This resonated with me because it highlights a trap that seems almost unavoidable: turning the search for freedom into another form of attachment. The ego is remarkably adaptable. If it can no longer identify with wealth, status, or achievement, it may simply reinvent itself as the person who is enlightened, awakened, or spiritually advanced.
I especially appreciate the reminder that practice is a means, not an end. Meditation, prayer, study, and ritual can be valuable tools, but they can also become subtle badges of identity if we're not careful. The Zen instruction to "kill the Buddha" isn't a rejection of wisdom; it's a warning against idolizing any idea, teacher, or version of ourselves.
The image of chopping wood and carrying water captures something profound. The ordinary tasks of life don't disappear after insight. What changes is our relationship to them. Perhaps enlightenment isn't escaping reality but meeting it more directly, without constantly trying to turn it into something else.
A thoughtful and humbling reflection. It reminds us that the deepest truths are often found not in extraordinary experiences, but in ordinary moments fully lived.
I am pleased you chose to use the small case “w” on the word “who.” It is a conceit of the egoic mind, the Phantom self, as Jung called this great body of acquired information from this world. It is a tool box for survival, not an identity. Who capital “W”, is our True Identity, the fractal of Source, the Infinite Self(capital “S”), eternal.
The title caught my eye. Years ago, struggling to move past my callow youth, I read a book by the same title by the therapist Sheldon Kopp. Kopp’s works made a lasting impression - thanks for the reminder.
Spiritual is just another phase in human development, as is sexual. You don't identify with the phase when you're really in it, unless you're not really in it. Jung's "fantasizing with light figures" is the reflection of not being there yet.
I appreciated this essay and find the message to be very needed for me and for others in the healing and awakening space. I myself am both a seeker and a therapist and guide for others on the path, and spiritual ego is a tricky ground in this space… I love how zen, from the little I understand, deals with this paradox. For me - as a therapist and guide there is kind of an inherent, “are you qualified” question that lends itself to identifying with practice or experience that separates you from your clients in some way… but I am not that. It’s easy to want to latch on to that identity sometimes. Even in writing this comment I’m like wait am I trying to prove I’m spiritual by replying???
lol. I guess either way, a practice that helps me with this practically is that each night before going to sleep I visualize throwing everything that is “not me” into a fire. Starting with say, my phone, my computer, my money, my home, my degrees, my relationships… all the way up to my body and the mind it contains. It’s oddly ecstatic and relieving.
I heard Henry Shukman speak on a podcast about how Zen kind of dissolves itself when you really get it, and I feel like this is what you’re speaking to… I’m curious, for those of us who are on a path is there anything zen encourages practitioners to do to assist in “killing the Buddha” for ourselves?
Doubt (Vicikicchā): Skeptical doubt regarding the Triple Gem (the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha). This doubt disappears through the direct, personal realization of the Four Noble Truths. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjlGIH15lJE&t=751]
Attachment to Rites and Rituals (Sīlabbata-parāmāsa): The belief that merely performing external rituals, ceremonies, or ascetic practices is sufficient to lead to enlightenment. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hCmTyYiLVk&t=33]
In Methunadhamma (Vinaypitaka) of Buddhism, Buddhist monk raped girl child, she died. Buddha said,"There is no crime causing expulsion from Buddhist Sangha". All 7 Buddhist countries are made after committing genocides of local tribes. Buddhism originated in ancient India roughly 2,500 years ago. Consider BUDDHISM as field guide for ABRAHAMIC RELIGIONS.
