ready for action is ch'an. Something like this... :))))))))

 

I want to know Ch'an

You say: "Well, look... I want to know Ch'an... but what I do see?..."

It's hard to believe it, of course, that my words should be taken literally... everything is against it... :))) Either through me, or - by no means. There are no other means!!! - Or by yourself. :)) But in that case you need not only to possess high-level qualities, but to possess the most complicated and unique combination of qualities, and you also need to be very lucky... very lucky, including the scene, the historical background, the state of society, and I don't know what else... :)) - many things. I'll give you an example. In Russia (more exactly, in the world in this century) it was possible to make money on creating exchanges (just on creating them, all absolutely fair, legality goes without saying) only between july 1991 and december 1991. It was only half a year for 100 years, in a few places inside one country :)) - even though you might be the smartest and the finest of all: if you were not there (+ having proper age and background for this time) - you will not be able to make money this way. By no means. I have nothing more to say on the subject "I want to know Ch'an"... And the last thing: ch'an of the 20-th century in Russia is absolutely (ABSOLUTELY!) different than in China in the 9-th century. :))))))))) Copying forms is useless! It was useless even in China in the 9-th century! :)))))))))) Thats why Lin-Chi had beaten repeatedly (actually, all the time) on the ears and "dog heads" of various Chinese folks. :))) And Buddha did the same things! :)))))))))))))))

 

Ch'an is the only one

Your trouble is that you have not been trained to do anything... How to say it... well... Of course, you have been trained for many things, hovewer, not as human beings, not as personalities, but as functions. As a coder, as a pants selling manager, as a pit digger, as a headline writer... - you have been grown as functions, as machines. But as for the things that make you a human being - nobody has educated you, you have learnt something by yourself in some home-made way, on your own, and you deem that this is the way it must be, that it's the only way. Ch'an is the only one that trained consciously! being aware of what it is doing! - growing human beings. It was interrupted 900 years ago... :)))))))))))))

 

Don't surrender

Don't surrender the positions that you have won... :)))) - This is a strategic principle! Only conscious retreat! :))))) As well as advance!... :)))) And the same for all the other stuff... :)))) Once again: don't surrender your positions FOR NO REASON - no matter how you have gained it (this position)! :))) Only deliberately and consciously! :))) And in this case it is not a "retreat"!... :))) And even not a "manoeuvre"! But a conscious continuation of the general line! :))) ...well, in such a form, for example!... :))) - so what? :))))) ANOTHER WAY - there are many fatal consequences. One of them is - you will get entangled by the forms :))) Will get entangled by the forms of the world... :)))) And will die!... The price of wrong strategic line for those like you - is always the same! - Death! - In millions of forms... Do you understand me? :)))

 

Work calmly!

Work calmly! :))) I will be helping you. Sometimes even by inexplicable and wrong (from your point of view) means. But as I constantly meet people who know better than me how to do things right, naturally, I'm already prepared, and it seems to me that I'll be able to abide your virulent attacks. :))))) But you're doing everything right!... :)))) Just try to swear less! Get rid of your natural virulence! You'll see, - you're going to thank me later for these wise advices...

 

"Position" and "limits"

By the way, "position" means "limits". "Position from which you should perceive my words" (important! - it is said to a concrete person in a concrete situation) is equivalent to saying "you should draw right limits".

"Right limits" (in that concrete situation) - are "limits which allow his mind to work most effectively when coming across my words."

"Right limits" are "limits which allow one's mind to work most effectively when coming across any element of the infinite world."

 

To hold on a little longer

Maybe this information will help you to hold on a little longer. Or even may be this "little" will be enough for you to enter the zone (the layer), where one never surrenders.

Short conversations

Total humor

- I also like total humor in Zen. :))) It's hard to imagine any decorous religion permitting jokes, right?:)))))) That is why I think I could not be adherent of any of them:))) bearing a grave phiz all my life? No, not me:))

- "Total humor" :))) - good! That's it! Exactly - it's TOTAL! Well, and besides - it's not a religion. :))

 

A boundary between platform and knowledge

- So, a platform is something defining, directing? there can be no right knowledge on a wrong platform? Does the right platform makes wrong knowledge impossible?

