Category Archives: Philosophy-Zen Buddhism

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The following is a story and the basis for a joke that circulated around the world for decades. The story, never fully understood or appreciated by the west made a joke of the man seeking “the meaning of life.”

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A man goes to the Himalayas seeking truth and enlightenment.  He spends weeks searching the hills for a reclusive master.  He finally finds the master and asks that he be apprenticed to the master to find enlightenment.  The master takes him down to a stream and bids the man to kneel besides the waters.  He takes the mans head and holds it under the water.  The master asks,

“Do you want to find enlightenment?”

The man now released answers, “Yes.”

The master again asks the question,

“Do you wish to find enlightenment?” as he again holds the mans head under water.  This ritual is repeated all afternoon.  Finally, after the master holds the man head under water for a particularly long time, to the point of almost drowning the man, the master asks the same question.  This time the man, exhausted and almost drowned says,                 “No.”

What does this story mean or convey?  One interpretation is that he didn’t really want to obtain enlightenment.  Another is that the price for wisdom is usually too high.  Another is that we do not really want to change our beliefs because we have too much invested in them.  Another answer is that no one really, however baptized, wants to or can change.  What does the story mean to you?

Satoru

 

Unknown's avatar

Those who embrace mild and ethereal Zen should contemplate that the samurai who spent much of their lives in frightening and gory battles took Zen to their hearts.

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Having reached Satori, and suffered the pain of death and rebirth, I share with you some adages, secret writings, proverbs, maxims, quotes, and ordinary expressions to challenge your thinking and, if read at a leisurely pace and given some concentration, enhance your existence.  Please understand that I present to you a paraphrased, contradictory, extremely interpreted, simplification of the lengthily and circuitous route that can lead to Satori or enlightenment.

Satoru

Unknown's avatar

Buddhism and Zen may be kissing cousins, but they are not married.

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Sometimes virtuous practitioners have taught Buddhism like the gently nagging of a little old lady. Although teaching with love is always excellent my Zen master believed that in this day and age of rapid acceleration and the ability to absorb multiple images, even though Zen understanding deepens slowly, that we had better move along and keep the momentum. So he eliminated the ethereal, impractical sayings and gongans from his teachings and concentrated on the practical and operative aspects of Zen. He also asserted that although he was a Zen Buddhist that Buddhism and Zen may be kissing cousins, but they are not married and that Zen stands by itself, singularly like a different musical instrument.

Satoru

Unknown's avatar

Bushido has seven principles to guide a Samurai.

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My master had a secret that he did not talk about.  After years and many questions he finally revealed that he had chosen the practical side of Buddhist transcendentalism, but incorporated Taoism naturalism, (The Way,) and wedded pragmatic Christianity, because he was Samurai.

As such he also lived by the code of bushido which has seven principles to guide a Samurai, the most outstanding being honor, the only canon to be written with two pictograph symbols.  The principles are,

Honor (Meiyo)

The honorable person has integrity and is trusted.  A person without honor is not grounded or centered and will never see the light.

Duty & Loyalty (Chu)

Difficult and easy support each other.  High and low depend on each other.  The best leader is loved.  Next, one who is feared.

Justice & Morality (GI)

Justice is the advantage of the stronger. Thrasymachus

Complete Sincerity (Makoto)

The hard and stiff will be broken. The soft and supple will prevail.

Polite Courtesy (Rei)

You are a guest in the world.  Streams flow to the sea because they are lower.  Humility gives its power to the oceans.

Compassion (Jin)

Keep your heart as open as the sky.  Enter a battle gravely, with sorrow and with great compassion for many will die.

Heroic Courage (Yu)

All things change.  Hold on to nothing.

Satoru
www.samuraizen.com

Unknown's avatar

Buddhist transcendentalism

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My master was not a chauvinist and taught women and men with equal vigor.  Ergo he used he and she synonymously and therefore some passages in these writing are feminine as well as masculine.  Understand that we are all potentially the Master and as such a masculine stereotype would be a limited teaching.

My master had a secret that he did not talk about.  After years and many questions he finally revealed that he had chosen the practical side of Buddhist transcendentalism, but incorporated Taoism naturalism, (The Way,) and wedded pragmatic Christianity, because he was Samurai.

Satoru