Path: ultra.sonic.net!jupiter.dnai.com!uunet!in5.uu.net!logbridge.uoregon.edu!newspeer1.nac.net!netnews.com!ix.netcom.com!news From: nedludd@ix.netcom.com(Ned Ludd) Newsgroups: alt.zen Subject: Re: First Patriarch of Zen Date: 12 Jan 1999 03:37:48 GMT Organization: ICGNetcom Lines: 73 Message-ID: <77eg2c$hqu@dfw-ixnews10.ix.netcom.com> References: <77bvbk$3dg$1@east43.supernews.com> <77cfvt$5rd$1@east44.supernews.com> <77dpeb$e57$1@east44.supernews.com> <369A7114.527B86A2@earthlink.net> <77e0l4$a4o@sjx-ixn3.ix.netcom.com> <369A9962.3810F3B5@earthlink.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: mil-wi8-17.ix.netcom.com X-NETCOM-Date: Mon Jan 11 9:37:48 PM CST 1999 Xref: ultra.sonic.net alt.zen:121685 In <369A9962.3810F3B5@earthlink.net> dc writes: Ned wrote (re the 3rd patriarch): > He then got up, walked out into the courtyard of the monastery, > jumped up and caught ahold of the limb of a tree. And he died, > hanging by one hand, from the limb of the tree. DC: > of course i have heard this interpretation as well. The view I > mentioned is the "accepted" view. But the truth is still the same, > Whether there was a Bodhidharma who meditated to a wall for 8 years > Until his legs fell off. And he cut his eyelids off so he wouldn't fall asleep meditating. And the place where the eyelids fell to the earth is where the first tea plants of China sprouted. Do you see why they honor him so much? > It appears that it is all an assortment of stories with no actual > people of those names. Zen then was using deception in it's very > beginnings. Once a Zen Buddhist school teacher told a group of > parents about an upcoming trip the students were having to China > and they were going to be going to the Tien-t'ai Mountain, where the > founder of Zen Tien-t'ai lived. This man is a known Zen scholar, > yet he had such a riiculous idea. Tien-t'ai repudiated he Ch'an > Buddhists as rejecting the Lotus Sutra and stealing Ichinen Sanzen > and incorporating it into their own teachings. So they were > excommunicated from Tien-t'ai and starting there own sect which > discarded the sutras and invented a fictitious history... Those crazy Zennies have been throwing away sutras for over a thousand years. Where do they keep coming from? > Later as "Zen" it became popular with the hired assassins and... Ah, the Samurai... and Bushido... and Ninja...!! Is there any doubt why Zen is so popular in America? > ...the elitests who believed that beating beating over the head > with riddles was Buddhism. Well, you know, sometimes you get tired of chanting. What's wrong with a little riddle once in a while, just to 'blow out the carbon', so to speak, from the brain? A monk once asked Chih Men, "How is it when the lotus flower has not yet emerged from the water?" And Chih Men answered, "A Lotus flower." The monk then asked, "What about after it has emerged from the water?" Chih Men said, "Lotus leaves." > Nichiren was later born who called Zen the "bottomless pit." This > statement is not merely a condemnation, it is has profound meaning. > Ah so... So very true. The great void. Those Indian Buddhists knew the word, but they didn't really know it in their gut. It took the Chinese, with their vast understanding of the Tao - and the consequent understanding of emptiness - to really knock the bottom out of the bottomless pit, and move Shunyata to the central and primary organizing principle of the universe. The Zennies naturally inherited all this understanding. I can see why Nichiren feared them so much! He did, after all, call them Devils. Zen Devils. None of the other sects he criticized - and he criticized them all - merited the term "Devils"; it was reserved exclusively for the Zennies. Kind of an honor in a way! Z end evil, Ned