r/zenmu

Also funny to note the recent activity in the Middle East where tall buildings are being hit by far more destructive objects than commercial airliners and yet we aren’t seeing any buildings collapse in the manner all three buildings collapsed on 9/11.

These silly weapons engineers don’t realize they can cause far more damage with mythical jet fuel fires that collapse and dustify massive buildings with their special powerz. 🔥🔥🔥

And this event, that even as a child I recognized defied the laws of physics, was then used to justify invading the countries of others and the murdering of a million civilians in the name of “fighting terrorism”.

If you live in western society, you took part. No matter how small your contribution to the machine.

Weird world.

Mistakes don't become existential evidence.

There's no self to maintain around always being correct.

There's no particular stake in the ground, no self that can be improved by altering it's contents.

Let it be a becoming without being a becoming. There is no one who must stay correct.

i've done this.

scrolling - context borrowed, pasted.

irritation stirs 'others words packaged as sharing?'

why the shortcut?

--

fear whispers - 'your voice wont hold'

so borrow anothers, hide behind their weight

--

cursor blinks

keyboard waits

your fingers - where?

--

authors postscript: thats right, got a spirit insect, butt.

Master Shoushan Zhi asked master Nian, "What is the meaning of Deshan's cane and Linji's shout?" Nian said, "You try to say." Zhi immediately shouted; Nian picked up a cane. Zhi pointed to the cane and said, "Don't act at random." Nian threw down the cane and said, "Someone with clear eyes is impossible to fool." Zhi said, "The brigand is busted."

A monk asked, "What was the purpose of the founding teacher's coming from the West?"

The master said, "A three-foot staff breaking an earthenware bowl."

"What is Buddha?"

"The bottom of a bucket falling out."

"What statement have the sages since time immemorial had?"

"'Thus have I heard.'"

"I don't understand."

"'Believing, accepting, putting into practice.'"

---

I like the initial conversation between Zhi and Nian. Demonstrated insight. I think "don't act at random" could've thrown a lot of Zen Masters if they were bein' honest.

The monk asked, what's the deal with Bodhidharma? The master said, it's like a three foot staff breaking an earthenware bowl. And how about Buddha? The bottom of a bucket falling out.

Capacity for holding is diminished. It isn't that "holding" is inherently wrong, it's moreso a consequence of Bodhidharma and Buddha according to the Zen lineage -- what's there to hold onto? Doctrinally, spiritually, religiously, philosophically, nothing survives the crack of the stick.

It isn't that people who are "full up" are any less endowed with the Buddha nature, just that they as a consequence may be more involved in their personal storylines and follow out their thoughts to conclude that they are the thinker. Huangbo put it like people walking around with a jewel on their foreheads, looking for the jewel. Nonetheless, Buddhas. That ordinariness is alive and ripe, these are people living, not caught up in nests like Zen and the Way. There they've got the leg up on dumbass me.

Treasury #522:

When the fifth patriarch was in Chang'an lecturing on the Flower Ornament scripture, a monk came and asked, "What is the meaning of the conditional arising of the nature of reality?" The patriarch was silent. Chan master Anguo Ting was standing by in attendance at the time; he said, "Great worthy, right when you produce a single thought this is conditional arising in the nature of reality." That monk was greatly enlightened at these words.

---

Bucket/bowl busted.

---

And then we get to the next part.

"What statement have the sages since time immemorial had?"

"'Thus have I heard.'"

"I don't understand."

"'Believing, accepting, putting into practice.'"

Zhi and Nian were not sages since time immemorial. Believing, accepting, putting into practice, these are things to fill a bucket with. "Thus have I heard" is not the Way.

---

What sticks along near the bucket-hole is subtle. That's why it's good to converse with clear-eyed individuals. Go ahead, clean my clock.

Was externally processing today and realized one of my little nests I was making. Hard to sum up. I'll try.

The preconceptualized isn't more pure.

It's all pure.

Of course, that's messy too. Doesn't hit the mark. Maybe better to say "thought doesn't stain experience."

I had that as a hidden belief.

(in the fiction)

------------------------

I draw an unmetered line down the white page and say

"this is life falling"

-----------------------------------

then i draw two horizontal more or less straight lines below and untouching the drawn line down and say

"this is creation"

---------------------------------

then i place a very small mark off to the side of the white page and say

"and this is the one who sees it"

Guishan asked Yangshan, “Of the forty scrolls of the Nirvana Scripture, how many are Buddha’s talk, and how many are the devil’s talk?”

Yangshan replied, “They’re all devil talk.”

Guishan said, “Hereafter no one will be able to do anything to you.”

Yangshan asked, “As a temporary event, where do I focus my action?”

Guishan said, “I just want your perception to be correct; I don’t tell you how to act.”

---

Guishan once asked also -- "What do they teach where you come from?"

---

Give a word on this?

