Path: ultra.sonic.net!bug.rahul.net!wasp.rahul.net!rahul.net!a2i!nntp.primenet.com!feeder.qis.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!nntp2.dejanews.com!nnrp1.dejanews.com!not-for-mail From: bobrien3123@my-dejanews.com Newsgroups: alt.zen Subject: Re: Zen teacher? Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 17:08:43 GMT Organization: Deja News - The Leader in Internet Discussion Lines: 26 Message-ID: <7fnl2n$pa3$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> References: <923925874.28858.0.rover.d4ee6715@news.demon.nl> <19990419201029.05709.00002984@ng25.aol.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 208.226.5.211 X-Article-Creation-Date: Thu Apr 22 17:08:43 1999 GMT X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.04 (Macintosh; I; PPC, Nav) X-Http-Proxy: 1.0 x14.dejanews.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 208.226.5.211 Xref: ultra.sonic.net alt.zen:131098 In article , "Jazz" wrote: > > >tell me what the difference there is between a good book on ZEN > and > > a teacher? > > Ask the book and ask the teacher. > Then listen to the shortest answer! > *Gassho* > - John Have you ever encountered a teacher in dokusan? They can be pretty darn short. Sometimes they ring the bell before you even ask the question. What a good teacher can do that a book can't is throw the question back at you so that it hits you right in the gut. (And that's where you will ultimately find the answers -- in your own gut.) A good teacher can show you all the ways you bullshit yourself and challenge you to dig beneath the bullshit to see what you really are. Passively "getting answers" from a teacher is not what Zen is about. There's nothing wrong with reading books about Zen, but it's no substitute for a real face-to-face encounter with the dragon in his den ... -----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==---------- http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own