/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.15141434]

What was your face before you were born?

[Anonymous No.15141441]

>>15141434
AAAAAAHHH I"M KOANING INSAAAANEEEEEEE

[Anonymous No.15141485]

I think current scientific knowledge makes koans a lot harder and less useful. That question or "if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" have pretty concrete answers. You didn't have a face before birth, and while you were forming your face grew from a cluster of cells. The tree that fell emitted waves that our ears translate into sound, so if no one hears it, they're just waves.

Obviously, the question about the face is meant to help dismantle the illusion of identity and self, but now we have to consciously ignore the real answer to understand the deeper point of the riddle.

>>15141441
lol

[Anonymous No.15141489]

What's a story before its told? It's nothing.

[Anonymous No.15141524]

>>15141485
I’ve always been taught that koans have concrete answers. Even before we understood physics, Buddhism was teaching people to think of worlds with no minds. In a world with no minds, sound still happens and thus, a tree falling in the forest does make a sound. You just have to deprioritize minds in order to get the answer. Knowing about blastocysts and cell reproduction makes you arrive at the same answer to the original question, as you would get without knowing about cell division and reproduction: that there are no identities without actualization.

[Anonymous No.15141527]

It was that of the wind, thusly it vanished. And then blew again. Was born again. Picture this as it were, as it was, as it always will be. In as much as you can.

[Anonymous No.15141535]

huevo & cummies

[Anonymous No.15141587]

>>15141434
What do you mean "what was my face"? A face is a face. What is your face?

[Anonymous No.15141591]

>>15141524
Koans are originally a taoist device. As far as I know them having concrete answers is something some Buddhist schools do, maybe specifically in Japan, but not Taoists.

There's also something lost in reading them in translation as e.g the one about "what was your original face before you were born" the other anon brings up supposedly (I can't read chinese either) goes more like "before you were conceived by your mother and father what was your original face" which is tailored to point at chinese concepts of nondualism. So it's not even about identity/selfhood, but it's easy to make that connection if you only see them brought up by Buddhists

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!oI3er5KKetj No.15141595]

Stuff my mom ate.
Where my face went after that, I do not know.

[Anonymous No.15141598]

>>15141587
based retard

[Anonymous No.15141613]

Does a dog have a buddhist nature?

[Anonymous No.15141615]

>>15141527

if your purposely being as much a pseud hack as possible good job

[Anonymous No.15141629]

>>15141613
All things have Buddha Nature.

[Anonymous No.15141734]

>>15141629
hopeless case

[Anonymous No.15141829]

>>15141434
Mu

[Anonymous No.15141861]

>>15141485
>I think current scientific knowledge makes koans a lot harder and less useful.
No, it doesn't. They are ontological riddles, not physical riddles.
Science just gives us more accurate descriptions of phenomena, but it doesn't answer the bigger problems. In the past, everyone knew that a tree falling makes a sound (or 'emitted waves'), I doubt anyone questioned that. Making a sound (emitting waves) was as implicit in a tree falling as it is today. We now have better words, and distinct models of phenomena. We now can make bigger abstractions, and know 'sounds' are actually vibrations in the air. But these are still human abstractions, this is still human knowledge.
Sure, it's more refined than the knowledge of 'a tree falling makes a sound', but essentially it changes nothing, the question still remains: Is there an experience with no experiencer? Is there an other with no I?

[Anonymous No.15141863]

>>15141598
I'm not the one asking what a face is.

[Anonymous No.15141867]

>>15141629
ouch, better meditate on that one for a little longer, pal.

[Anonymous No.15141876]

>>15141434
i dont know

[Anonymous No.15141895]

>>15141434
How do I know that my face exists at all if I never looked at my reflection?

[Anonymous No.15141902]

>>15141867
>>15141734
that’s what Buddha Nature is. the potential in all living beings to become a Buddha. Like, that’s literally the answer to your question. Go ask a Buddhist priest and they’ll give you a more detailed answer, but it will still come down to ‘all living beings have Buddha Nature.’

[Anonymous No.15141910]

>>15141829
You have good points, but they're not actually contradicting what I'm saying. As I said, now we have to forego our modern descriptions/explanations of things (what you refer to as further abstractions) to get at the deeper meaning or substance of what it's really asking.

[Anonymous No.15141921]

>>15141910
meant to quote >>15141861

[Anonymous No.15142018]

>>15141910
Ok, I get now what you are saying.
I think modern knowledge is way too certain of itself. It's narcissistic.
But maybe in the past most people were stubborn like that too. Surely some if not most believed koans were bullshit.
They need a serious commitment and someone disposed to look 'beyond' what is evident.