4.4 billion creatures, comprising over 50% of the global population follow DESERT CULTS/CIRCUMCISED GANGS/Middle Eastern THINGS (JUDAISM=Source of Abrahamic cults, Christianity=Cheap copy of judaism, Islam=Judaism planted on Arab pagan culture) abuse vulnerable (WOMEN & CHILDREN). 𝑺𝒐, 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒇𝒐𝒍𝒍𝒐𝒘, 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒕’𝒔 “𝑴𝒀𝑻𝑯𝑰𝑪𝑨𝑳 𝑽𝑰𝑹𝑮𝑰𝑵 𝑭𝑼𝑪”𝑬𝑹 𝒁𝑶𝑴𝑩𝑰𝑬 𝑱𝑬𝑺𝑼𝑺 𝑪𝑯𝑹𝑰𝑺𝑻” 𝒐𝒓 𝑹𝑨𝑷”𝑺𝑻 𝘼𝙍𝘼𝘽 𝑴𝑼𝑯𝑨𝑴𝑴𝑨𝑫 𝒐𝒓 𝒔𝒉𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝑪𝑶”𝑲 𝒊𝒏 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝑹𝑬𝑪𝑻𝑼𝑴 & 𝒘𝒂𝒊𝒕 𝒇𝒐𝒓 “𝑶𝒍𝒂𝒎 𝑯𝒂-𝑩𝒂” 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒆𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒕𝒚, 𝒋𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒏𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒎𝒖𝒏𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒆𝒔 𝒂𝒍𝒐𝒏𝒆.
Certain groups (WHITES OF EUROPE & ISLAMISTS of Middle East) have normalized this idea that everyone must collectively take responsibility, regardless of actual involvement. So, FUCK WORLD WARS, FUCK HOLOCAUST, FUCK PALESTINE & FINAL FUCK goes to CIRCUMCISED GANGS (JUDAISM, Christianity, Islam).
“Everything happening in America is designed to benefit Europe, directly or indirectly, WORLD POLITICS & RELIGION ARE JUST THEATRICS”.
Foreword by Dr. C. G. Jung to Suzuki’s Zen Buddhism
Daistz Teitaro Suzuki’s w’orks on Zen Buddhism are among the best contributions to the knowledge of living Buddhism that recent decades have produced, and Zen itself is the most impxDrtant fruit that has sprung from that tree whose roots are the collections of the Pali-Canon.
We cannot be sufficiendy grateful to the author, first for the fact of his having brought Zen closer to Western understanding, and secondly for the manner in which he has achieved this task.
Oriental religious conceptions are usually so very different from our Western ones that even the very translation of the words brings one up against the greatest difficulties, quite apart from the meaning of the ideas exposed, which under certain circumstances are better left untranslated.
I have only to mention the Chinese “Tao’\ which no European translation has yet achieved.
The original Buddhist writings themselves contain views and ideas which are more or less unassimilable by the average Western understanding.
I do not know, for example, just what spiritual (or perhaps climatic?) background or preparation is necessary before one can deduce any completely clear idea from the Buddhist Kamma.
In spite of all that we know about the essence of Zen, here too there is the question of a central perception of unsurpassed singularity.
This strange perception is called Saton, and may be translated as “Enlightenment”.
Suzuki says (see page 95), “Satori is the raison d’etre of Zen, and without it there is no Zen.”
It should not be too difficult for the Western mind to grasp what a mystic understands by “enlightenment”, or what is known as “enlightenment” in religious parlance.
Satori, however, depicts an art and a way of enlightenment which is practically impossible for the European to appreciate.
I would point out the enlightenment of Hyakujo (Pai-chang Huai-hai, a.d. 724-814) on page 89, and the legend on pages 92-3 of this book.
The following may serve as a fiirther example:
A monk once went to Gensha, and wanted to learn where the entrance to the path of truth was. Gensha asked him, “Do you hear the murmuring of the brook?”
“Yes, I hear it,” answered the monk.
“There is the entrance,” the master instructed him.
I will be content with these few examples, which illustrate clearly the opacity of the satori experiences.
Even if we take example after example, it is still extremely hazy how such an enlightenment comes and of what it consists ; in other words, by what or about what one is enlightened. Kaiten Nukariya, who was himself a Professor at the So-To-Shu Buddhist College in Tokyo, says, speaking of enlightenment : “Having set ourselves free from the misconception of Self, next we must awaken our innermost wisdom, pure and divine, called the Mind of Buddha, or Bodhi, or Prajna by Zen Masters.
It is the divine light, the inner heaven, the key to all moral treasures, the source of all influence and power, the seat of kindness, justice, sympathy, impartial love, humanity, and mercy, the measure of all things.
