A Private Word

It seems to me important that just as Christianity separated its self from Judaism, Zen must separate its self from Buddhism. All living things are born from another, and the emergence of Transcendental Awareness from the exquisite Hindu traditions is just as dramatic as the emergence of Christianity from its historical culture. The lives of those that gave all to the reception of the ultimate reality of being can not be trivialized, but the achievement of that reality must inevitably be trivialized, for it is seldom found that creature which can venture into the realm of the the high truth of its own existence.

The Zen of the Patriarchs is the lore of an awakening unprecedented, but not unheralded. The quest for the impersonal recognition of the course and the core of individual mind had been pressing into the terra incognito of existence from the dawn of consciousness when that particular individual, after many strivings and privations, sat down with a will and woke up.

Looking at philosophy from a respectful distant, and looking at even the finest fruits of belief in its multifarious forms, there is nothing that speaks to Transcendental Awareness in other than the terms of belief.


The Buddha was not a believer.

Zen

One of the many difficulties with Zen is that it can not be popularized. Even a thousand years ago poseurs and want-to-be chaps were turned away from the gates of Zen sanctuaries. As with all things mediocrity worms it's way and so even into Zen. The Enlightenment of the Buddha was the awakening of the universe to its Self, not some human realizing something-or-other about something-or-other. The trivialization of Enlightenment by considering enlightenment as a "human" phenomenon is a tragedy, and an opening for mediocrity that all life on earth must suffer for.

The Enlightenment of the Buddha is the foundation for the birth of Transcendental Awareness as a criteria of judgment on a level that would be recognized anywhere in the Universe as Just, but instead of Enlightenment we have "enlightenment" and creatures remain trapped, but with a new complacency, within their humanity.

Zen this, Zen that.........it may make for a catchy title, but as concerning the Zen of the patriarchs.......Pshaw!

What Sets Zen Apart: the tyranny of concepts

Think of a basket. And then think of what a basket might hold.

Mind is the basket. Conceptualizations are its contents.


The true essence of Zen is the basket evaporating into the fabric of existence.



Where are concepts to take hold?

Narrative and Zen: a conundrum

The ultimate nature of Zen harbors no narrative.

If we boil away the narratives of any ideology that ideology no longer exists.