Harmonious Emptiness

In line with what Steve said, I think one of the more ground-level meanings of this story is in regards to envy: don't worry about trying to be a grand master, just do YOU in where you are. I think we could post the next one? We can always come back to this along the way..

I guess some might say that this is the first chapter in order to say: don't forget about this lesson when you read these stories. Their meanings can be perceived differently depending on what kind of bird is reading them.

lol

thanks for the info. Sounds like a zodiac reading chart that maybe explains all the elemental interactions, with perhaps some connection to I Ching? I thought it looked like maybe an I Ching Mandala at first glance too.. Showing interactions between trigrams and the twelve animals?

According to Buddhist parlance, by force of: Anger, greed, ignorance, non-virtue, jealousy, and pride; sentient beings are born in the realms of, hell, hungry spirits, animals, humans, demi-gods, and gods, respectively. In the absence of those traits is Nibbana, literally, extinguishing the fire. The words are no less concepts than the concept in question.. so there's no question any more than there's a word or a concept.

The Sutta-Nipata http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/snp/#vagga-1 Translation by H. Saddhatissa most highly recommended. 365 Zen, edited by Jean Smith. This book has been my salvation, I owe 9 lives of sanity to the friend who left it with me. Thanks to Seth and CT for recommending Nagarjuna and Sun of Wisdom. Coming from a Zen introduction to Buddhism, these discussions got me more interested in discursive writing about Emptiness and Dependent Origination in Buddha Dharma. Joy and Generosity, Namu Amida Butsu! Kenryo Kanamatsu, Naturalness; Buddha is everywhere, Buddha is the force that turns the planets, Buddha is Love, Buddha is everyone and everything, Buddha is you Bodhicaryavatara, or, Way of the Boddhisattva, Shantideva. A Buddhist Bible, edited by Dwight Goddard, 1994 edition with forward by Aitken has some additions, like Milarepa and TTC. Important Sutras in one book, including Lankavatara, Diamond Sutra, Hui Neng. The Sutra of Hui Neng, trans. by A.F. Price and Wong Mou-lam. Roshi Taisen Deshimaru, Voice of the Valley. Teisho talks during Sesshin meditations in chronological order. Deshimaru is considered a modern Zen Patriarch, to have been tranmitted "the real Zen", "From the time of Buddha to that of Bodhidharma, seven hundred years went by, from Bodhidharma to Dogen another seven hundred years; and from Dogen to Deshimaru seven hundred years." Geshe Kelsang Gyatso: Heart of Wisdom (Seth, this is my "Sun of Wisdom" approximation.) Zen Comments on the Mumonkan; Warrior Koans; The Blue Cliff Records Swampland Flowers: Letters and Lectures from Zen Master Ta Hui Zibo, The Last Great Zen Master, trans. by J.C. Cleary Wind In the Pines by Dennis Hirota. Beautiful book on Ch'an poets, poetry, poetry writing, and tea ceremony. Zen Rock Gardening, by Abd Al-Hayy Moore At the same time, I've learned almost as much about Buddha Dharma from Taoist and Christian sources..

Please +1 this post if you are reading the haiku chain (koan intended, or not..), thank you..

Hope more come my way Foot prints behind me appear Universe to here!

Looking for the ox Low fields, grass all gone... Hoof Prints Disappearing. Shhhhhhhhh!

Makes me think about warnings against hoarding knowledge, trying to "know it all," being too self-focused confuses and clouds the mind with so many ideas trying to be "right," yet with open awareness we do not need a thought in our mind to know the right thing to do.

This is mostly true, because, mostly, good people can't be bothered with aggressive manipulation, however, anything than tries to propagate, especially en-mass, is propaganda, imo. It would be better if something was done to limit subconscious manipulations, but in the meantime it seems important to fight for the zombies minds towards good until they are cured of zombosis. If you're into that stuff, you'll salivate over this BBC documentary series: Century of the Self

The trick, I think, is to see that suffering is the cause of suffering, but also of enlightenment. It is only by suffering that we attain freedom because resistance allows us to grow. In The Vinegar Tasters, the vinegar tasted sweet to the Taoist, I think, for this reason.. Observe the dung beetle: It takes the SHIT of life for new life to be born.. We must roll up the SHIT to create new life.. So, Buddha said, "life is suffering." No shit, no life.

Twinner, I agree with you for the most part, but it should also be said that in "being the change that you want to effect in the world" there is still the need for action. There are programs to change the way kids are taught in school, and to update the curriculum, as one example. This is a positive step and probably took lots of determination, faith, and organization to implement. This is not to say that you don't think action is required, but it seems like it hasn't been overtly mentioned (if I didn't miss it). There was that experiment in Washington where 100s of people meditated and significantly reduced the crime rate for that summer. There is certainly an effect of enough people "being the change," but being the change also involves courage. Every spiritual tradition, including Christianity, values courage. It takes courage just for most people to meet up with the strangers that will help to unify more people. These things, unfortunately, don't really happen just of themselves. It takes a lot of hard work. Musicians are common victims of this mentality of "I'll just get better and better and then success will fall in my lap, that's all I have to do" when really they need an entrepreneurial spirit to make that success happen, otherwise if they're lucky they'll just get taken by a record company and left to rot. I think this is the same with activists. Like the saying "luck is just the intersection of preparation with opportunity," the opportunity doesn't always come after the preparation. That said, the powers that be are fully cognizant of "soft power" which is why they spend BILLIONS on propaganda, so even the "soft power" battle is not laying around for the first person to pick up. Fortunately, "truth hits everybody" so propaganda of good causes is stronger than for bad causes and even manages to effect the core of some of the people way up in big corporations. Wu wei is not about non-action, but about strategic action so far as doing the right thing since the right thing has a force of its own which can be worked with, where as the wrong thing goes against this force. So if your sitting in a canoe going down a stream, if you just close your eyes, your probably going to tip. It takes some strong strategic paddling to make it to the end of the stream without smashing the canoe. Notice how in Taoism, the kidneys are connected with courage as well as water. Water has the nature of change. It takes great courage to adapt every time does it not? It's scary to face the unknown. The other side of water is constantly yielding and being ineffectual. There are positive and negatives for each element. Be water, yes, but not every watery way is worthwhile every time..