When this innermost wisdom is fully awakened, we are able to realize that each and every one of us is identical in spirit, in essence, in nature with the universal life or Buddha, that each ever lives face to face with Buddha, that each is beset by the abundant grace of the Blessed One, that He arouses his moral nature, that He opens his spiritual eyes, that He unfolds his new capacity, that He appoints his mission, and that life is not an ocean of birth, disease, old age and death, nor the vale of tears, but the holy temple of Buddha, the Pure Land, where he can enjoy the bliss of Nirvana.
Then our minds go through an entire revolution. We are no more troubled by anger and hatred, no more bitten by envy and ambition, no more stung by sorrow and chagrin, to more overwhelmed by melancholy and despair,” etc.
That is how an Oriental, himself a disciple of Zen, describes the essence of enlightenment.
It must be admitted that this passage would need only the most minute alterations in order not to be out of place in any Christian mystical book of devotion.
Yet somehow it fails to help us as regards understanding the satori experience described by this all-embracing casuistry.
Presumably Nukariya is speaking to Western rationalism, of which he himself has acquired a good dose, and that is why it all sounds so flatly edifying.
The abstruse obscurity of the Zen anecdotes is preferable to this adaptation: ad usum Delphini; it conveys a great deal more, while saying less.
Zen is anything but a philosophy in the Western sense of the word.
This is the opinion expressed by Rudolf Otto in his introduction to Ohasama’s book on Zen, when he says that Nukariya has fitted the magic oriental world of ideas into our Western philosophic categories, and confused it with these.
If psycho-physical parallelism, the most wooden of all doctrines, is invoked in order to explain this mystical intuition of Not-twoness (fehtzweiheit) and Oneness and the coincidentia oppositorium, one is completely ejected from the sphere of koan and kwatsu and satori}
It is far better to allow oneself to become deeply imbued beforehand with the exotic obscurity of the Zen anecdotes, and to bear in mind the whole time that satori is a mysterium ineffabile, as indeed the Zen masters wish it to be.
Between the anecdotes and the mystical enlightenment there is, for our understanding, a gulf, the possibility of bridging which can at best be indicated but never in practice achieved.’
One has the feeling of touching up>on a true secret, not something that has been imagined or pretended; this is not a case of mystifying secrecy, but rather of an experience that baffles all languages. Satori comes as something unexpected, not to be expected.
When within the realm of Christianity visions of the Holy Trinity, the Madonna, the Crucifixion or the Patron Saint are vouchsafed, one has the impression that this is more or less as it should be.
That Jacob Boehme should obtain a glimpse into the centrum naturae by means of the sunbeam reflected in the tin plate is also understandable.
It is harder to accept Master Eckehart’s vision of “the litde naked boy”, or even Swedenborg’s “man in the red coat” who wanted to wean him from overeating, and whom, in spite of this or perhaps because of it, he recognized as the Lord God.
Such things are difficult to accept, bordering as they do on the grotesque.
Many of the satori experiences, however, do not merely border on the grotesque; they are right there in the midst of it, sounding like complete nonsense.
For anyone, however, who has devoted considerable time to studying with loving and understanding care the flowerlike nature of the spirit of the Far East, many of these amazing hings, which drive the all too simple European from one perplexity to another, fall away.
Zen is indeed one of the most wonderful blossoms of the Chinese spirit,’ which was readily impregnated by the immense thought-world of Buddhism.
He, therefore, who has really tried to understand Buddhist doctrine, if only to a certain degree—i.e. by renouncing various Western prejudices—will come upon certain depths beneath the bizarre cloak of the individual satori experiences, or will sense disquieting difficulties which the philosophic and religious West has up to now thought fit to disregard.
As a philosopher, one is exclusively concerned with that understanding which, for its own part, has nothing to do with life.
And as a Christian, one has nothing to do with paganism (“I thank thee. Lord, that I am not as other men“).
There is no satori within these Western bounds—that is an Oriental affair. But is it really so? Have we in fact no satori?