[Anonymous No.15142154]

>>15141902
无

[Anonymous No.15142160]

>>15141863
>What is your face?

[Anonymous No.15142162]

>>15141434
Baby faces usually look like knees, so probably like that but uglier

[Anonymous No.15142170]

>>15141485
Nobody ever doubted trees make sound independently of human presence

[Anonymous No.15142189]

>>15141434

[Anonymous No.15142291]

>>15142160
What is a rhetorical question?

[Anonymous No.15142346]

It's probably unrelated, but I've been reading Borges recently and he had this preface by W. B. Yeats to one of his short stories.

If I make the lashes dark
And the eyes more bright
And the lips more scarlet,
Or ask if all be right
From mirror after mirror,
No vanity’s displayed:
I’m looking for the face I had
Before the world was made.

What if I look upon a man
As though on my beloved,
And my blood be cold the while
And my heart unmoved?
Why should he think me cruel
Or that he is betrayed?
I’d have him love the thing that was
Before the world was made.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!oI3er5KKetj No.15142406]

>>15142162

[Anonymous No.15142407]

>>15141434

[Anonymous No.15142501]

>>15141434
Nothing

[Anonymous No.15142522]

mu.

[Anonymous No.15142610]

>>15142170
?
Without an eye there's only radiant energy, without an ear there is no sound. If a tree falls in the forest and a group of deaf persons are picnicking nearby does it make a sound? No.

[Anonymous No.15142646]

>>15141485
Way to miss the point of the koan. How can I lack a face if I don’t even exist. I can’t lack anything if I’m not there to lack? So what was your face before you were born?

[Anonymous No.15142659]

>>15141902
"no"

[Anonymous No.15142668]

>>15142522
this

[Anonymous No.15142857]

Is there a point to this question?

[Anonymous No.15142892]

>>15142857
I think that is the point.

[Anonymous No.15142905]

>>15142892

[Anonymous No.15142908]

>>15141485
>The tree that fell emitted waves that our ears translate into sound, so if no one hears it, they're just waves.
Esse est percepi. There is no quality independent of mind

[Sir No.15142925]

>>15142905
>concept

[Anonymous No.15143021]

>>15141434

[Anonymous No.15143062]

>>15143021
ftm tranny detected

[Anonymous No.15143070]

>>15142908
Fuck off you berk
-ley

[Anonymous No.15143124]

why do peoplelike zen/chan buddhism so much? it's basically just buddhist absurdism

[Anonymous No.15143204]

>>15143124
you basically gave the answer you were looking for. Zen appeals to me for the exact reasons that absurdism does. Life is empty of meaning, the only person you can fully trust is yourself, enlightenment isn’t a destination, it’s a method, etc.

[Anonymous No.15143248]

>>15141629

nawww nigga

[Anonymous No.15143470]

>>15143124
Western philosophy has been dominated by rationalism and logicism since forever, Zen and Chan not only reject that, but also have the same properties that make Buddhism attractive to certain westerns (by virtue of being Buddhist).

[Anonymous No.15143868]

>>15141434
Yes.

[Anonymous No.15143878]

>>15141485
The point of koans is not to solve them, dummy.

[Anonymous No.15144791]

>>15142908
Based. Berkeley was right about everything.

[Anonymous No.15146272]

>>15144791
Did he refute Buddhism?

[Anonymous No.15146311]

>mfw i'm about to be born
something like that

[Anonymous No.15146388]

>>15146272>>15143124>>15143204
>>15141902
>>15141524


zen is not buddhism

[Anonymous No.15146394]

[Anonymous No.15146549]

>>15146272
Retroactively.

[Anonymous No.15146591]

>>15141434

Something which did not exist, of course. You are not wise, and you have not just put an interesting riddle.

[Anonymous No.15146652]

>>15141524

Without a mind to perceive the tree there is not even a tree there.

[Anonymous No.15146666]

>>15141861
>Is there an experience with no experiencer? Is there an other with no I?

the answer is no

[Anonymous No.15146736]

>>15146652

It's exactly the other way round. The tree is there regardless of whethere there is a subject to appreciate the fact, or not. West is Best, East is Least. Deal with It.

[Anonymous No.15146742]

>>15146652
>Anthropocentrism
Shiggy diggy

[Anonymous No.15146879]

>>15146736
the tree is a mental representation. there is indeed an object prior to the representation which conforms to the senses, but that object is not intelligible and should not be confused with the representation.

that's kant for you.

