Re: Joy of this, Joy of that

On Sun, 8 Dec 2024, rbowman wrote:

On Sat, 7 Dec 2024 23:36:46 +0100, D wrote:
>

I saw a documentary where an abbott said that she uses (abbess?) the
students answer to the koan to gauge the students spiritual progress.
Somehow that feels so strange to me, since enlightenment is an
individual phenomenon, so how can you build a "scale" based on the
answer to nonsensical questions? On the other hand, I'm not a student of
zen.

>
Rinzai Zen is often criticized for the koan system. It might have worked
at one point before it became formalized.
>
https://www.amazon.com/Sound-One-Hand-Answers-Classics/dp/1681370220
>
For only $11.99 in the Kindle edition you can get the teacher's edition.
>
Soto Zen is more into just sitting (zazen).
>
And then there is the Western spin. It can be traced back to Alan Watts,
and alcoholic British expat, and through him to Christmas Humphreys, the
founder of the London Buddhist Society. Then you get to Bennett, the Order
of the Golden Dawn, Crowley, Annie Besant of the Theosophical Society, and
other assorted nutters. D.T. Suzuki was also from that group and threw in
his own spin.
>
Filter it through a generation or two and you have Tricycle. Personally I
prefer Rahula's take although he is often criticized as being too Western.
>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_the_Buddha_Taught

I'm no expert, but I'd say the sitting version sounds more "original". As for Watts, I'm always skeptical of those kind of new ages guys, but very often people seem to be huge fans.