What Face..

[Jeremy Bong]

Originally Posted by markings

All the answers given, yours and other people's, deserve a whack over your head.

It is not about thinking outside of the box.
It is about not thinking, full stop. Be that inside or outside a box.
It is about looking.

And when you look, just look, for your face before you were born, what do you see?

I find two Chinese idioms that may suite the thread question:

1) can find no place to hide oneself(for ashame)无地自容。

2) not have the face to appear in public无颜见人。

That's "not face"无脸 in Mandarin. Your parents has no face , so it's you.

[naturesflow]

Originally Posted by markings

All the answers given, yours and other people's, deserve a whack over your head.

It is not about thinking outside of the box.
It is about not thinking, full stop. Be that inside or outside a box.
It is about looking.

And when you look, just look, for your face before you were born, what do you see?

Lets face it ...and in your case... head on..

Light came to mind
Nothing...came to see.

So if I see nothing, what do you suggest now?
You seem smart so I will get directions off you.

[markings]

Originally Posted by naturesflow

Nothing...came to see.

So if I see nothing, what do you suggest now?

I suggest nothing except to stay at seeing nothing.
That is what you see, everything else is mental stuff you make up.

It is really not about one's face but something else altogether.
It is to show, and experience, how we make up everything from nothing, or to put it differently, how our thoughts have no basis. We make them up, often in accordance to culture or some current popular way of thinking which somehow has attracted our attention.

We fail to distinguish between pure perception as sensing and uninterpreted recognition of sense impressions on the one hand, and perception as already interpreted impression.

When you encounter a startling event we can see that these are separate processes, pure impression first, interpretation a fraction of a second afterwards.
The first must stay, the second has to go, or at least we have to see the nature of it.

[naturesflow]

Originally Posted by markings

I suggest nothing except to stay at seeing nothing.
That is what you see, everything else is mental stuff you make up.

I am quite open to seeing things. Doesn't mean I need to interpret things I see. I tend to look more directly most often now days, simply because I look at myself in this way, open to what is more aware of myself as the one seeing.

It is really not about one's face but something else altogether.

It is to show, and experience, how we make up everything from nothing, or to put it differently, how our thoughts have no basis. We make them up, often in accordance to culture or some current popular way of thinking which somehow has attracted our attention.

Experiences have shown me we are much a part of the experience as we are a part of everything the self is in all that. Our thoughts have basis until they no longer have basis. How you interpret that is really just where your looking. I agree we create thoughts based on experiences and our sensory relationship as one.

If we are affected, then something in us is relating to tell the story. People have very real experiences as far as what is occurring and happening goes, but the experience affects and reactions do form/ create the experience related on what already is in us interpreting all that. So I guess seeing more directly is when one is actually the witness or observer looking into all that occurring, all the while the self aware it is only participating in all that as it sees itself needs too. Which can be anywhere on the whole spectrum of the experience/event.

We fail to distinguish between pure perception as sensing and uninterpreted recognition of sense impressions on the one hand, and perception as already interpreted impression.

Some may, some may not.

But it can be this way.

[naturesflow]

When you encounter a startling event we can see that these are separate processes, pure impression first, interpretation a fraction of a second afterwards.
The first must stay, the second has to go, or at least we have to see the nature of it.

I guess what you call pure impression I call direct seeing. And yes I agree with you on what leaves and what stays and looking more directly (as I use) allows for the nature of it to be seen and related.

[Bohdiyana]

Originally Posted by sky123

What face did you have before your parents were born ?

The parents can be a metaphor for the dualistic mind. So the question is, what are you before dualism comes into being? Really it is not a question at all. It is a command to search for the answer within yourself. Can you find your non-dualistic self?

[sky]

Originally Posted by Bohdiyana

The parents can be a metaphor for the dualistic mind. So the question is, what are you before dualism comes into being? Really it is not a question at all. It is a command to search for the answer within yourself. Can you find your non-dualistic self?

The answer is whatever you think it is or isn't

[markings]

Originally Posted by sky123

The answer is whatever you think it is or isn't

Zen masters would differ. There are right and wrong answers. The right answer may just make a change in ones life whereas a wrong answer gets us nowhere.

[sky]

Originally Posted by markings

Zen masters would differ. There are right and wrong answers. The right answer may just make a change in ones life whereas a wrong answer gets us nowhere.

The more you try to explain Zen the further you are from seeing.

A koan is to help you understand something, so the correct answer is the one you choose that is helpful to you.

[Bohdiyana]

Originally Posted by markings

Zen masters would differ. There are right and wrong answers. The right answer may just make a change in ones life whereas a wrong answer gets us nowhere.

Yes I think that's right. Wikipedia states A kōan is a story, dialogue, question, or statement, which is used in Zen practice to provoke the "great doubt" and test a student's progress in Zen practice. I would add also one purpose is to lead to a breakthrough of sorts of one realizing something new or becoming aware of something new one did not notice before. Gaining a new insight into things or seeing things from a new perspective.

According to the Tang-dynasty of China, a Kōan or gong'an, functions as a metaphor for principles of reality beyond the current awareness of a person. Zen teachers may use these koans to test the student's ability to recognize and understand principles they may not currently understand.

Koans can be a kind of riddle designed to get person involved in self examination to figure out or find what the meaning is. The find what the koan is referring to within themselves.

Of course koans have been around for centuries so people and traditions have used them and created them in different ways for different purposes. For example the Sung Dynasty used koans as a method to emphasize one should have an anti-intellectual mind that does not depend on thinking as much as a natural non-verbal intuition.

Koans in Japanese Chan tradition became very dogmatic with set questions and answers. They basically created a curriculum of koan based instruction. Zen students of this tradition would be expected to memorize a large set of koans and their accepted answers.

In the west, most people have been conditioned to think of koans as riddles or puzzles with no set answer or as meaningless questions designed to get one to stop thinking. In formal Zen practice however, the teacher would expect the correct answer the tradition teaches.

Many koans are about non-duality. The one in this tread seems to be as is the well known, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?," koan. Here too is a metaphor about the difference between two and one. Duality consciousness and the nature of one who lives in non-duality. The "sound" of one hand clapping is the sound or consciousness of one who is no longer two. In this treads koan, the "parents" or "your mother and father" refers to duality. "Your original face," points to your non-dual nature.

But like I said, koans have been around for centuries and are used in different ways by different traditions. It is a very deep complex subject. In the Rinzai schools, koan students study for over 10 years and have to learn and master Chinese poetry and literary skills. There are complex rhetorical skills involving discourse and questions and answer dialog the student is expected to master. The after 10 years studying koans, the student embarks on another 10 years of study called "go-go-no-shugyo" in Japanese. Go-go-no-shugyo means practice after satori or enlightenment or in some traditions "special practice." In this phase, the student is expected to "live" what he has discovered in koan study.

Here's an interesting koan:

THE OLD WOMAN BURNS DOWN THE HUT

There was an old woman who supported a hermit. For twenty years she always had a girl, sixteen or seventeen years old, take the hermit his food and wait on him.
One day she told the girl to give the monk a close hug and ask, “What do you feel just now?”
The hermit responded,
An old tree on a cold cliff;
Midwinter – no warmth.
The girl went back and told this to the old woman. The woman said, “For twenty years I’ve supported this vulgar good-for-nothing!” So saying, she threw the monk out and burned down the hermitage.

The "old woman" called the monk vulgar for feeling nothing from a hug by a young girl. All he did is negatively describe his environment. Interesting koan as they all are I suppose. Many hidden meanings and metaphors.