[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/lit/ - Literature

View post   
File: 108 KB, 547x845, cover.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
21041671 No.21041671 [Reply] [Original]

There are times when I read this book and the koans and the explanations and I do not understand. I think I do, but then it turns on me and seems to say the opposite and I don't know how to hold two concepts at once. Here, is the koan, The Best Piece of Meat:

>One day while he was wandering at a market, Banzan the monk heard a client asking for the best piece of meat at the butcher’s shop.
>“At my shop,” the butcher replied, “every piece of meat is the best. You won’t be able to find one that isn’t.”
>The butcher’s answer enlightened Banzan.

Jodorowsky in his analysis says:

"In the second koan, Banzan is enlightened because he understands that nothing is better than anything else. Every part of us, from our sexuality to our emotional life, our intellect, and our material center, is the best of us. Nothing in us can be considered less good.
To reach the state of enlightenment a human being needs to acknowledge that everything inside him is the best.
In the same way as the universe, we have a dark side and a bright side. The dark side, however, is not our bad side. As Gurdjieff used to say, “A cane always has two ends.” Likewise, the two sides of a coin are inextricably linked.
Our dark root is populated by a multiplicity of “things,” such as incest, shifting archetypes, homosexual fantasies, jealousy, possessive desires, cannibalism, sadomasochism, and so on. From the moment we recognize this root in ourselves and work on it, it moves forward, evolves, and produces a diamond. It produces the best of us—our consciousness.
It’s not a question of the “awareness of something,” but our individual light. If we accept it, we live at the best level of ourselves."

Nothing is more or less than another aspect. They are all one. Yet, he goes on to say some parts of ourselves, some actions or thoughts or desires, are not 'exemplary'. He uses a car that moves an inch to the left as an example of how over time small changes can have great effects, for the worse or the better and tells us to be aware in each moment if we are choosing a 'bright or dark' act. But how can each aspect of us be equal to the other if this is so? How can he speak of good acts and bad acts if all are equal? Why would a Zen Master punish his student for not understanding, if misunderstanding is equal to understanding? Why should the 'soul' or the 'self' be purified of intention if its stains are equal to its light? Why should I strive to be in the now and not get caught in intellectual traps if my intellectual aspect is equal to all others?

>> No.21041704

Observing intellectuals failing with Zen is actually quiet funny.

>> No.21041712

Likewise:

>be yourself. Do not pretend to be who you are not.

But if all things are equal and if in each moment I am self-realised (if only I can grasp it), if I already am all I need, and if I must be aware of all that I am . . . then how can it be said that there is someone who I am not? If it is my tendency to use a different name every other week and dress like a Victorian chimney sweep on every third Sunday, then that is who I am, no? If I speak and I say things just to please others, then that is who I am, a person who bends to other people, no? If I am proud, base, evil, petty, 'intellectual', then that is who I am

I feel as though by saying all are equal and only now is important it is easy to fall into nihilism. Why bother? I am what I am, it is what it is.

If all is equal, what am I striving for? If I am all that I need, what is there to do?

Yes, I hear the sarcastic Master in my head: "there is no striving, only having. There is nothing to do, only doing."

>>21041704
I'm sure it is but I do not see it from where I am right now.

>> No.21041842
File: 91 KB, 1400x781, 1B3A5DF5-B42C-4BE0-87AD-1CDA25AA28F4.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
21041842

>>21041704
>intellectuals
>Jodorowsky

>> No.21041851

>>21041671
>Alejandro Jodorowski

There's nothing scholarly about this New Age stupid faggot. Why not read translators like Red Pine / Bill Porter or Thomas Clearly?

Alejandro Jodorowsky is a pretentious and stupid twat. Someone like Andrei Tarkovsky was more enlightened without ever being exposed to Zen. Jodorowsky is just some stupid hippy trash.

Trying to crack koans is very difficult due to lost cultural context. I recommend just looking into Shikantaza and eventually it'll make sense. Thomas Clearly's translation of the Blue Cliff Record is very good. Spend more time with that and Shikantaza rather than frauds like Jodoroswski. Shikantaza is "just sitting" with an open awareness that blocks nothings and let thoughts come and go without grasping. It is instructionless. Look into proper zazen posture too.

Eventually you'll figure things out due to the fact you're the Universe. Just be more careful with what translations you pick. Even reading someone like Emily Dickinson is better than Jodorowski.

Sorry, I am drunk.

>> No.21041945
File: 580 KB, 1920x1224, 1640492220612.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
21041945

>>21041671
Jodorowsky is fine in graphic novel format but I wouldn't rely on him as a commentator on Japanese interpretations of Chinese interpretations of Indian Buddhism. Western readings of Zen are to Buddhism as Mormonism is to Coptic Christianity. Zen is the tail end of a thousand years of development in Mahayana Buddhist philosophy; need to be familiar with the source material if you are taking a text based approach

>> No.21042049

>>21041851
>>21041945
I read Jodorowski because I came across the book, and put no more thought into it than that. Perhaps there is something to be said about choosing your teachers, and I will look into the books you mentioned. I have noticed, however, that both of you have criticised Jodorowsky without saying a word about the content of what was actually posted.

