u/Truthier

No worries, I know exactly what you mean. I’m just using as much precision as I can with the terms because that’s my method of approaching a subject. I hope it doesn’t come off as too pedantic. But sometimes really focusing on the terms and what they mean exactly is useful

What else would it be about?

Glad to see AI used for this purpose. We can learn a lot this way

Agreed, and we have to use Occam‘s razor and not mysticism. That’s why I think in another thread I posted the longer version of this koan from the book of serenity and I wondered if anybody could explain the longer response.

As far as I can tell they mean the same thing. But we don’t even need to go down that path, having gone down it myself before. I think he just answered no to a yes/no question. If “all sentient beings” have Buddha nature then why doesn’t a dog? Isn’t that a contradiction? Isn’t this the conundrum?

Thanks!

We can contemplate what “no” means forever. How do you explain some of the answers from the longer version of this koan in the book of serenity, e.g.

The monk said, “All sentient beings have Buddha nature, why does a dog not?”

Joshu said, “Because he still has karmic consciousness.”

What does “realize Zen” mean? Should we not try to realize bodhi?

What is the fundamental difference between 沒有 and 無？

Very! You can’t change others but you can show them the way

> Someone asked, What is 'the very thing' [i.e., enlightenment] [i.e. not enlightenment at all] ?"

Fixed.

Criticizing a church constitutes membership in a lesser church.

Keep your knee exactly aligned with your toe at all times

It's an interchangeable synonym with consciousness/Mind, with a particular connotation, but just a synonym nonetheless.

> I can create and observe a framework of concepts that don't quite ever touch buddha nature

Yes, because there has to be a Mind there to even perceive your ideas, let alone to conceive them

> Buddha nature is an unprovable thing that ties everything in the universe together and also is the universe. From what you can tell, is this way of understanding buddha nature skillful or not?

If it is true, is any "way of understanding" needed? I would say our understanding of it is separate from it.

When you blow all your budget on the optic before you buy the gun

"if they did not laugh at it, it would not be the Way" - Lao Tzu

By setting enlightenment as apart from delusion you only build dichotomy. So the very act of defining it objectively you create a narrative and all it's shadows and reflections.

well said, you described the opposite of the prajna (Zen) way.

well, bodhi is one of the important root words, from which we also get 'buddha'. bodhi means awakenness, kind of a lack of delusion. in buddhist tradition there are like 1324213432 versions of enlightenment with all kinds of varying degrees. all metaphors of transcending broken modes of thinking and improving ones model of understanding.

now in english we just go around talking about a single type of 'enlightenment' which hardly maps all of those other thousands of years of discussion and loses pretty much all the tradition.

yet, there is a common theme.............. removing of delusion, an event, NEVER a state of being. in buddhist model, nobody ever "becomes enlightened", you can only become less unenlightened.

we need to make sure we strangle this whole idea that there are 'enlightened people', it just sets back the next wave of students that much further from something useful.

If we deny the reality of the aggregates

They are "real", *but they are not consciousness*, just a quality of its "unfolding".

It's like saying is to understand what Netflix is you need to ignore the fact that certain movies are streaming, and understand that it's just a video delivery device. You can remove all the movies on Netflix temporarily, and Netflix still has the same fundamental design.

I would say this is the more common problem, not the exception

All translations are going to be poor in some ways, especially with the amount of backstory you need to parse the texts fully. Like if you were an expert in Classical Chinese and a native Chinese speaker you couldn’t understand many parts of it if you didn’t have a rudimentary background in Buddhism. So take it all with a grain of salt, and use it as another source to take with a grain of salt like they all should be

Part of the point (of Buddhist philosophy) is to understand the fundamental nature of observation (and the observer) itself, which is something that cannot be readily encoded as a principle. Hence the principle in Zen Buddhism of it not being word-based, etc

Define enlightenment precisely enough and none of these questions will be needed

I have stopped practicing and closed my heart off, because I have scared of reaching a point of no return in my practice, after which there's no way to fairly investigate what I really think about Christianity.

if you're worried about that, you already aren't truly fair... doubt everything 100% and you are never wrong. The bible is fine, no need to a doubtful representation of it to defend. it is what it is. As Paul said, "all scripture is divinely inspired". Western and Eastern, not much difference...

this would be a good one for /r/changemyview if you are not asking these questions rhetorically and want a strong counter argument and you're not getting it here. I am mostly in agreement with your view, there are idiots who use religion and idiots who dont use religion. Religion is a entirely unrelated aspect of the real issue: ignorance, lack of education, lack of morals (both "sides") and principles, etc. A religion concept is not necessarily religious in nature.

To demonstrate why commonly held views are sometimes wrong, consider the fact that "God" is not an exclusively religious concept (the term and its cultural history yes, but it is originally not a self-referential concept)... the Abrahamists technically considered God something that pre-existed before them, so even if it is a made up idea, it refers to something that existed before their religion