Also, I love the way you showed us the object in the sky and always mention aliens in a humorous yet serious way. Nice your dad is watching. And liking. I love the way you share personal things like that and the way Ziggy has become so part of the videos and whatever he is doing brings us right into the present moment . I love the naturalness of these videos and the way you always come across as an ordinary guy just chatting to us, yet with such profound teaching made very accessible. 🙏🏽
I thought that was an excellent talk, especially for those who don't know anything about Zen -- informative and entertaining! And, to your credit, you were distracted by aliens in the middle and were still able to continue. I couldn't do that! Incidentally, I've always been confused whenever people take the Buddha's life story literally, since, given that his mother died giving birth to him, I find it very difficult to believe that he grew up having no idea what death was. Good luck on Wednesday! You'll do great!
On a more serious note, I realized during this video that I was confusing the Bodhisattva vow with something more akin to something like the heroes journey described by Joseph Campbell. Like the Bodhisattva was answering the call to adventure with the idea that that adventure would end and eventually the world would be saved. It's probably a very linear western perspective. When you pointed out that that path was essentially unending the scope of that gave me instant spiritual vertigo. It would be like Obi Wan telling Luke Skywalker that he needed to participate in a fight against the Empire that they could never win.
Great answer. Ive been practicing Zen for 45 years and I typically reply...Zen does not formally ask these questions, as Zen is a training method for the mind and not a religion. Best Wishes
Zen is Zen Buddhism, which is a religious tradition. Not a tradition based on belief though, which is where Buddhism differs fundamentally from all other religions.
This is an effective summary. I mean, with a time limit there’s only so much one can cover (been there myself). Service Now can afford to pay you - so good job! :-)
Hi Brad. From a storytelling perspective I think that your background and indeed current participation in punk rock is compelling and entertaining. One of the things that has always appealed to me is how that background really demystifies Buddhism. It’s also kind of entertaining, which I think for this type of corporate audience would be worthwhile to include. Last thing, in my experience with these kinds of guest speaker presentations the audiences really only have the capacity to take away one or two bullet points. I think that “don’t be a jerk,” or some version of it, and demystifying Buddhism could be an effective couple of bullet points to leave with your audience. Just a couple of thoughts... Good luck!
Zazen isn’t like a thermometer where the temperature slowly rises: “Just a little more … yeah … that’s it! Now, I’ve got satori!” Zazen never becomes anything special, no matter how long you practice. If it becomes something special, you must have a screw lose somewhere. Kōdō Sawaki-roshi
Hi Brad, so good you are being invited to give the talk in the corporate world. I think it would be good to mention that eventually the Buddha remembered a childlike state when as a very young child, he had just simply sat still and so he decided to drop all the effort and that’s when enlightenment occurred? I also think you could speak a little slower as it’s a lot for people new to it to take in. Lastly, I think it would be great to guide them to do one minute of zazen at the very beginning so they got the feel for it and tuned in as their minds will probably be full of lots of work related stuff. Good luck and I hope you get more gigs like this and awaken more and more people.
Where did you get this story (about the childlike state)? I vaguely remember hearing that Siddharta recalled daydreaming as a child whilst watching farmers harvesting hay on a hot day - and thought that this was a good attitude for meditation - but I have never been able to find the source for this story.
"An Introduction to Zen Buddhism" was my first book about zen. Several days ago I read an other his work and for me today is the first time when you mention Suzuki. Interesting.
Brad, can you reflect upon the implications of extraterrestrials as a part of or expansion and understanding of the term “Sangha”? This is a relevant topic considering recent developments. Thank you!
(on what you said about Zen & god, death) Reminds me of Wittgenstein's 'whereof one cannot speak, one must pass over in silence'. Tbh the more I learn about Zen the more I think some of the more radical/unorthodox 'western' thinkers of last few hundred years - Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Nietzsche, and Hume come to mind - were very close to Buddhism in some philosophical senses. Hume in particular had his own version of 'no self'.