When one examines the Zen text attentively, one cannot escape the impression that, with all that is bizarre in it, satori is, in fact, a matter of natural occurrence, of something so very simple that one fails to see the wood for the trees, and in attempting to explain it, invariably says the very thing that drives others into the greatest confusion.
Nukariya therefore is right when he says that any attempt to explain or analyse the contents of Zen vs-ith regard to enlightermaent would be in vain.
Nevertheless, this author does venture to say of enlightenment that it embraces an insight into the nature of self, and that it is an emancipation of the conscious from an illusionary conception of self.’
The illusion regarding the nature of self is the common confusion of the ego with self. Nukariya understands by “self” the All-Buddha, i.e. simply a total consciousness {Bewtisstseinstotalitdl) of life.
He quotes Pan Shan, who says, “The world of the mind encloses the whole universe in its light,” adding, “It is a cosmic life and a cosmic spirit, and at the same time anindividual life and an individual spirit.”
However one may define self, it is always something other than the ego, and inasmuch as a higher understanding of the ego leads on to self the latter is a thing of wider scope, embracing the knowledge of the ego and therefore surpassing it.
In the same way as the ego is a certain knowledge of my self so is the self a knowledge of my ego, which, however, is no longer experienced in the form of a broader or higher ego, but in the form of a non-ego {Nichi-Ich). ~Carl Jung, Introduction to Zen Buddhism, Page 9-13.
This resonated with me because it highlights a trap that seems almost unavoidable: turning the search for freedom into another form of attachment. The ego is remarkably adaptable. If it can no longer identify with wealth, status, or achievement, it may simply reinvent itself as the person who is enlightened, awakened, or spiritually advanced.
I especially appreciate the reminder that practice is a means, not an end. Meditation, prayer, study, and ritual can be valuable tools, but they can also become subtle badges of identity if we're not careful. The Zen instruction to "kill the Buddha" isn't a rejection of wisdom; it's a warning against idolizing any idea, teacher, or version of ourselves.
The image of chopping wood and carrying water captures something profound. The ordinary tasks of life don't disappear after insight. What changes is our relationship to them. Perhaps enlightenment isn't escaping reality but meeting it more directly, without constantly trying to turn it into something else.
A thoughtful and humbling reflection. It reminds us that the deepest truths are often found not in extraordinary experiences, but in ordinary moments fully lived.
There is no trap. There is Infinite Consciousness
Yes. I think that if Ramakrishna had been asked that same question. He would have responded, “What happens to who?”
I am pleased you chose to use the small case “w” on the word “who.” It is a conceit of the egoic mind, the Phantom self, as Jung called this great body of acquired information from this world. It is a tool box for survival, not an identity. Who capital “W”, is our True Identity, the fractal of Source, the Infinite Self(capital “S”), eternal.
One of my favourite Zen teachings.
Not because it is anti-Buddhist, but because it is anti-idolatry.
The Buddha becomes a problem the moment he is somewhere else.
The guru becomes a problem the moment they replace your own discernment.
The belief becomes a problem the moment questioning it becomes forbidden.
“Kill the Buddha” is not about destroying wisdom.
It is about destroying the things standing between you and direct experience.
Every path eventually asks the same thing:
Stop worshipping the map.
Look at the road.
The title caught my eye. Years ago, struggling to move past my callow youth, I read a book by the same title by the therapist Sheldon Kopp. Kopp’s works made a lasting impression - thanks for the reminder.
Spiritual is just another phase in human development, as is sexual. You don't identify with the phase when you're really in it, unless you're not really in it. Jung's "fantasizing with light figures" is the reflection of not being there yet.
Why i love Zen
I'm so Buddha I'm not Buddha
Beautiful one.
I appreciated this essay and find the message to be very needed for me and for others in the healing and awakening space. I myself am both a seeker and a therapist and guide for others on the path, and spiritual ego is a tricky ground in this space… I love how zen, from the little I understand, deals with this paradox. For me - as a therapist and guide there is kind of an inherent, “are you qualified” question that lends itself to identifying with practice or experience that separates you from your clients in some way… but I am not that. It’s easy to want to latch on to that identity sometimes. Even in writing this comment I’m like wait am I trying to prove I’m spiritual by replying???
lol. I guess either way, a practice that helps me with this practically is that each night before going to sleep I visualize throwing everything that is “not me” into a fire. Starting with say, my phone, my computer, my money, my home, my degrees, my relationships… all the way up to my body and the mind it contains. It’s oddly ecstatic and relieving.