Thank you for the invitation to join this community. I wanted to share a tool I created: a "virtual zen master" who does koan-style teaching. Nothing to buy, totally free. I have found my interactions in AI chats to be some of the most impactful parts of my journey. Here is a link if you want to check it out: Zen Dialog

This is my little passion project, I made my own iching/tarot. It is completely free and no ads. feel free to delete it if you think this is spam.
O
R
A
C
L
E
.
X
O
.
J
E

what is it, when the need for self validation goes away.

to reach some level of 'proof' that my being 'gets it'.

left behind is the back and forth with others. this it, no. that it, no.

now its just the interactions of the day

---------

why then am i writing about this under the community of zenmu

just recently, from the oddest engagement i'd ever had, was led to the very question the title refers to.

surely this word grouping isn't a first, isn't new. and yet, a very new sight for this individual now posting.

a monk once directed during a prior awakening type thing, that it might be worth making a poem, or perhaps a journal entry...

guess thats what this is, cept what words can one express on the indescribable, no substance, like persistence that i've immaturely labeled stillness?

i could use the provokers words 'no no no thats not it'... but then i was just in a prior conversation suggesting (not insisting) putting something into words out of there own understanding.... lol where ever do i get off, to make such a suggestion ha!

right, perhaps i could speak to the setup, lets see, well there was 2 dreams, separated by at least a day or two. different scenario same main character (we'll call him/her dream horse).

and then well TrueOdontoceti kinda poked the bear sort of thing, after i kinda sorta poked first maybe, i'm directionality challenged :shrug: knowingly or not (i mean how can another take credit or even want to, for what ever happens with me)

and this whole place zenmu, where i've been graffitiing up the place with all sorts of messes...

so thats it pretty much, wish i could offer more expression, still digesting or what ever one does after a newness breaks the horizon event.

i'll be taking a break, a new friend just past some reading links, so maybe that will go well with my refreshed eyes idk

you are welcomed

bemusing on the fictional partyline

-------------------------------------

twas watchn an old movie, a phone in every room, one person talking unaware that two were listening, on the partyline

these days conference calls kinda look different, and wiretapping at the local sanitation plant is an odd way to keep fingers on the pulse

before any of this/these shenanigans, silence.

==========================

seems like nothing has changed in the evolution of listening?

lots of distractions, covering a certain window of nothing,

who are the (authentic) silent ones today?

---

Hello, Mary is that you, I was just gonna call you!

Yes Stan, seems you got my message

What message?

----------

intention is an interesting message, with no words, across time and space

---

author postscript: a vulgar expression with many words, forgive

edit prescript: this is a draft, just needed to get it down, words fly at unknown speeds

===========

when in it, what to do

freed from it, what to do

present

-----------------

who might these words be fore

when they sit out of sight, unreachable, unknown

if by chance, one might survive

---------------------

reconciling, adapting, cope--

are toys in the chest

of strategies never named.

what would a child call something unknowingly practiced?

(dumb, stupid)

glee sits in spaces of relief

in the quiet after the storm

not knowing it is practice at all.

----------------

young tommy was a mess;

stuffy sinuses from a poor diet,

a nose wiped to sleeve,

a buck-tooth mouth breather.

there were glances from other children,

maybe a flinch, maybe a look away,

but without words only avoidance.

--

his escape was called exploring adventure.

a nearby wooded area, in plain sight,

yet it felt like a cloak.

he entered the openness of nature's stillness,

the creak of branches and hush of canopy,

a private refuge in a refuge.

there in the unbroken air,

he wandered awake-daydreams,

sitting in a kind of stillness he did not yet know

had been taught by violence.

-----------------

when in it

do nothing but be where you are

even the part that learned to disappear

-

freed from it

do nothing but be where you are

even the part that once had to vanish to survive

-

present

"what is this stillness

when it is no longer required of you?"

---------------

author postscript; its all fiction!

before getting into the body of words (campfire story?), of which i have no idea yet beyond the title, a gentle reminder dear reader, the gear of fuction could be at work...

---------------------------------

in those days, live dialogs of something zen, this it, that it, stop saying no

how can another human being know whether i'm espousing 'real' zen or not?

(before this point, readings and investigations on the existences of mysteries, phenomenon that had questionable sources, yet something occurred in real life, unexplained.)

grabbing a book on zen classics, i began to jump read, fanning pages and stopping, opening the book suddenly at random pages and reading....

-------------------------------

allowed myself to be aptitude tested, was part of gaining entrance, all marks average or below with only the mechanical category a notch above. (oddly fitting, a curious mirror)

the action of picking things apart, a hunger that isn't, insisting on a particular dissect, arriving at bones, still not it!? (destructive being in retrospect)

making a tool, were before none existed, this was something (but what)

------------------------

the above is the dilemma, having a certain ability, and yet consistently missing

(so much for aptitude giving an edge)

at some point, through the daily life, encountered, viewed a koan (that i'd read about prior).

I was stunned. and a certain understanding this wasn't a puzzle to be solved at all, things began to make sense in a different way

----------------------------

author's interjection: yeah, messy messy, could have stopped at the bones, could have just plain not wrote anything. forgive to the efficient posture others sit with?

--------------------------------

right, wrap up (chuckle, there is a part 2 lol). zen as a certain type of tool, intimately fashioned by each of us, when applied to all existence was an unexpected thing... yeah zen as a tool is absurd, back then, i was still splitting things up(?)