I was reading something by Sartre the other day and I was struck by the fact that his ideas also were approaching some Buddhist concepts without naming them as such.
david hume stayed at a jesuit monastery in france and had contact with a jesuit missionary returning from asia, western philosophy from that point is very influenced by buddhist ideas, just like 18th and 19th century poetry was influenced by islam/sufi philosophical and religious ideas are surprisingly easily and quickly transferred across culture buddhism itself was formed in part by the greek philosophy that came with the greco-bactrian kingdoms christianity is heavily indebted to the ancient egyptian religion, islam is a form of nestorian christianity and got substantially re-invented in the nineteenth/twentieth century, endless circles of influence weaving back and forth and a testimony to the continual mutability of cultural ideas that don't appear to be mutable to those living within a generation
I'm not sure the Buddha ever said that all life is suffering. What was recorded in the Dhammacakka Sutta (the first discourse of the Buddha) is: "Birth is suffering, aging is suffering, sickness is suffering, death is suffering, sorrow and lamentation, pain, grief and despair are suffering, association with the unloved or unpleasant condition is suffering, separation from the beloved or pleasant condition is suffering, not to get what one wants is suffering. In brief, the five aggregates of attachment are suffering." That sounds like a lot of suffering but I think there may be some stuff that isn't suffering.
@@HardcoreZen The text I have says, "This, oh bikkhus, is the Noble Truth of suffering (dukkha)..." and then gives the examples. I know some people interpret this to mean that all life is suffering or at least I've seen it put that way by various teachers. Thanissaro Bhikkhu disagrees as does Ajahn Sumedho.
Even what makes us “happy” is ultimately tinged with suffering because it will inevitably be lost. This is the “suffering of change”. And I believe dukkha is also translated as “stress” and “dissatisfaction”..
Of course, Shakyamuni's four chariot rides do not appear in the Pali Sutras. Instead a mythical buddha from a previous kalpa had those experiences. Check the Long Discourses or ask Stephen Batchelor for verification.
I think this is pretty good. 4NT/8FP are the foundations. Non dualism is unique to mahayana but definitely the cool mind blower. I guess the only other thing is Zen's extreme emphasis on practice in daily life, far less scholastic than theravada or early mahayana. Would you be willing to talk about the trikaya concept? It seems incredibly important and foundational with the dharmakaya basically being universal existence or "god" but it gets pushed off as an advanced concept and rarely given a thorough explanation.
Shikantaza is the main principle because you summarized that everything else doesn't matter. So, it is like "just being" in most logical enlightenment philosophies. 😅 And that was probably a drone just being there in the sky 🤣
I don't think it was a drone. I couldn't hold the phone/camera steady so it looks like it's moving around a lot. Actually it moved very slowly in a straight line all the way across the sky. I've never seen a drone moving completely straight like that. It moved like a satellite. But I've never seen a satellite in broad daylight.
Maybe address the difficult question of why freedom from reincarnation is seen as the bees knees? What is it that stops reincarnating? The answer probably being the self (and its exigent suffering). And can this concept be tied to Zazen - which is in some way also a certain freedom from the self?
@@HardcoreZen OK - as I was trying to come up with ways of differentiating between zen and other religions - It occured to me that surrendering to God's will was also a certain freedom from the self.
I'm no expert, but if it was at morning or evening twilight, i think the UFO could have been the ISS. I think, i read somewhere, that you can see it at that time, because the sky is not too bright and the ISS still reflects enough light. I saw it once and seemed to move slow, because of its huge distance. There are websites that help you calculate where the ISS was at a specific time. Search for ISSTracker. EDIT: If i used that ISSTracker tool correctly, you should've been able to see the ISS in LA on May 23rd between 8:51pm and 9:01pm. Uh! May, 23rd 2021 .. is there a date more illuminati than this one? hahaha
Can you do a video on the accusations that Dogan didn't go to china, or even speak Chinese, that he plagiarized others, and lied about Rujing's teachings?