I heard Henry Shukman speak on a podcast about how Zen kind of dissolves itself when you really get it, and I feel like this is what you’re speaking to… I’m curious, for those of us who are on a path is there anything zen encourages practitioners to do to assist in “killing the Buddha” for ourselves?
A Stream-Enterer (Pali: Sotāpanna) is an individual who has attained the first of four stages of enlightenment in Buddhism. Literally meaning "one who has entered the stream," they are guaranteed to reach full liberation (Nirvana) within a maximum of seven lifetimes. [https://buddho.org/from-stream-enterer-to-arahant-the-four-stages-of-liberation/, https://www.learnreligions.com/srotapanna-the-stream-enterer-4015169, https://sasanarakkha.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Guaranteed-for-Stream-Entry-Before-Death-by-Aggacitta-Bhikkhu-July-2015.pdf, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0e_zN4xa2k&t=2]
The Three Eradicated Fetters
To achieve stream-entry, a practitioner must break the first three of the ten mental "fetters" (or chains) that bind beings to the cycle of rebirth: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjlGIH15lJE&t=751, https://tricycle.org/article/what-is-stream-entry/, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hCmTyYiLVk&t=33, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0e_zN4xa2k&t=2, https://sasanarakkha.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Guaranteed-for-Stream-Entry-Before-Death-by-Aggacitta-Bhikkhu-July-2015.pdf]
Identity View (Sakkāya-diṭṭhi): The belief that there is an inherent, permanent, and unchanging "self" or "soul." The Stream-Enterer directly experiences that body and mind are impermanent, impersonal aggregates. [https://www.reddit.com/r/theravada/comments/18r1yas/how_does_one_become_a_streamenterer/, https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/questions/51537/what-does-one-contemplate-to-become-a-sot%C4%81panna, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hCmTyYiLVk&t=33, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjlGIH15lJE&t=751]
Doubt (Vicikicchā): Skeptical doubt regarding the Triple Gem (the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha). This doubt disappears through the direct, personal realization of the Four Noble Truths. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjlGIH15lJE&t=751]
Attachment to Rites and Rituals (Sīlabbata-parāmāsa): The belief that merely performing external rituals, ceremonies, or ascetic practices is sufficient to lead to enlightenment. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hCmTyYiLVk&t=33]
Core Characteristics
Because of their profound shift in perspective, a Sotāpanna naturally possesses several unshakeable qualities: [https://buddho.org/from-stream-enterer-to-arahant-the-four-stages-of-liberation/, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hCmTyYiLVk&t=33]
Unwavering Faith: They have absolute, verified confidence in the Buddha, his teachings, and the community of noble practitioners. [https://buddho.org/from-stream-enterer-to-arahant-the-four-stages-of-liberation/, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0e_zN4xa2k&t=2]
Impeccable Morality: They are physically, verbally, and mentally incapable of violating the five basic precepts (i.e., not killing, stealing, engaging in sexual misconduct, lying, or consuming intoxicants). [https://buddho.org/from-stream-enterer-to-arahant-the-four-stages-of-liberation/, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0e_zN4xa2k&t=2]
Irreversibility: The insight they have gained into the nature of reality is permanent. They will never regress to an ordinary, unenlightened state of mind. [https://buddho.org/from-stream-enterer-to-arahant-the-four-stages-of-liberation/, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hCmTyYiLVk&t=33]
Variations of Stream-Enterers
According to Buddhist texts, Stream-Enterers are categorized into three types based on how many lifetimes they will require to achieve full awakening: [https://www.dhammawiki.com/index.php/Sotapanna, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0e_zN4xa2k&t=2]
The Seven-Rebirth-at-the-Most (Sattakkhattu-parama): Will be reborn a maximum of seven times in human or heavenly realms before attaining Nirvana.
