Edgar,
Old habits die hard, here. My first career was as a Philosopher. Socrates is
still a pal. We go 'way back.
I turned to my avocation, though, and made a career in Science. This was
because of my experience after I converted formally to Ch'an Buddhism: it
changed by life and my desire about what to do with the mind, and the life of
work ahead. I've had three careers in different but related specializations in
Astronomy, working my way through the spectrum to progressively shorter
wavelengths. There's more spectrum left but for the moment I am retired and
concentrating on ham radio; and woodworking, making things for Ch'an and Zen
Buddhist practice-places, and for teachers, you know.
I practice Zen orthodoxy of the Lin Chi and T'sao Tung schools of Chinese
Ch'an, and dedicate myself to promulgate and propagate it, yes; I've made that
promise. Also practiced 25 years in a Zen center based on an American
teacher's teaching who was heir to a Japanese line. I see the differences and
the similarities. This is good, because neither one nor the other of the
old-country schools seems "just right" for, say, America, but what is "just
right" is changing here, etc., all the time, too. What's right are the
methods. The packaging and wrappers can be changed gradually for our stainless
steel market shelves.
Zen Orthodoxy -- what in America in the 1950s was so totally new and exciting!
-- has done me and others no wrong (unlike Buji-Zennists, and those who
deprecate practice for themselves and others).
What makes me laugh -- and cry -- are those who would change established
practice and practices who have not yet practiced them deeply, and then try to
diminish others for actually having genuine experience and trying to give Zen a
push in the public mind while never, ever, misrepresenting it. Many of them
are drug-addled, and have not once ever tasted (natural) samadhi, much less its
sudden break-up in Awakening, which is the elementary gate of Zen, and
where/when a lifetime of zen practice only BEGINS.
Zen practice will evolve in the West, and is doing so, and it will adapt to a
non-monastic model. This is new! This is what we are about, now. The
original "orthodox" will evolve to become our orthodox: will you still squeal,
then, Edgar? I predict Yes. Slackers cry even with a loaf of bread under
their arm; they just don't know how to sit down and eat. Meanwhile...
You pls. do your part; I'll do mine.
--Joe
PS Senator, I knew Jack Socrates; Jack Socrates was a friend of mine; Senator,
you're no Jack Socrates.
> Edgar Owen <edgarowen@...> wrote:
>
> You a Socratic gadfly? Come on Joe, that's the role I play here. You on the
> other hand represent conformity and acceptance of the Zen orthodoxy...
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