there's good evidence he went to china, studied with rujing, however rujing never gave him transmission, dogen pretty well says this himself somewhere because transmission was really certification to be an abbot and always given in the context of being appointed to that position and rujing was dead against it so the soto transmission obsession actually comes from dogen himself and his supposed transmission "document" is a "medieval forgery" "plagiarism" is really a modern concept, dogen certainly was taking from many many sources but i agree with ewk in this respect, that he did pretty much create his own religion why dogen is an anathema to r|zen is that he is an unabashed mystic visionary and this is completely unpalatable to the hordes of the new "reading zennists" now infesting the web most people here actually don't get that there's more to zen than reading, that it is a lifelong process of discovery about the real nature of the world and really that's the only rule
@@edgepixel8467 it will be interesting if it ever "takes" in an historical sense, that in several hundred years there will be a "ewk" sect of zen, anti-meditation and based only on the chinese records, i think there could well be
May I put in: As far´s I know, there are no centrally coordinated Dôgen-studies, although he is a figure of historic interest. But: Nihil est desperandum! Let´s keep on trying! For some more hermeneutics, these points might be relevant to consider: 1) There are several indicators that Dôgen indeed visited South China via the passage by ship (which was quite a dangerous enterprise). But then, the Marco-Polo effect may set in: His reports may be a virtuous mixture of first-person experiences, hear-say, and more or less pious fiction. It should be hard to tell exactly, until new sources, resp. evidences are discovered. 2) Especially in Southern China, there exist markedly different regional dialects even today. So it is very probable that Dôgen had problems to communicate with people there. His knowledge of classic Chinese (or the refined Kyôto-dialect of his mother-tongue in Japan) may have helped just a little bit while directly talking with people, even inside the Sangha. A more common general language just began to develope at this time (via Báihuà-literature, public theatre-performances, etc.). 3) Some authors in the field suggest that one of the keyphrases Dôgen Kigen proposed regarding Zazen-practice was the result of a misunderstanding: While Master Rújìng might just have admonished a certain monk, who was sitting next to Dôgen, to take his practice seriously and not only to doze away during the actual meditation-session, Dôgen interpreted the words as an inspirational general message: "Shinjin datsuraku!" (engl.: "Cast off body-and-mind!"). Anyway, such creative interpretation was not unusual during Dôgen´s times. Sure, it had to follow some rules, like: Never openly question the Classics! Avoid politics as much as possible! And so forth. However, there was no such thing as a copyright-law, or rules for proper citation. Moreover, memes, like that one of the non-ego[-self], tended to weaken self-conscious to a degree that many people were not mentally equipped to draw a sharp line between different inner and outer personalities/players (but there was a strong feeling of "communitas", with powerful tendencies towards a rather mundane "forgetting of the self", a merging with the "hyper-subject" of the community, and taking on of a collective identity, which, e.g., mass-psychology is talking about). For example, one may wonder: Did Dôgen identify himself with the Buddhas (that is, with those supra-beings, which can only communicate among themselves), or saw he himself as a mediator, conscious of the principal flaws (still unavoidably) intrinsic to his teachings; or was he undecided regarding his "wake status", yet rather convinced of his "special mission" (to bring the really true Dharma to Japan, then seen as located at the fringes of civilisation, that is)? Furthermore, while "enchantment" was still very strong (=> Max Weber on general mental dispositions in pre-modern times), visions were often regared as more real as real wake-consciousness impressions (Richard Wilhelm spoke of "objective subjectivism", Wendy Doniger of "subjective materialism" as the related basic epistemological stance), and so on, and so forth. That all makes historical hermeneutics a difficult task.
It might be possible to save some valuable minutes by just describing the core principles as they are, instead of using the "not this" formula. What is the most essential core in this case? What is in the heart of Zen Buddhism?
Nice pun! Some call this loose alliance of Far Eastern meditative currents also the "Heart-" or "Buddha-Heart-School". There seems to be some explanative value in this designation, if one gives it some deeper thoughts. Indeed, it has been done for centuries by people from all walks of life in the Far East, and prominently, e.g., by the "Dao-school" of Neo-Confucianism, and the famous Míng-time scholar Wáng Yángmíng; they tried both, "entrance by [scholarly] reasoning", and "entrance by [samadhi-]practice". One can meditate (lit.: "go in the midst of it"), for example, on the h e a r t as * a vital organ, * the central seat of the body-mind-soul, * an "agency" of the Daoist´s "cosmic bellow", * an exemplar of the "total dynamism" of voiding/filling or being-time/time-being, * an univerasl human core concept, integrating emotion-volition-cognition "bottom up" and "top down", and so forth. These, of course, are only some personal suggestions...
that's actually a "directive" and offensive in the context, he's got a problem, he's doing a public talk and seeking feedback, how helpful is what you wrote ? its demeaning of him, like he has no skill in sorting useful from bad advice ?