From Family to Family (Kolankola): Will be reborn two to three times, moving between noble (advanced) families.
The One-Seed (Eka-bījī): Will take exactly one more human rebirth before reaching final liberation.
Spirituality gets weird the moment the ego learns Sanskrit.
The trap isn’t wanting to wake up. The trap is becoming very impressed with yourself for wanting to wake up.
the only way to "get there" is through everyday activities. here we have no well, so I had to devise a substitute for drawing water.
thenks for these accurate vie#ws!
A different take on Buddha’s early life:
https://jeemteamwrites.substack.com/p/before-enlightenment-part-1?r=69jbhp&utm_medium=ios
In Methunadhamma (Vinaypitaka) of Buddhism, Buddhist monk raped girl child, she died. Buddha said,"There is no crime causing expulsion from Buddhist Sangha". All 7 Buddhist countries are made after committing genocides of local tribes. Buddhism originated in ancient India roughly 2,500 years ago. Consider BUDDHISM as field guide for ABRAHAMIC RELIGIONS.
𝗭𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗶𝘀𝗺 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝗰𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁.
ISLAM IS CURSE ON THE PLANET.
𝐈𝐟 𝐙𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐈𝐒𝐌 (𝐉𝐄𝐖ISH Perpetrators) 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐠𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭 𝐖𝐄𝐒𝐓/EUROPE, 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐁𝐎𝐌𝐁 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐞𝐱𝐜𝐞𝐩𝐭 𝐄𝐔𝐑𝐎𝐏𝐄. 𝐉𝐄𝐖𝐒 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐒𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐂𝐄 𝐨𝐟 𝐀𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐡𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐜 𝐜𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐬 & 𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝.
𝐙𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐈𝐒𝐌 𝐨𝐫 𝐉𝐄𝐖𝐒 𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐢𝐝𝐝𝐥𝐞 𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐖𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐍 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐞𝐬. 𝐀𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐝 & 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐢𝐝𝐝𝐥𝐞 𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐭, 𝐙𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐈𝐒𝐓 𝐂𝐎𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐈𝐀𝐋𝐒 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐀𝐒𝐈𝐀.
4.4 billion creatures, comprising over 50% of the global population follow DESERT CULTS/CIRCUMCISED GANGS/Middle Eastern THINGS (JUDAISM=Source of Abrahamic cults, Christianity=Cheap copy of judaism, Islam=Judaism planted on Arab pagan culture) abuse vulnerable (WOMEN & CHILDREN). 𝑺𝒐, 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒇𝒐𝒍𝒍𝒐𝒘, 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒕’𝒔 “𝑴𝒀𝑻𝑯𝑰𝑪𝑨𝑳 𝑽𝑰𝑹𝑮𝑰𝑵 𝑭𝑼𝑪”𝑬𝑹 𝒁𝑶𝑴𝑩𝑰𝑬 𝑱𝑬𝑺𝑼𝑺 𝑪𝑯𝑹𝑰𝑺𝑻” 𝒐𝒓 𝑹𝑨𝑷”𝑺𝑻 𝘼𝙍𝘼𝘽 𝑴𝑼𝑯𝑨𝑴𝑴𝑨𝑫 𝒐𝒓 𝒔𝒉𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝑪𝑶”𝑲 𝒊𝒏 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝑹𝑬𝑪𝑻𝑼𝑴 & 𝒘𝒂𝒊𝒕 𝒇𝒐𝒓 “𝑶𝒍𝒂𝒎 𝑯𝒂-𝑩𝒂” 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒆𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒕𝒚, 𝒋𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒏𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒎𝒖𝒏𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒆𝒔 𝒂𝒍𝒐𝒏𝒆.
Certain groups (WHITES OF EUROPE & ISLAMISTS of Middle East) have normalized this idea that everyone must collectively take responsibility, regardless of actual involvement. So, FUCK WORLD WARS, FUCK HOLOCAUST, FUCK PALESTINE & FINAL FUCK goes to CIRCUMCISED GANGS (JUDAISM, Christianity, Islam).
“Everything happening in America is designed to benefit Europe, directly or indirectly, WORLD POLITICS & RELIGION ARE JUST THEATRICS”.