In general, platform and knowledge are not separated. The boundary between them is conditional. :))) "Conditional" means "you draw it yourself". "You draw it yourself" means "in your mind, according to your conception". "Drawing boundaries correctly" means "specifically, according to concrete aims and tasks of the moment and considering millions of different specific factors right now." "Specifically, according to concrete aims and tasks of the moment" means "knowing, WHAT FOR? you set this boundary" - not abstractedly, but specifically "what for". "Considering millions of different specific factors right now" can be practically realized only if you are able to distinguish essential (several) :))) and inessential (millions of) :)) factors correctly :)). Look out, just don't mix them up! Stuff which looks like essential can prove to be inessential... :))) And vice versa... :)))

So. there is no boundary between platform and knowledge. The only thing that the right platform-knowledge does not prevent are wrong decisions-actions. Then they are called mistakes. :))) If there is no right platform-knowledge, then they are called not "mistakes" but "wrong way". :)))

 

About transmission of wisdom

- Seemingly, when we say "the highest wisdom" we mean "enlightment". And to give the Master a possibility to pass me enlightment, I needn't "get smarter at first", on the contrary, throwing away my mind (system of interaction with society) gives the Master a possibility to pass me enlightment.

- Firstly, to give the Master a possibility to pass you enlightment, you need to have this Master. :))

Secondly, to take his advice. :)) (Don't look at me) :)))))))))) And not to invent your own fancies, like: "I needn't "get smarter at first", on the contrary, throwing away my mind (system of interaction with society) gives the Master a possibility to pass me enlightment." :))))))))))

Thirdly, Mind is not a system of interaction with society. :)))

And also - the western european people mean by the word "mind" something quite different from what eastern people, for example buddhists, mean by this word. :)) And this is different from what it means in Ch'an.

Please, read Zenki - "Any fool can be clever". Not "to seem", but "to be" - it's written there! :))))))) :)))))))))) And then - The Sutra of Sixth Patriarch: it's all about this! :))

 

About belief

- Let us suppose that somebody (me, for example) makes the following statement:
1. I am God, genuine and the only one, which was, is, and will eternally be, and every My word is truth.
2. Those who don't believe me - will burn in the eternal fire on a spit (well, at least, they are going to feel very bad).
3. The one who believes me - he will obtain all the good, the eternal happiness (though after death, for less responsibility, anyway the dead cannot tell the others if they are really "happy"), well, and anything else he wants (fill in according to your wishes).
Questions:
1. What after that makes me worse (or better) than Jesus Christ?
2. How will you choose whom of us you should believe?
Answers based on the Bible are not accepted, because "a truth based on a lie is a lie". In other words, of course, one can refer to somebody, but saying "I choose Jesus, because he is the Son of God, and you are an impostor" is not serious.

1. "Let us suppose that somebody (me, for example) makes the following statement... and so on" - it's not statments that make you God.
2. "What after that makes me worse (or better) than Jesus Christ" - the fact that you are not God.
3. "How will you choose whom of us you should believe?" - The same way as usual...:))))))))))) Do you think that no one except Christ has ever said these words? :)))))
4. If you want to get different answers, ask different questions.

- Klein, so I am asking, how do you know that I am not God? From the Bible? Well, suppose, I'll write my own "Great Bible". I asked you not to answer by phrases like "because you are not God", this answer tells nothing. Greetings from the underworld. And more. So, what is it that makes a human being God, in your opinion? What do you think a man has to do (and Christ has done) to be recognized by you as God?

The question "What makes a human being God?" and the question "What a man has to do for you to be recognized by you as God" - are absolutely different questions. They are absolutely UNRELATED! :)) This is approximately - approximately! - like "to be" and "to look like". Approximately... :)))

What makes a human being God? Only one thing - God WAKES UP in him. WHY does he wake up? - It's another question. You did not ask it. :))

Asking "What a man has to do for you to be recognized by you as God" is the same as asking "Tell me, Subhuti, is it possible to distinguish the So-Coming (Buddha) by thirty two physical attributes?" This is a passage from The Diamond Sutra, excuse me, :))) - this question has been written down 2,5 thousand years ago. :))). My answer to you is: the only distinctive attribute of God in a human body is complete absence of distinctive attributes. Do you understand? :)) Do you think I am joking? :))

I continue: the God in a human body is not interested whether you recognize him as God or not. He is coming. He is a stream. Everything that should be turned and twisted, will be. Everything that will be twisted - will be twisted as it should be. No problem. :))) Whether he is recognized or not - it's a petty question. :)) A question of trade. Of bargain. Do you understand? A HUMAN QUESTION. :)) A question of weakness. A question of rushing about. An empty question. Do you understand me? I'll tell you, as an artist to an artist, to the question "What a man has to do for you to be recognized by you as God" there is only one answer: "NOTHING".