@@osip7315 That's a correct statement. Mine though, was more of a self-ironic musing on the ambiguous position of advice along the scale of insight-usefulness-futility-uselessness-foolishness. People have offered a lot of advice, some of which I disagree with profusely. And ultimately, Brad was invited there, and we watch his channel, because he is Brad; none of us can improve on that. My realization was that "do this, do that" are complete crap in this context, maybe even counter-productive.
Hi Brad I was uncomfortable with your talk as I think you are trying to fit too much into just 10 minutes, but what the hell do I know you probably have done more hours in sesshin that I have in my entire practice, but here goes my advice anyways. I keep going back to two sayings: One from someone (I think I heard it first from James Ford:) "sit down, shut up, pay attention", the second from Jane Hirshfield: " Everything is connected, everything changes, pay attention" then riff off of that for the rest of the 10 minutes, keep it simple your an old bass player just riff off those!
If it was a drone it would have to have been one that was flying really high. Definitely not one of those toys people play with sometimes. And it moved slowly and in a straight line, which I haven't seen drones do. If I'd seen the same thing at night I'd suspect a satellite. I've seen those in the sky before, but they're only visible (as far as I know) when it's dark out and the visibility is really good (unlike Los Angeles).
I think you are trying to cover too much, and as a result you cover nothing well. For 10 minutes, just drop the part about Buddha's life. For the rest - start with your own advice "Sit down and shut up" and "Don't be a jerk" and work yourself backwards from zazen to the noble truths, the precepts and not being a belief system. And then go back to zazen. After all, the core principles of Zen Buddhism are: Sit down. And shut up.
I disagree on the statement about god. When you say "you can't describe god so why even bother", that is a theist statement but Zen or Buddhism is not theist. You can't describe god means that there is god but you just can't describe it. That is very far from what Buddhism teaches. Buddha did not deal it in that way. Refusing to talk about whether god exists or not and whether the world is created by such entity is not the same as saying you can't describe god.
@@HardcoreZen it doesn't really arise as a question because of buddhism's origins in greek philosophy rather it has a pantheon of gods/supernatural figures and an abstract philosophical notion of some "final cause" for being, pretty much what was is the case for ancient greece, an interesting blend to say the least
brad, nobody is interested in that stuff, its too dry, you want to come up with your own questions, you take them. rather than they take you when you give a talk, you need the audience to attach to you, not some theological system that's squarely in the public domain maybe they are paying you ? are they even covering your transport costs ?
Ziggy is on duty guarding the Gateless Gate! :D
Also, I love the way you showed us the object in the sky and always mention aliens in a humorous yet serious way. Nice your dad is watching. And liking.
I love the way you share personal things like that and the way Ziggy has become so part of the videos and whatever he is doing brings us right into the present moment . I love the naturalness of these videos and the way you always come across as an ordinary guy just chatting to us, yet with such profound teaching made very accessible. 🙏🏽
Thank you!
I thought that was an excellent talk, especially for those who don't know anything about Zen -- informative and entertaining! And, to your credit, you were distracted by aliens in the middle and were still able to continue. I couldn't do that!
Incidentally, I've always been confused whenever people take the Buddha's life story literally, since, given that his mother died giving birth to him, I find it very difficult to believe that he grew up having no idea what death was. Good luck on Wednesday! You'll do great!
Thank you, Brad. Well done! This presentation is great for beginners and experienced folks too.
Thanks!
Just once I want to see you post a video where you wordlessly hold up ziggy and smile and let the understanding flow.
I'll work on it!
On a more serious note, I realized during this video that I was confusing the Bodhisattva vow with something more akin to something like the heroes journey described by Joseph Campbell. Like the Bodhisattva was answering the call to adventure with the idea that that adventure would end and eventually the world would be saved. It's probably a very linear western perspective. When you pointed out that that path was essentially unending the scope of that gave me instant spiritual vertigo. It would be like Obi Wan telling Luke Skywalker that he needed to participate in a fight against the Empire that they could never win.
Star Wars would have been so much better with this plot line 😁
Great answer. Ive been practicing Zen for 45 years and I typically reply...Zen does not formally ask these questions, as Zen is a training method for the mind and not a religion. Best Wishes
Zen is Zen Buddhism, which is a religious tradition. Not a tradition based on belief though, which is where Buddhism differs fundamentally from all other religions.