Foreword by Dr. C. G. Jung to Suzuki’s Zen Buddhism
Daistz Teitaro Suzuki’s w’orks on Zen Buddhism are among the best contributions to the knowledge of living Buddhism that recent decades have produced, and Zen itself is the most impxDrtant fruit that has sprung from that tree whose roots are the collections of the Pali-Canon.
We cannot be sufficiendy grateful to the author, first for the fact of his having brought Zen closer to Western understanding, and secondly for the manner in which he has achieved this task.
Oriental religious conceptions are usually so very different from our Western ones that even the very translation of the words brings one up against the greatest difficulties, quite apart from the meaning of the ideas exposed, which under certain circumstances are better left untranslated.
I have only to mention the Chinese “Tao’\ which no European translation has yet achieved.
The original Buddhist writings themselves contain views and ideas which are more or less unassimilable by the average Western understanding.
I do not know, for example, just what spiritual (or perhaps climatic?) background or preparation is necessary before one can deduce any completely clear idea from the Buddhist Kamma.
In spite of all that we know about the essence of Zen, here too there is the question of a central perception of unsurpassed singularity.
This strange perception is called Saton, and may be translated as “Enlightenment”.
Suzuki says (see page 95), “Satori is the raison d’etre of Zen, and without it there is no Zen.”
It should not be too difficult for the Western mind to grasp what a mystic understands by “enlightenment”, or what is known as “enlightenment” in religious parlance.
Satori, however, depicts an art and a way of enlightenment which is practically impossible for the European to appreciate.
I would point out the enlightenment of Hyakujo (Pai-chang Huai-hai, a.d. 724-814) on page 89, and the legend on pages 92-3 of this book.
The following may serve as a fiirther example:
A monk once went to Gensha, and wanted to learn where the entrance to the path of truth was. Gensha asked him, “Do you hear the murmuring of the brook?”
“Yes, I hear it,” answered the monk.
“There is the entrance,” the master instructed him.
I will be content with these few examples, which illustrate clearly the opacity of the satori experiences.
Even if we take example after example, it is still extremely hazy how such an enlightenment comes and of what it consists ; in other words, by what or about what one is enlightened. Kaiten Nukariya, who was himself a Professor at the So-To-Shu Buddhist College in Tokyo, says, speaking of enlightenment : “Having set ourselves free from the misconception of Self, next we must awaken our innermost wisdom, pure and divine, called the Mind of Buddha, or Bodhi, or Prajna by Zen Masters.
It is the divine light, the inner heaven, the key to all moral treasures, the source of all influence and power, the seat of kindness, justice, sympathy, impartial love, humanity, and mercy, the measure of all things.
When this innermost wisdom is fully awakened, we are able to realize that each and every one of us is identical in spirit, in essence, in nature with the universal life or Buddha, that each ever lives face to face with Buddha, that each is beset by the abundant grace of the Blessed One, that He arouses his moral nature, that He opens his spiritual eyes, that He unfolds his new capacity, that He appoints his mission, and that life is not an ocean of birth, disease, old age and death, nor the vale of tears, but the holy temple of Buddha, the Pure Land, where he can enjoy the bliss of Nirvana.
Then our minds go through an entire revolution. We are no more troubled by anger and hatred, no more bitten by envy and ambition, no more stung by sorrow and chagrin, to more overwhelmed by melancholy and despair,” etc.
That is how an Oriental, himself a disciple of Zen, describes the essence of enlightenment.
It must be admitted that this passage would need only the most minute alterations in order not to be out of place in any Christian mystical book of devotion.
Yet somehow it fails to help us as regards understanding the satori experience described by this all-embracing casuistry.
Presumably Nukariya is speaking to Western rationalism, of which he himself has acquired a good dose, and that is why it all sounds so flatly edifying.
The abstruse obscurity of the Zen anecdotes is preferable to this adaptation: ad usum Delphini; it conveys a great deal more, while saying less.
Zen is anything but a philosophy in the Western sense of the word.
