(Dogen is pretty inscrutable without a lot of support and I think Zen people massively over-recommend him to beginners. I think he is a poor choice for teaching the Dharma to Westerners.)
<danielbrottman> from the mountains and rivers sutra:
“An ancient Buddha said, ‘Mountains are mountains, waters and waters.’ These words do not mean mountains are mountains; they mean mountains are mountains.”
VERY HELPFUL DOGEN, THANKS FOR THE TIP
<jbfly46> @danielbrottman Mountains are made of extremely slow waters.
<danielbrottman> @jbfly46 lmao
<HellenicVibes> @danielbrottman There’s a very good book about this https://t.co/EscAAjfeuu
<danielbrottman> @HellenicVibes sick thanks
<drakosophos> @danielbrottman This is one of my all time favorites. I’ve read various little renditions of it. It’s one of the most brilliant ones out there. One of those finger pointers that gets your finger cut off by the master. One of the best pointers since Mu and Roughly. Such a gem.
<danielbrottman> @drakosophos 🙂🙏
<SenseiMilli> @danielbrottman i need you to explain this to me like im five
<danielbrottman> @SenseiMilli https://t.co/KlenCSQ9L1
<SenseiMilli> @danielbrottman yeah i need this explained to me like i’m four 😂😂😂 i think i’ve gotten a glimpse of what it means, but still not clear to me /: would need an example to make it more clear.
<forthrighter> @SenseiMilli @danielbrottman so, possibly related points. Friend who studies with a buddhist teacher notes that every time you ask teacher a deep metaphysical question answer’s mundane (“the breeze is lovely today”) and when you ask a simple question they answer with something inscrutable and hella deep
@SenseiMilli @danielbrottman there’s a tradition of koans too, for example: “What is Buddha? Three pounds of flax”
<TPatbat> @forthrighter @SenseiMilli @danielbrottman 3 pounds of flax refers to the amount of linen needed to make a kesa
<danielbrottman> @TPatbat @forthrighter @SenseiMilli ooooooo
<selflathing> @TPatbat @forthrighter @SenseiMilli @danielbrottman WTAF, that changes so much.
where’d you learn all this?
<TPatbat> @selflathing @forthrighter @SenseiMilli @danielbrottman It was a commentary on the Mumonkan but I can’t remember which one—I’ll reply again if I can find it
<selflathing> @danielbrottman David Brazier’s book Dark Side of the Mirror argues that a lot of Dogen passes us by because he’s using metaphors from 13th century Japan, and with some historical context you can make better sense of him
i argue that Dogen should have just written more clearly. doofus
<danielbrottman> @selflathing this makes sense, lots of ancient writing is like this
<selflathing> @danielbrottman fwiw i found the book interesting, but the author fails to resist the temptation to slip into similarly abstract / poetic / metaphorical language of his own. sometimes eye-rolling, sometimes incomprehensible. ironic
but worth a read regardless. 6/10
@danielbrottman my first teacher handed me a copy of Realizing Genjokoan very early in my zen career. drove me up the wall
Dogen is STILL my enemy and i’ve even visited his damn house
FIGHT ME, DOGEN. BRING IT
<perpetuummobula> @danielbrottman I think it’s kind of correct that a lot of spiritual writing is confusing like this? If you’re introducing a new dimension to something, if you’re trying to show 3D depth to a 2D creature, it’ll look like pointing at the same thing at different times and saying it’s different
<danielbrottman> @perpetuummobula yes i agree
<selflathing> @perpetuummobula @danielbrottman yes, teaching is trying to describe something ineffable, but repeatedly failing to inhabit the perspective of a student and ending up incomprehensible is just being a poor teacher imo
i think it’s okay to say that, on the whole, dogen doesn’t land with modern western audiences
@perpetuummobula @danielbrottman i am generalizing heavily here, and there are certainly plenty of western dogen lovers, but i think most of his stuff should come with a “look, this doesn’t work for everyone, don’t feel bad if it’s gobbledegook to you” warning
<perpetuummobula> @selflathing @danielbrottman I think almost everything should come with this caveat. The type of knowledge that has some of you in it going to have to draw upon something you’ve already experienced. The teaching has to be not just ‘what is it’ but ‘how can you go from here to there’, and ‘here’ varies
<selflathing> @perpetuummobula @danielbrottman agreed! i feel like i got lucky falling into a tradition that really emphasizes working with a teacher over a long period of time. have them get to know you, tailor their pointing for you specifically
<durdfarm> @danielbrottman When in doubt, check out Okumura. https://t.co/V4HpRuwwRK
@danielbrottman Now wait til you get a look at Uji! 😬😎🙏
<danielbrottman> @durdfarm oh boy, do I want to know hahaha
<durdfarm> @danielbrottman It’s typically view as more obtuse than the mountains and rivers sutra!
<selflathing> @durdfarm @danielbrottman hahahahahaha thanks for the reminder
<TPatbat> @danielbrottman An ancient Buddha said, “Mountains are mountains, waters are waters.” These words do not mean mountains are “mountains,” they mean MOUNTAINS are MOUNTAINS.
He’s comparing the mental construction “mountain” with the physically existing MOUNTAIN
@danielbrottman The Mountains & Waters Sutra is a meditation on the relationship between the subjective mental constructs of physically existing objects & the actual objects themselves as “objective” phenomena, & how difficult it truly is not to confuse the two
@danielbrottman He’s talking quite directly about the actual experience of true nondual thinking, in a language that didn’t have things like italics or quotation marks to facilitate the discussion like we have in English
<danielbrottman> @TPatbat mmmmm
@TPatbat bbbbbbBASED
@TPatbat thank you
<selflathing> @TPatbat @danielbrottman this is great, thank you. i think you might’ve eroded my dogen rage a little bit