"Begin to reason about it, and at once you fall into error"... Thank you!
This is an effective summary. I mean, with a time limit there’s only so much one can cover (been there myself). Service Now can afford to pay you - so good job! :-)
Hi Brad. From a storytelling perspective I think that your background and indeed current participation in punk rock is compelling and entertaining. One of the things that has always appealed to me is how that background really demystifies Buddhism. It’s also kind of entertaining, which I think for this type of corporate audience would be worthwhile to include. Last thing, in my experience with these kinds of guest speaker presentations the audiences really only have the capacity to take away one or two bullet points. I think that “don’t be a jerk,” or some version of it, and demystifying Buddhism could be an effective couple of bullet points to leave with your audience. Just a couple of thoughts... Good luck!
Mazel tov for the dad action
Zazen isn’t like a thermometer where the temperature slowly rises: “Just a little more … yeah … that’s it! Now, I’ve got satori!” Zazen never becomes anything special, no matter how long you practice. If it becomes something special, you must have a screw lose somewhere.
Kōdō Sawaki-roshi
Nice.
Very cool UFO Brad! Very Zen approach! Haha.
It's good. Just don't get roped into teaching zazen by this corporation so their employees can feel good about being overworked and underpaid. ;-)
I won't!
Hi Brad, so good you are being invited to give the talk in the corporate world. I think it would be good to mention that eventually the Buddha remembered a childlike state when as a very young child, he had just simply sat still and so he decided to drop all the effort and that’s when enlightenment occurred? I also think you could speak a little slower as it’s a lot for people new to it to take in. Lastly, I think it would be great to guide them to do one minute of zazen at the very beginning so they got the feel for it and tuned in as their minds will probably be full of lots of work related stuff. Good luck and I hope you get more gigs like this and awaken more and more people.
Where did you get this story (about the childlike state)? I vaguely remember hearing that Siddharta recalled daydreaming as a child whilst watching farmers harvesting hay on a hot day - and thought that this was a good attitude for meditation - but I have never been able to find the source for this story.
Nishijima Roshi once described enlightenment as returning to the mind you had as a small child. I'll see if i can work that in somehow. Thanks!
"An Introduction to Zen Buddhism" was my first book about zen. Several days ago I read an other his work and for me today is the first time when you mention Suzuki. Interesting.
Brad, can you reflect upon the implications of extraterrestrials as a part of or expansion and understanding of the term “Sangha”? This is a relevant topic considering recent developments. Thank you!
(on what you said about Zen & god, death) Reminds me of Wittgenstein's 'whereof one cannot speak, one must pass over in silence'.
Tbh the more I learn about Zen the more I think some of the more radical/unorthodox 'western' thinkers of last few hundred years - Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Nietzsche, and Hume come to mind - were very close to Buddhism in some philosophical senses. Hume in particular had his own version of 'no self'.
There's also Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, a Christian mystic of the 6th century. He had some pretty Zen ideas about God.
I was reading something by Sartre the other day and I was struck by the fact that his ideas also were approaching some Buddhist concepts without naming them as such.
david hume stayed at a jesuit monastery in france and had contact with a jesuit missionary returning from asia, western philosophy from that point is very influenced by buddhist ideas, just like 18th and 19th century poetry was influenced by islam/sufi
philosophical and religious ideas are surprisingly easily and quickly transferred across culture
buddhism itself was formed in part by the greek philosophy that came with the greco-bactrian kingdoms
christianity is heavily indebted to the ancient egyptian religion, islam is a form of nestorian christianity and got substantially re-invented in the nineteenth/twentieth century, endless circles of influence weaving back and forth and a testimony to the continual mutability of cultural ideas that don't appear to be mutable to those living within a generation
@@TukenNuken and Meister Eckhart (influenced by the guy you mentionned)
4:39 it's aliens! 4:42 Oh... you already know...
good job! (and it looked like a plastic shopping bag from here...)
I'm not sure the Buddha ever said that all life is suffering. What was recorded in the Dhammacakka Sutta (the first discourse of the Buddha) is: "Birth is suffering, aging is suffering, sickness is suffering, death is suffering, sorrow and lamentation, pain, grief and despair are suffering, association with the unloved or unpleasant condition is suffering, separation from the beloved or pleasant condition is suffering, not to get what one wants is suffering. In brief, the five aggregates of attachment are suffering." That sounds like a lot of suffering but I think there may be some stuff that isn't suffering.
