Sunday, November 25, 2012

it's just a bit of style

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The accepted proof of satori is a set of literary and rhetorical skills that takes many years to acquire. -- From Chapter 1, an essay by T. Griffith Foulk in The Koan: Texts and Contexts in Zen Buddhism; edited by Steven Heine and Dale S. Wright

I am utterly unequipped to judge the accuracy or even meaning of what is quoted above. But I can say that it felt like a delightfully-sprung trip-wire in my mind.

"Literary and rhetorical skills" sound very much to me like the considerably simpler, "style" ... as in the "style" of shoes or the "style" of music or the "style" of writing. Your "style," my "style," his-her-or-its "style."

And the idea that after all the years of Zen practice, the upshot is simply a matter of style....

That really appeals to me.

No big deal ... mix 'n' match ... it's just my style.
.
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5 comments:

  1. Back in the saddle againNovember 26, 2012 at 3:24 PM

    Wow!

    From "seeing into one's 'true nature'", and a taking steps towards "Nirvana" to acquiring particular verbal skills

    Have the mighty really fallen or has a scam been exposed, and even admitted to?

    While this assertion of verbal dance might tickle you, it makes me want to skip the Japanese and Chinese word meisters and just get back to basic Buddhism (whatever that is).

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  2. genkakuNovember 26, 2012 at 5:04 PM

    I thought that might set a few pure hairs on fire.

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  3. olcharlieNovember 27, 2012 at 10:52 AM

    What else is there? Follow them around and try to catch them doing something unenlightened? Blood test? Shunryu Suzuki said there are no enlightened people per se, only enlightened acts.

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  4. AnonymousNovember 27, 2012 at 11:15 AM

    There is nothing else. There is no definitive proof not even good acts, or great acts.

    “Subhūti, what do you think? Can the Tathāgata be perceived by means of bodily marks?” “Certainly not, Bhagavān. The Tathāgata cannot be perceived by means of the bodily marks. Why? The bodily marks that the Tathāgata speaks of are not bodily marks.” The Buddha told Subhūti, “Everything that has marks is deceptive and false. If all marks are not seen as marks, then this is perceiving the Tathāgata.”
    - Verse 5, The Diamond Sutra

    Asserting that The accepted proof of satori is a set of literary and rhetorical skills that takes many years to acquire is just particularly absurd elevation of a set of clever verbal skills.

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  5. genkakuNovember 27, 2012 at 11:20 AM

    "Asserting that The accepted proof of satori is a set of literary and rhetorical skills that takes many years to acquire is just particularly absurd elevation of a set of clever verbal skills."

    "Anonymous" -- I couldn't agree more with that possibility.

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