>> No.21042176

>>21041671
A lot of people don't understand shit like Zen because they miss that it's essentially pointing to the realization that the self they think is supposed to understand and become enlightened is imaginary; the sense of being someone (some kind of entity somewhere in a body, usually the head) who will come to understand or become enlightened is illusory.
You don't even have to concern yourself with any kind of metaphysics or belief. The non-self and non-dual nature of consciousness/awareness is simply true in any case.

>I do not understand
Basically, this "I" you're misidentified with that is striving for enlightenment and has all these problems and difficulties is fictitious and illusory. Meaning that seeing, hearing, thinking, feeling, sensing etc etc are all happening, they're just not actually happening to or for anyone and no one's doing them.
The "problem" is that the illusory self or ego, whichever terms you prefer, tries to understand this. But that self will never understand, understanding it means the self is seen through. The self can't come to see through itself. Almost all intellectual analysis or interpretation from an apparently unenlightened perspective is merely the activity/processes and perpetuation of the illusion.
Unfortunately for the self, it doesn't become enlightened; fortunately though, that self isn't you and everything else does. Who you think you are doesn't wake up, all that is perceived wakes up to the fiction of you. By which I also mean the space the objects are in, which is easy to overlook.
I'd also suggest being wary of later Zen koans and commentary, many of them miss the point of earlier Chinese Chan lineage koans.

>be yourself
You went on to mention aspects or qualities applied to a self, e.g. "I am/have ... [name, personality trait, preference, character, thoughts, etc]".
None of that is yourself. Even if you move further inward from objects in the world to objects in the mind e.g. thoughts, attention is still directed outwards at an object.
Don't intellectually inquire into the things in the brackets, empirically look for what that "I" supposedly refers to. Try to find what's looking, and what's hearing, etc. Place attention on itself.

>> No.21042228

>>21042176
Forgot to mention the koan you posted. I'm not even sure if it's an authentic koan but If I were to interpret it in a practical way for you, it's pointing out that all that stands in the way of waking up is resisting what is and craving something better, both of which are objects/processes reified into an "I" entity and then misidentified with, but there's never anything other than what is so you can't successfully resist it and so there's also nothing to seek since there's only ever "this". The tricky part is that even the attempt to stop resisting now and to stop craving/seeking enlightenment is itself the same resisting and craving/seeking.
>Why should I strive to be in the now
Likewise, you don't have to strive to be in the now, there isn't some other better spiritual enlightened now you have to get to, you can't ever be anywhere else but now. You think of the past and future now, you desire and strive to be in the now now, you get frustrated you can't stay in the now now, you "reach" the now and cling to it now before thinking you've lost it now.

>> No.21042309

>>21042176
>The "problem" is that the illusory self or ego, whichever terms you prefer, tries to understand this. But that self will never understand, understanding it means the self is seen through.

I like the way you put that. It reminds me of something Alan Watts said about the impossibility of a system to evaluate itself, or rather, the impossibility of a person to step outside of themselves to look at themselves. "You can't bite your own teeth," he said.

The other day I was reading something and it spoke about insight, and it seems relevant here. It said that insight is never cognitive or intellectual. A thing can be known to be a fact and never prompt the transformation that the fact is capable of inducing. Until there is an emotional experience where that knowledge is felt, the knowledge is flat. In this sense, some things can only be known by feeling.

On the topic of Zen in general it is something I have looked at over the years in bits and pieces, but I have no desire to really get into it. I read this book because it passed me by, and it seems related to my goal of 'knowing' myself, or going deeper into myself, or whatever, that I've been pursuing more actively lately. In that sense I liked the book, it resonated on some levels.

One more concept that is in the book that I have been conscious of lately, and it seems obvious, but just to actually try and ask myself when I am doing something Is this what I want to do? Often I find myself doing things automatically, without intention, things that do not serve me in any way. My animal-brain. I'm pulling away from that as much as possible. "The Call to Self" I have heard Gurdjieff called it.

>> No.21042673
File: 842 KB, 818x1218, 9781582432564.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
21042673

>>21041671
Do you meditate? Also read this

>> No.21042740

>>21042673
No, I do not. Maybe I should. I do journal extensively. I suppose I feel like that is meditation in a way . . . but no, I don't do breathwork or meditation. I'll download the book, thanks.

>> No.21042792

>>21042049
I've read The Incal and Metabarons, which are both his writing; he has an interest in eastern philosophy and gnosticism. I would not expect his reading of Zen to be particularly good per that basis. Something like "every part of you is the best part" is just new ager therapeutic stuff and confirms my suspicion. (There are no best parts, let alone parts)

>> No.21042894

>>21042049
You wouldn't think it would be a good idea to buy meat from the butcher.