Didn't he say all life is dukkha and then enumerate those as examples of dukkha?
@@HardcoreZen The text I have says, "This, oh bikkhus, is the Noble Truth of suffering (dukkha)..." and then gives the examples. I know some people interpret this to mean that all life is suffering or at least I've seen it put that way by various teachers. Thanissaro Bhikkhu disagrees as does Ajahn Sumedho.
Even what makes us “happy” is ultimately tinged with suffering because it will inevitably be lost. This is the “suffering of change”.
And I believe dukkha is also translated as “stress” and “dissatisfaction”..
@@Composer19691 This is true.
@@HardcoreZen I think what may be meant is that life is suffering except Nirvana. So there's a way out.
Of course, Shakyamuni's four chariot rides do not appear in the Pali Sutras. Instead a mythical buddha from a previous kalpa had those experiences. Check the Long Discourses or ask Stephen Batchelor for verification.
I know that. But it's part of the traditional story.
I think this is pretty good. 4NT/8FP are the foundations. Non dualism is unique to mahayana but definitely the cool mind blower. I guess the only other thing is Zen's extreme emphasis on practice in daily life, far less scholastic than theravada or early mahayana.
Would you be willing to talk about the trikaya concept? It seems incredibly important and foundational with the dharmakaya basically being universal existence or "god" but it gets pushed off as an advanced concept and rarely given a thorough explanation.
Oh boy! That's high level stuff. I could talk about it, but it wouldn't be appropriate for the audience this talk is intended for.
@@HardcoreZen oh for sure, i meant in a different video if you're up for it.
Finally a good recording of a ufo sight
Shikantaza is the main principle because you summarized that everything else doesn't matter. So, it is like "just being" in most logical enlightenment philosophies. 😅 And that was probably a drone just being there in the sky 🤣
I don't think it was a drone. I couldn't hold the phone/camera steady so it looks like it's moving around a lot. Actually it moved very slowly in a straight line all the way across the sky. I've never seen a drone moving completely straight like that. It moved like a satellite. But I've never seen a satellite in broad daylight.
@@HardcoreZeninteresting! 😊 Something that SpaceX is testing maybe? Aliens would be nice though. 😊
@@ShermanChin Could be Space X. Or maybe the aliens have hijacked Space X!!!
@@HardcoreZen First to start the "Aliens have hijacked SpaceX” conspiracy theory! 😅
Maybe address the difficult question of why freedom from reincarnation is seen as the bees knees? What is it that stops reincarnating? The answer probably being the self (and its exigent suffering). And can this concept be tied to Zazen - which is in some way also a certain freedom from the self?
That's interesting stuff, but for the purpose of the talk I'm giving on Wednesday it's too much detail, I think.
@@HardcoreZen OK - as I was trying to come up with ways of differentiating between zen and other religions - It occured to me that surrendering to God's will was also a certain freedom from the self.
(Also, outsider though i am, i thought it an effective summation.)
I knew it! Aliens are Zen practitioners!!!
Definitely!
Im not saying it was zenliens but it was zenliens.
Beings from the imaginal world/realm. I thought you were just goofing on us and pointing at the moon at first
My guess is a government surveillance drone, they can fly very high.
Oh my!
⭐️A.
Serenity now. Insanity later.
I'm no expert, but if it was at morning or evening twilight, i think the UFO could have been the ISS. I think, i read somewhere, that you can see it at that time, because the sky is not too bright and the ISS still reflects enough light. I saw it once and seemed to move slow, because of its huge distance. There are websites that help you calculate where the ISS was at a specific time. Search for ISSTracker. EDIT: If i used that ISSTracker tool correctly, you should've been able to see the ISS in LA on May 23rd between 8:51pm and 9:01pm.
Uh! May, 23rd 2021 .. is there a date more illuminati than this one? hahaha
What is an ISS?
@@saralawlor780 International Space Station
Looked liked the ISS to me.
Lol reminding your dad to call by posting a youtube video
Most def a drone. Probably a dji phantom
The ufo was there for Ziggy.
Can you do a video on the accusations that Dogan didn't go to china, or even speak Chinese, that he plagiarized others, and lied about Rujing's teachings?
