No description of 'reality' will ever completely match 'reality' as it is. Reality can only be experienced fully when it is experienced directly.
I suppose the/a gateway to experiencing reality directly is zazen. Even when we are living in reality, our experience gets clouded by thoughts, distractions, fears, assumptions, disruptions, etc... Various teachers/masters may have ways of describing 'it' - the direct experience of reality - that are more successful for a particular student/seeker than another.
A teacher that says 'yes, I can definitely get you there' however, is contrary to the thesis that 'there' can't be completely described. Best to approach such a teacher with caution. A teacher that says 'this is what it looks like to me, but for you it may be different' seems to be advertising more truthfully.
We all who are curious about these matters have the tools to get there - experience reality directly - on our own, but we might not yet have the ability/skill to do so. Someone who has been 'traveling' to that state prior to our journey, or who abides in that state, and who can speak to us in a way that we each, individually, can hear, is a tremendous time saver. If we get nothing but confusion from a teacher, drop them like a hot rock.
If a teacher appears to be antithetical to where you posit you should be headed, drop them - maybe. Check carefully whether your own sh&t might be clouding your judgement.
'There', in fact, is nowhere. We are all sitting in reality as it is. The 'trick' is to drop various forms of mental noise to see it.
A teacher that says 'yes, I can definitely get you there' however, is contrary to the thesis that 'there' can't be completely described. Best to approach such a teacher with caution. A teacher that says 'this is what it looks like to me, but for you it may be different' seems to be advertising more truthfully.
We all who are curious about these matters have the tools to get there - experience reality directly - on our own, but we might not yet have the ability/skill to do so. Someone who has been 'traveling' to that state prior to our journey, or who abides in that state, and who can speak to us in a way that we each, individually, can hear, is a tremendous time saver. If we get nothing but confusion from a teacher, drop them like a hot rock.
If a teacher appears to be antithetical to where you posit you should be headed, drop them - maybe. Check carefully whether your own sh&t might be clouding your judgement.
'There', in fact, is nowhere. We are all sitting in reality as it is. The 'trick' is to drop various forms of mental noise to see it.
Another key thesis is we have the very aspect (nature) already available (within us) to see reality directly (the 'buddhadharma') without the relativism of right-wrong, strong-weak, rich-poor, smart-stupid, evil-kind, etc... coloring what is in front of us.
Arguments over precepts, particularly the Buddhist Precepts cannot be helpful because arguments are a focus on right-wrong relativism.
It simply cannot matter what someone else says. Words do not change 'it' (reality as it is).
There seems to be a very few key points of theory about this game of Zen Buddhism, and those few key points have had thousands and thousands of pages written about them.
The points as I see them today:
"We dance around in a ring and suppose, but the secret sits in the middle and knows."
... and good lasagna is a wonderful thing.
Arguments over precepts, particularly the Buddhist Precepts cannot be helpful because arguments are a focus on right-wrong relativism.
It simply cannot matter what someone else says. Words do not change 'it' (reality as it is).
There seems to be a very few key points of theory about this game of Zen Buddhism, and those few key points have had thousands and thousands of pages written about them.
The points as I see them today:
- There is a reality here and now that we don't typically experience directly.
- It is neither good nor bad, it just is...now.
- It is clouded by a habit most people have of relativism/idealism.
- Description can not capture it, only direct experience.
- Sitting zazen is a practice which facilitates experiencing 'it' directly.
- With sitting (zazen) we can see how busy our intellect is categorizing and dreaming of the past and future.
- [the map is now more murky]
- With practice, somehow, with time or quite suddenly, this veil through which we normally filter 'it' drops away, and we can be in reality as it is.
- Then we must fart, or burp, or do other mundane daily tasks... take a piss....'it' ain't a fairy tale, it's just reality.
"We dance around in a ring and suppose, but the secret sits in the middle and knows."
... and good lasagna is a wonderful thing.
-L
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