It should be pointed out that Buddhists ultimately try to eliminate karma so that they can eliminate rebirth and be one with Nirvana (excuse the terminology). This is why in my earlier post I mentioned how un-virtue separates one from Tao, since the goal of Taoists is generally to be one with Tao after they have left the earth. If Taoists do not have the required virtue then they will not be able to do this. Chan and Zen Buddhism, especially, also have many writings which say that karma(accumulated demerit or habits) can be eliminated in one fowl swoop so long as one stays in their Original Mind, so I think this agrees with the Taoist view of reaching "one with the Tao" permanently without getting pulled down by retribution.

If you hound his interviewers maybe they'll put you in contact. I thought he was a professor somewhere too.. Overall I got the impression that he tries to maintain privacy

For you.. Definitely...

800th post Thank you everyone And I feel better for it!

The principles are there, knowing that non-virtue separates the spirit from Tao. Also, in speaking of Nature's force of balance and evening out everything, as seen in numerous things including yin & yang reverting to each other and how "order will prevail" by following the way of The Tao. edit: Another intersting part of karma that I've been thinking about a lot recently, is how our actions become habits. The idea of Right View in Buddhism being in regards to the right understanding of Self. When we act in egotistical ways, we continue the habit of seeing self in such way. Especially coming from a North American high school, one might realize the habit of acting in this way that has been accumulated by past actions of doing so, and so stopping to do so is the beginning of the karma wash. Taoists fully understand the errors of pride,vanity,conceit,selfishness which separate us from Tao, and they also understand the nature of habit.

go the other way don't do ev'ry thing I say grass will rise in May

Also reminds me of "temporary autonomous zones" (going back to Anarcho-Taoism); having smaller communities that exist without external controls and thus function in harmony with the Tao. They are temporary, because they have to move and move since governments are unable to let them be for fear that their functional ideal will spread, and also since once they get too big, people come in who do not share the ideals of harmony since they do not live outside of selfishness, self-gratification, ego..

Yeah, the "American revolution" (I have to put that in quotes out of respect of the fact that it didn't involve the rest of the Americas, ie, south, central, and north) was almost Anarchistic in principle, except of course for the numerous inequalities regarding race, sex, and non-Christian religions. It seems like Jefferson definitely had an Anarchist's revolutionary spirit to gain freedom for his people to live however they pleased. Where he fell short was in having his own people respect the same principles towards "outsiders" as they expected to benefit from. This may have been too "against the flow" for his time, which might have made the whole endeavor fail. Had it failed, things would be worse in terms of overall freedom. Over time, people have realized some required editing and the social masterpiece has been getting better and better while fighting off some serious threats to progress, and neglecting others which have had their time, in my estimation, and are soon going to have to pack up and move ahead with the ship or fall in their own pits. Seriously, when are the governments going to take all the wasted, soil eroded, land and turn them into government run industrial hemp farms (makes 10 times ethanol of corn, which will easily be produced by this ethanol with strong momentum). Then no one has to import oil any more. All the jobs for stealing oil should go to building this infrastructure. That is the future of humankind for generations to come and I hope it seeps in soon.

The Sacred Four; Chi back and forth, up and down. Still.. There; Here. And who wins?

"That is, not putting our expectations on others. We do what "we" have to do and leave others to do what "they" have to do." Yeah, true.. whoops! three times a charm.

Says a lot about minding our own business and attending to the dictates of our own virtue rather than making our path merely that of condemning faults in others.

I posted the following in this thread and it might make sense here too. It's just my own considerations of how the 5 elements works in everyday situations, and how the relationships can be used in a Wu Wei sort of way. I'm calling it Feng Shui Kung Fu, but I'd be surprised if there isn't a text somewhere that discusses these relationships. Actually if anyone's seen these somewhere, please do let me know where I can read more about them! When someone is angry and excited, being earth can put out the fire, or if that doesn't work, being water or immensely flexible can control or redirect them. Drive (wood) can control earth (tranquil) Tranquil earth leads to metal (intellect) water (openness, flexibility, courage) can lead to drive (wood) lack of direction (water) can be controlled by calm (earth) and reduced by drive (wood) metal (intellect) can control or direct drive (wood) too much thinking (metal) can be reduced by acceptance/flexibility/courage (water) thought (metal) can be controlled or directed by excitement (fire) lack of direction (water) can be controlled by calm (earth) and reduced by planning (metal) Also, they say the extreme of yang leads to yin and extreme of yin leads to yang. Looking at the 5 elements: extreme of fire (excitement) leads to earth (calm), extreme of water (adaptation) leads to wood (drive). extreme of thinking (metal) ends up in wishy-washy (water) like procrastination. The extreme of wish-washy leads to drive (wood) [edit:] or alternately courage (water/kidneys) leads to drive. also earth (tranquility) leads to metal (thought) leads to water (courage/adaptation/flexibility) leads to wood (drive) leads to fire (excitement) leads to earth (calm/rest) leads to metal (thought), etc..