Zen according to Bodhidharma

[RyanWind]

Originally Posted by jonesboy

every Soto Zen monastery say's the same thing

deities, sutras, chanting, mantras or that it is teacher based

The outward forms that you are speaking of does lead to inner realization

Entering the kitchen one does 9 prostrations to a diety..

sutras, chants, mantra....

Zen ... does exactly those things.

Let's change the Zen saying of Sokushin to match your teachings.

The original: Asked "Where do I look for enlightenment?" (如何[是]佛) Ma-tsu replied "This very mind, this is it." (即心即佛 or 即心是佛. Sokushin


Now the Jonesboy version: Asked "Where do I look for enlightenment?" (如何[是]佛) Jonesboy replied " deities, sutras, chanting, mantras, one does 9 prostrations to a diety, exactly those things.

[RyanWind]

Zen Teachings vs Jonesboy Teachings.

Zen: "Sitting quietly, doing nothing,..Zenrin Kushû
Jonesboy: Do 9 prostrations to a deity before breakfast.

Zen: Vast emptiness, nothing holy! Bodhidharma
Jonesboy: Sutras, mantras, deities!

Zen: Keep your mind alive and free without abiding in anything or anywhere. Fifth Patriarch Hung-jen
Jonesboy: You need a teacher! You need to study sutras!

[jonesboy]

Originally Posted by wolfgaze

How was this determined exactly?

By the unlimited Wisdom of the Buddha.

[jonesboy]

Originally Posted by RyanWind

Zen Teachings vs Jonesboy Teachings.

Zen: "Sitting quietly, doing nothing,..Zenrin Kushû
Jonesboy: Do 9 prostrations to a deity before breakfast.

Zen: Vast emptiness, nothing holy! Bodhidharma
Jonesboy: Sutras, mantras, deities!

Zen: Keep your mind alive and free without abiding in anything or anywhere. Fifth Patriarch Hung-jen
Jonesboy: You need a teacher! You need to study sutras!

Haha but no I don't say to bow to deities your tradition does. Bodhidharma says to study sutras and to find a teacher. So did each of the people you are quoting.

Zen: "Sitting quietly, doing nothing,..Zenrin Kushû
Jonesboy: Do 9 prostrations to a deity before breakfast.

This is about letting go attaching to nothing. An example would be in meditation. When one is able to truly let go and not even grasp at the creation of a passing thought one enters samadhi. In life that is Rigpa.

Zen: Vast emptiness, nothing holy! Bodhidharma
Jonesboy: Sutras, mantras, deities!

All things are emptiness, arise from emptiness. Void=form.

Zen: Keep your mind alive and free without abiding in anything or anywhere. Fifth Patriarch Hung-jen
Jonesboy: You need a teacher! You need to study sutras

Same as the first one.

Hope this helps.

[wolfgaze]

Originally Posted by jonesboy

By the unlimited Wisdom of the Buddha.

Buddha declared that only 1 out of every million individuals will experience enlightenment without a teacher?

[RyanWind]

Originally Posted by jonesboy

I am not sure where you have ever got that I have said ...didn't have a practice...Quite the opposite...

Your Post #95

Originally Posted by jonesboy

Ryan doesn't practice anything.

That statement of fact of yours followed my quotes below. So you stated none of what I talked about here was a practice.

Originally Posted by RyanWind

One should not mistake the outward form with the truth.
I can read sutras, the truths I find there. but I don't worship books and images and concepts.
There is only the now. When you say Zen monks do this and that.... you are not describing what they should be inwardly. You are only talking about outward form. Zen is not outward form. Zen is a direct experience of what is without the filter of self or thought being present.
Zen is self-realization. Where will you find that?
That's a well known Zen quote. If you don't look in yourself for it, where will you find it?
Respect the great truths the fingers of Buddhism point at. See what they are pointing at!
Buddhism is a holy thing in my view. The truth is contained there within it.
It's not that one does meditation, one goes away and the word meditation describes that fact.
In the present moment, one can be empty and that is the practice.

All phenomena are empty....stop imagining or seeking anything. Enlightened beings don’t recite sutras.
They don’t keep precepts. To be enlightened, you have to see your nature.
Whoever sees his nature is enlightened. If you don’t see your nature, invoking Buddhas, reciting sutras, making offerings, and keeping precepts are all useless.
Unless you see your mind, reciting so much prose is useless. To find enlightenment, all you have to do is see your nature.
Bodhidharma

[jonesboy]

Originally Posted by RyanWind

Your Post #95



That statement of fact of yours followed my quotes below. So you stated none of what I talked about here was a practice.



All phenomena are empty....stop imagining or seeking anything. Enlightened beings don’t recite sutras.
They don’t keep precepts. To be enlightened, you have to see your nature.
Whoever sees his nature is enlightened. If you don’t see your nature, invoking Buddhas, reciting sutras, making offerings, and keeping precepts are all useless.
Unless you see your mind, reciting so much prose is useless. To find enlightenment, all you have to do is see your nature.
Bodhidharma

Did you read the rest of that sutra where he said get a teacher and study? From the first page of this thread.

If you don’t find a teacher soon, you’ll live this life in vain. It’s true, you have the buddha-nature. But the help of a teacher you’ll never know it. Only one person in a million becomes enlightened without a teacher’s help. If, though, by the conjunction of conditions, someone understands what the Buddha meant, that person doesn’t need a teacher. Such a person has a natural awareness superior to anything taught. But unless you’re so blessed, study hard, and by means of instruction you’ll understand.

Not sure what quote 95 is. You could at least link to it.

The rest isn't a practice it is a state of being..

[jonesboy]

Originally Posted by wolfgaze

Buddha declared that only 1 out of every million individuals will experience enlightenment without a teacher?

I am on my phone but he has said that without a teacher it will take hundreds of kalpas to become a Buddha without a teacher. I have posted it other threads and will try to find it again for you.

[RyanWind]

Originally Posted by jonesboy

Zen: "Sitting quietly, doing nothing,
Spring comes, and the grass grows by itself." Zenrin Kushû

This is about letting go, attaching to nothing.

No. There is no self there to let go of anything if you are awake. If you are self-realized. The opposite of clinging is not letting go. Both involve a concept of a self as the doer. An action is taken, positive or negative. Neither is the way. No action is no doer. The grass grows by itself.

Originally Posted by jonesboy

An example would be in meditation. When one is able to truly let go and not even grasp at the creation of a passing thought one enters samadhi. In life that is Rigpa.

Here again, one does not let go. There is no one to let go. There is only one to see. The seeing in itself ends the attachments. One does not do something to be detached. One is something to be detached. One realizes something. As I have told you many times, (and as Bodhidharma has said) it is not what you do, it is what you are. What you have realized yourself to be.

Hope this helps.

[RyanWind]

Did you read this Jonesboy? Any comments on this? Just ignoring it? Pretending it does not exist?

If you don’t see your nature, invoking Buddhas, reciting sutras, making offerings, and keeping precepts are all useless.
People nowadays who recite sutras and think it’s the Dharma are fools.
To find enlightenment, all you have to do is see your nature.
Bodhidharma

If a statement like this by Bodhidharma offends you, maybe Zen is not your path.