If I thought there was any evidence of that I would. But I have yet to see any evidence.
Somebody has spent time on r/zen, I see.
there's good evidence he went to china, studied with rujing, however rujing never gave him transmission, dogen pretty well says this himself somewhere because transmission was really certification to be an abbot and always given in the context of being appointed to that position and rujing was dead against it so the soto transmission obsession actually comes from dogen himself and his supposed transmission "document" is a "medieval forgery"
"plagiarism" is really a modern concept, dogen certainly was taking from many many sources but i agree with ewk in this respect, that he did pretty much create his own religion
why dogen is an anathema to r|zen is that he is an unabashed mystic visionary and this is completely unpalatable to the hordes of the new "reading zennists" now infesting the web
most people here actually don't get that there's more to zen than reading, that it is a lifelong process of discovery about the real nature of the world and really that's the only rule
@@edgepixel8467 it will be interesting if it ever "takes" in an historical sense, that in several hundred years there will be a "ewk" sect of zen, anti-meditation and based only on the chinese records, i think there could well be
May I put in: As far´s I know, there are no centrally coordinated Dôgen-studies, although he is a figure of historic interest. But: Nihil est desperandum! Let´s keep on trying! For some more hermeneutics, these points might be relevant to consider:
1) There are several indicators that Dôgen indeed visited South China via the passage by ship (which was quite a dangerous enterprise). But then, the Marco-Polo effect may set in: His reports may be a virtuous mixture of first-person experiences, hear-say, and more or less pious fiction. It should be hard to tell exactly, until new sources, resp. evidences are discovered.
2) Especially in Southern China, there exist markedly different regional dialects even today. So it is very probable that Dôgen had problems to communicate with people there. His knowledge of classic Chinese (or the refined Kyôto-dialect of his mother-tongue in Japan) may have helped just a little bit while directly talking with people, even inside the Sangha. A more common general language just began to develope at this time (via Báihuà-literature, public theatre-performances, etc.).
3) Some authors in the field suggest that one of the keyphrases Dôgen Kigen proposed regarding Zazen-practice was the result of a misunderstanding: While Master Rújìng might just have admonished a certain monk, who was sitting next to Dôgen, to take his practice seriously and not only to doze away during the actual meditation-session, Dôgen interpreted the words as an inspirational general message: "Shinjin datsuraku!" (engl.: "Cast off body-and-mind!"). Anyway, such creative interpretation was not unusual during Dôgen´s times. Sure, it had to follow some rules, like: Never openly question the Classics! Avoid politics as much as possible! And so forth. However, there was no such thing as a copyright-law, or rules for proper citation. Moreover, memes, like that one of the non-ego[-self], tended to weaken self-conscious to a degree that many people were not mentally equipped to draw a sharp line between different inner and outer personalities/players (but there was a strong feeling of "communitas", with powerful tendencies towards a rather mundane "forgetting of the self", a merging with the "hyper-subject" of the community, and taking on of a collective identity, which, e.g., mass-psychology is talking about).
For example, one may wonder: Did Dôgen identify himself with the Buddhas (that is, with those supra-beings, which can only communicate among themselves), or saw he himself as a mediator, conscious of the principal flaws (still unavoidably) intrinsic to his teachings; or was he undecided regarding his "wake status", yet rather convinced of his "special mission" (to bring the really true Dharma to Japan, then seen as located at the fringes of civilisation, that is)?
Furthermore, while "enchantment" was still very strong (=> Max Weber on general mental dispositions in pre-modern times), visions were often regared as more real as real wake-consciousness impressions (Richard Wilhelm spoke of "objective subjectivism", Wendy Doniger of "subjective materialism" as the related basic epistemological stance), and so on, and so forth.
That all makes historical hermeneutics a difficult task.
It might be possible to save some valuable minutes by just describing the core principles as they are, instead of using the "not this" formula. What is the most essential core in this case? What is in the heart of Zen Buddhism?
Did I use the "not this" formula?
Nice pun! Some call this loose alliance of Far Eastern meditative currents also the "Heart-" or "Buddha-Heart-School".
There seems to be some explanative value in this designation, if one gives it some deeper thoughts.
Indeed, it has been done for centuries by people from all walks of life in the Far East, and prominently, e.g., by the "Dao-school" of Neo-Confucianism, and the famous Míng-time scholar Wáng Yángmíng; they tried both, "entrance by [scholarly] reasoning", and "entrance by [samadhi-]practice".