And more: Recall, :)) Christ was crucified. And the steadfast Peter had time to recant thrice, faster than one can say "cock-a-doodle-doo"... :))) Here you are! Identified. So, if you are God - then act! :))) But keep your eyes open! If you are not God - you will pay for it! And if you are God - you'll pay all the more! :)))

Long conversations

To live or to die

1. The first question of an awakened one

To die or to live - everyone makes this choice in the very begining of awakening. This is the first question, which arises for an awakened one. The one, who has not awakened, will not raise this question. About 30 percents of the awakened ones decide to die. 90 percents of them simply fade away. They just starve. Only feeling the body getting colder and movements slowing down. 10 percent of those having decided to die choose more exotic means. Those which are close at hand, as a rule. 70 percent of the awakened ones choose to live. the awakened ones make decisions completely. There are very few awakened ones.

2. Camus

- There's no need to die - it's all fibs and fairy-tales... For me now it means that it is bad to be an awakened one. Not in the sense that they are bad, but in the sense that they face such questions.

- Don't fear. :))) It is not terrible - such questions. :)))) You apparently did not pay attention to one very important thing - to the first and basic problem which every awakened one solves. Camus is the only European who has come to this question... :))) And there is no "boring". Everything is joyful there. Even when dying. :)) Remember? I have written to you: "The starvation is experienced (perceived) only as cold in the fingers, arms, body..." :))) There is no need to rescue... :))) From what? :))))) "And no need to die..." :)))) - Look: The first (basic) question + complete solution = to live (to the fullest) :))) or to die (fully) :))) And nothing more. :))) There are no more variants. Multiply this all by tremendous forces and the state of happyness - No! - Of joy (a divine feeling!) :))))))))

3. To be or not to be

- I am not afraid - I say "it's bad". :) Well, I am afraid of something, of course :) It is bad that I don't want to leave this life. There are so many things to do. There are so many manifistations of everything. It's enough even more than for one life. Even here.

- Maybe I did not express myself clearly enough... :))) It is not a lottery 30 by 70... :))) Everyone makes this decision himself, on his own. :) One makes whatever decision he wants. :))))))))))))))))) Well, how would I explain it to you...

We come into this world not of our own free will. We do decide this. All our further actions - are the effects of this decision made not by us. When a person is awakening he has to make a decision - to be or not to be in this world - that is the question. :))) Shakespeare, by the way, speaks exactly about this main question... :))) Then - when this decision has been made! - all further decisions attain the characteristics of absolute responsibility. But until the main decision has been made by you - until that moment, sorry, - your decisions cannot possess this characteristics. In human history this thing has remained as passing through a ritual death (as a rule, during male initiation). :))))

4. Is it possible to be friends with a woman without sex?

- I've got it. And that it is conscious choice - I've got it too. But now I am not ready for it, and for the discussion either. I have _no_other_choice_ but to live. Just no other choice. This is my decision. And I can't understand a different one.

- But no one requires it from you. :))) Coming to this choice, or better to say, it's existence is natural (not artificial)... Well, I don't know how to explain... it's like sexual pubescence, for example. And don't you, being 5 years old, torture yourself with a question whether it is possible to be friends with a woman without sex. You will understand when you grow up. And you will decide then. :)))

A koan from Lotos

 

Koan

Well, it seems I have answered these questions... There is only one thing to add, that the order is simple: the further you move and the more control over your consciousness you get, the more external scales, defining "whAt is right and whAt is wrong" for you, drop off. One by one. Look, what happens: :)) you move on the Path, the level of your enlightment increases, your understanding increases, your skill to see things correctly (without illusions, impartially) increases, but the scale becomes more and more subjective! :)) In other words, external scales drop off one by one and the only internal one remains, the only "right or wrong". :))))) A koan? :))) "To see more fairly one has to evaluate more subjectively" :))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

You will ask: "So how to make it clear?" I will say: "And what about courage?" :)))))) - Didn't you forget that this is the path for those with remarkable abilities? Without crutches and supports? :)))) "Courage without crutches and supports" is another aspect of "the mastery means being able to dance on the whirlwinds of emptiness"!... :)))))))))) Do you understand?