[Anonymous No.15147010]

>>15146879
based

[Anonymous No.15147019]

>>15146736
see>>15146879

What you call a tree is not really a tree...

Your mind creates the world, and once you cease to exist so will that world.

[Anonymous No.15147030]

>>15147019
>Your mind creates the world, and once you cease to exist so will that world.

who told you that, anon, was it your mind?

[Anonymous No.15147289]

[Anonymous No.15147297]

>>15146549
Why do people keep saying "retroactively refuted" and what does it even mean?

[Anonymous No.15147319]

>>15142189
b-b-b-b-baaaaased

[Anonymous No.15147402]

>>15147297
he provided the means to refute it before it was formulated. people say it because it sounds cool.

[Anonymous No.15147906]

>>15146666
Based quads

[Anonymous No.15149432]

>>15146879
>>15147010
>>15147019

All wrong. Bumping from page 10 to instruct you.

[Anonymous No.15149447]

>>15149432
well what's the answer then?

[Anonymous No.15149459]

>>15142925
>a point
>the point

[Anonymous No.15149518]

>>15149447
They were confounding the thing-in-itself, which exists regardless of perception of same, with the perception, holding the latter to be the important thing in this case when it isn't.

[Anonymous No.15149614]

>>15149518
but that's what >>15146879 said, only without the terminology

[Anonymous No.15149852]

>>15146388
Dumbest post of the thread

[Anonymous No.15150126]

>>15149852
hes right retardo, zen is not buddhism

[Anonymous No.15150167]

>>15146388
>>15150126
Is this a critique of Zen or Buddhism?

[Anonymous No.15150217]

>>15150167
Neither, it's a pseudo-intellectual who has no idea what he's talking about

>>15150126
Zen is a form of Buddhism, actually. It's only retards who know nothing of either one who pretend zen is somehow beyond Buddhism. Zen's goal is basically reformation - they wanted to get back to what they saw as the true core of the Buddha's teachings.

[Anonymous No.15150243]

>>15143878
Actually it is. Koans are a practice in Rinzai, and in Rinzai, the answer you come up with is supposed to demonstrate a kind of zen insight/understanding. It's not necessarily that there's a single right answer, but rather that there's a correct kind of answer.

[Anonymous No.15150547]

>>15141434
Yes.

[Anonymous No.15150594]

>>15150217
>Zen is a form of Buddhism
No brainlet, the original founders rejected buddhism as its dogma , they were huge contrarians and trolls

[Anonymous No.15150665]

>>15150594
No, you idiot. They believe in the four noble truths, the eightfold path, all that. I can tell you've never in your life read a book on zen or gone to a zen meditation group.

[Anonymous No.15150779]

>>15150665
lol retard read the original founders then comeback
what u read is not original zen

[Anonymous No.15150791]

>>15150594
Unless you can provide any sources to the contrary, I think perhaps you're confusing the Samye debate and the controversy over sudden vs gradual enlightenment with a rejection of Buddhist doctrine wholesale.

[Anonymous No.15150795]

>>15150665
Not to mention the Lotus Sutra

[Anonymous No.15150934]

Peter Sloterdijk addresses this topic heavily in the first Book of his Spheres Trilogy "Bubbles"

[Anonymous No.15152339]

>>15141485
The whole point of koans is to move from things like reasoning, logic, science, and knowledge, while moving towards using intuition as a thinking process. An easier way to doing loans is to try the abbreviated method that the korean zen people use, it's called hua Tao or something like that. Hope google helps if you're interested.

[Anonymous No.15152361]

Nope, it's spelled Hua Tou.

[Anonymous No.15152792]

>>15141485
Greater ontic knowledge of how physical reality works has no bearing on the investigation of ontology made by Zen.

[Anonymous No.15154229]

>>15152361

[Nemo !!GgBWHLRiayD No.15154728]

One's Image can be: 1. An iheritance of one's Genesis and/or Being; 2. An acquirement, or an attainment, of one's Becoming; 3. An attainment of one's Being; depending on the circumstances preceding one's birth, one's Image/Body/Face could have consisted of/appeared as: 1. A synthetic/multitudinous whole comprising the totality of all previously gifted/acquired, and/or mastered/attained, forms; 2. A gifted/acquired, and/or mastered/attained, singular form; 3. An essentially & originally orbic form.

[Anonymous No.15154775]

>>15141434
Me on the left (and right).