One can meditate (lit.: "go in the midst of it"), for example, on the h e a r t as * a vital organ, * the central seat of the body-mind-soul, * an "agency" of the Daoist´s "cosmic bellow", * an exemplar of the "total dynamism" of voiding/filling or being-time/time-being, * an univerasl human core concept, integrating emotion-volition-cognition "bottom up" and "top down", and so forth. These, of course, are only some personal suggestions...
UAP, please. :)
Here’s an advice for you: don’t listen to any advice from us doofuses, including this one.
that's actually a "directive" and offensive in the context, he's got a problem, he's doing a public talk and seeking feedback, how helpful is what you wrote ? its demeaning of him, like he has no skill in sorting useful from bad advice ?
@@osip7315
That's a correct statement.
Mine though, was more of a self-ironic musing on the ambiguous position of advice along the scale of insight-usefulness-futility-uselessness-foolishness.
People have offered a lot of advice, some of which I disagree with profusely. And ultimately, Brad was invited there, and we watch his channel, because he is Brad; none of us can improve on that. My realization was that "do this, do that" are complete crap in this context, maybe even counter-productive.
@@osip7315 I think you took it a bit too seriously. It's like, "Don't tell me what not to do!". Funny, no?
@@SarahDale111 @the dark light how is "what" like don't tell me what to do ? i can't make sense of what you are saying
@@osip7315 The initial comment. It's like...telling someone not to do a thing, but you are doing that very thing. I dunno. It's nothing serious.
I'm not saying it was aliens. But it was aliens.
It must have been!
Seemed like a bit too much information to squeeze in a short time
Far out.
I think you go too fast.
That's a problem. I agree. But trying to explain the core principles of Zen Buddhism in a short time is a challenge.
and you are a great teacher but don't swell up 😎.
Have a "Like" for the Dad Shoutout! 👍🏻
is and or isn’t
Hi Brad I was uncomfortable with your talk as I think you are trying to fit too much into just 10 minutes, but what the hell do I know you probably have done more hours in sesshin that I have in my entire practice, but here goes my advice anyways. I keep going back to two sayings: One from someone (I think I heard it first from James Ford:) "sit down, shut up, pay attention", the second from Jane Hirshfield: "
Everything is connected, everything changes, pay attention" then riff off of that for the rest of the 10 minutes, keep it simple your an old bass player just riff off those!
Yes, I think that would work. I think the talk could be a bit fast and dry, trying to cram all that into a short timescale.
drone
If it was a drone it would have to have been one that was flying really high. Definitely not one of those toys people play with sometimes. And it moved slowly and in a straight line, which I haven't seen drones do. If I'd seen the same thing at night I'd suspect a satellite. I've seen those in the sky before, but they're only visible (as far as I know) when it's dark out and the visibility is really good (unlike Los Angeles).
@hardcore zen; you're the Bob Lazar of Zen..😂
It’s the ISS
I think you are trying to cover too much, and as a result you cover nothing well. For 10 minutes, just drop the part about Buddha's life. For the rest - start with your own advice "Sit down and shut up" and "Don't be a jerk" and work yourself backwards from zazen to the noble truths, the precepts and not being a belief system. And then go back to zazen.
After all, the core principles of Zen Buddhism are: Sit down. And shut up.
I disagree on the statement about god. When you say "you can't describe god so why even bother", that is a theist statement but Zen or Buddhism is not theist. You can't describe god means that there is god but you just can't describe it. That is very far from what Buddhism teaches. Buddha did not deal it in that way. Refusing to talk about whether god exists or not and whether the world is created by such entity is not the same as saying you can't describe god.
What does Buddhism teach about God?
@@HardcoreZen
it doesn't really arise as a question because of buddhism's origins in greek philosophy
rather it has a pantheon of gods/supernatural figures and an abstract philosophical notion of some "final cause" for being, pretty much what was is the case for ancient greece, an interesting blend to say the least
brad, nobody is interested in that stuff, its too dry, you want to come up with your own questions, you take them. rather than they take you
when you give a talk, you need the audience to attach to you, not some theological system that's squarely in the public domain
maybe they are paying you ? are they even covering your transport costs ?