This is the opinion expressed by Rudolf Otto in his introduction to Ohasama’s book on Zen, when he says that Nukariya has fitted the magic oriental world of ideas into our Western philosophic categories, and confused it with these.
If psycho-physical parallelism, the most wooden of all doctrines, is invoked in order to explain this mystical intuition of Not-twoness (fehtzweiheit) and Oneness and the coincidentia oppositorium, one is completely ejected from the sphere of koan and kwatsu and satori}
It is far better to allow oneself to become deeply imbued beforehand with the exotic obscurity of the Zen anecdotes, and to bear in mind the whole time that satori is a mysterium ineffabile, as indeed the Zen masters wish it to be.
Between the anecdotes and the mystical enlightenment there is, for our understanding, a gulf, the possibility of bridging which can at best be indicated but never in practice achieved.’
One has the feeling of touching up>on a true secret, not something that has been imagined or pretended; this is not a case of mystifying secrecy, but rather of an experience that baffles all languages. Satori comes as something unexpected, not to be expected.
When within the realm of Christianity visions of the Holy Trinity, the Madonna, the Crucifixion or the Patron Saint are vouchsafed, one has the impression that this is more or less as it should be.
That Jacob Boehme should obtain a glimpse into the centrum naturae by means of the sunbeam reflected in the tin plate is also understandable.
It is harder to accept Master Eckehart’s vision of “the litde naked boy”, or even Swedenborg’s “man in the red coat” who wanted to wean him from overeating, and whom, in spite of this or perhaps because of it, he recognized as the Lord God.
Such things are difficult to accept, bordering as they do on the grotesque.
Many of the satori experiences, however, do not merely border on the grotesque; they are right there in the midst of it, sounding like complete nonsense.
For anyone, however, who has devoted considerable time to studying with loving and understanding care the flowerlike nature of the spirit of the Far East, many of these amazing hings, which drive the all too simple European from one perplexity to another, fall away.
Zen is indeed one of the most wonderful blossoms of the Chinese spirit,’ which was readily impregnated by the immense thought-world of Buddhism.
He, therefore, who has really tried to understand Buddhist doctrine, if only to a certain degree—i.e. by renouncing various Western prejudices—will come upon certain depths beneath the bizarre cloak of the individual satori experiences, or will sense disquieting difficulties which the philosophic and religious West has up to now thought fit to disregard.
As a philosopher, one is exclusively concerned with that understanding which, for its own part, has nothing to do with life.
And as a Christian, one has nothing to do with paganism (“I thank thee. Lord, that I am not as other men“).
There is no satori within these Western bounds—that is an Oriental affair. But is it really so? Have we in fact no satori?
When one examines the Zen text attentively, one cannot escape the impression that, with all that is bizarre in it, satori is, in fact, a matter of natural occurrence, of something so very simple that one fails to see the wood for the trees, and in attempting to explain it, invariably says the very thing that drives others into the greatest confusion.
Nukariya therefore is right when he says that any attempt to explain or analyse the contents of Zen vs-ith regard to enlightermaent would be in vain.
Nevertheless, this author does venture to say of enlightenment that it embraces an insight into the nature of self, and that it is an emancipation of the conscious from an illusionary conception of self.’
The illusion regarding the nature of self is the common confusion of the ego with self. Nukariya understands by “self” the All-Buddha, i.e. simply a total consciousness {Bewtisstseinstotalitdl) of life.
He quotes Pan Shan, who says, “The world of the mind encloses the whole universe in its light,” adding, “It is a cosmic life and a cosmic spirit, and at the same time anindividual life and an individual spirit.”
However one may define self, it is always something other than the ego, and inasmuch as a higher understanding of the ego leads on to self the latter is a thing of wider scope, embracing the knowledge of the ego and therefore surpassing it.
In the same way as the ego is a certain knowledge of my self so is the self a knowledge of my ego, which, however, is no longer experienced in the form of a broader or higher ego, but in the form of a non-ego {Nichi-Ich). ~Carl Jung, Introduction to Zen Buddhism, Page 9-13.
Nice essay, spot on.
“Silence is not the absence of sound, but the absence of self.” — Anthony de Mello