But this is not enough! :))) In fact, if you move correctly, you flow together with the world's soul. :))) Either you want it, or God wants it, or everything develops this way by itself :))) - it's indistinguishable! :))) What is confluence with the world's soul? It means that you cannot do anything "another way, than". Understand? :))) The supreme form of liberation is equal to the supreme form of slavery! :))))) A koan? :))))) But it is all so, if - read attentively! - you consider koans as exotic puzzles, puzzles are considered by intellect, intellect is the basis of the "european consciousness", and what you see depends on the basis from which you look at it. The thesis "the supreme form of liberation is equal to the supreme form of slavery" is arranged on the principle "circle is equal to triangle", that is why it is a paradox. But there! - there is "one more dimension". :))) And there it sounds this way: "Of course, all projections equal each other when using, for example a scale of "mainness" - none of them can be called the main one! :))) or, for example, using the scale "whose projection?" - all these are cone projections, they are all equal in this, but they are not equal to cube projections, which, in their turn, are equal to each other when using the scale "whose projection?" - only when using this scale! (By the way, the phrase "when using this scale" (and in no other way) means "Truth is concrete!" - it's Lenin's favourite statement, but nobody understood him... By the way, I value Marx and Lenin only a little less than Hui-Neng) :))) - but they are neither equal to sphere projections (only using this! scale), nor to each other (when using another scale! for example, "shape")" - I am sure that you will understand me! :)))

A koan is a projection of a "real" object-situation-element of life to a wrong ("plane") consciousness platform. :))) A koan is not a puzzle!... It's a situation (almost any situation!):))), described by someone seeing it in the space in the language of those living (and seeing) in the plane. For those living in the plane it appears to be a puzzle. Sometimes they (those who live in the plane) invent their own plane puzzles, which they call koans and offer them to everyone. The "plane" ones cannot distinguish a koan from a "koan", a true aphorism from a false one, a true master from a false one - it's beyond their capabibility. For the one who sees in the space, it's not a problem. :))))

Klein klein@zen.ru

Scary stories

In a store.

I was in a store, and tried to control my thoughts some time, filtering out the "useless" and at the same time concentrating on what I was doing. After 5-7 minutes I unexpectedly smiled, then again and again, until my suspiciously pleasant smirky smile began to attract attention of the disturbed public, because it was obviously contrasting with the existing opinion of my fellow-citizens about the normal quantity of smirks per hour under the conditions of uneasy political situation in our country. :))) In general, people looked at me as at a "happy idiot", probably suffering of envy in their impotent attempts to find a motivation for such inappropriate and obviously abusive intentions to change the usual face configuration. In one man's eyes I obviously read "look, I'll smile you to death right now!" - this unusual formula caused an explosion of foreign thoughts in my mind and my smile disappeared by itself, which caused a primitive triumphant grimace on the man's face. He got what he wanted, that rascal! :))))

In fact, I've made some attempts to get rid of needless foreign thoughts some time ealier today, but it proved to be SO FUCKING DIFFICULT to watch myself! It is like walking with a dog - it either runs away to smell some kind of shit, or needs to piss, or gets entangled in its lead, and if you follow it without pulling it up, then you are going to croak yourself. In the begining it seemed to me SIMPLY unreal, because all I could do was watching huge layers of crud which alternated with my belated thoughts like "Oh, gosh! What have I been thinking about for 15 minutes already? I was going to control it, to catch myself by the tail". Then gradually I managed to catch myself by the tail more and more often, later this turned into "tails cleanups", and the final and culmination stage was expressed in inventing a new formula "keeping my hand on the tail". After that I began to smile to all living beings and even to that man from the store. :))))))

Wet Shoes ws69@mail.ru

Homework

Exercise #4 "The Basic Complex of Exercises for a Zen-thinking person" (to do every day)

Do not knit your brow. Do not stoop. Don't stand in the way. Don't kick one who stands in your way.

Report

* * *

To the Exercise #3 "The Cat" (ZenHelp-6)

Sergey Kondratuk kindrat@mail.ru The cat thinks that we are, in a certain sense, members of one family, and therefore we should take care of each other. Anyway, when he catches a mouse he brings it to me (so that I could refresh myself :).

Dealer steelsun@chat.ru I asked my cat about God. :)) Well, you wrote about the cat in Zen Help. :)) The cat said nothing, looked at me and mewed. :)

Sergij Karjakin sfinks@au.ru He doesn't care... He is Zen-thinking.

Alexandr Romashov ar_mymb@mail.ru He doesn't think he's a God, he thinks he's a master. Master and God are different things.

Beginner daniel@sochi.ru Actually we are both Gods of equal power. It's just a pleasure for me to feed him, and it's a pleasure for to get food from me.

To the reader

All the best to you! Kl. :))

klein@zen.ru

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