• dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    12 days ago

    In the Second Scroll of Wen the Eternally Surprised, a story is written concerning one day when the apprentice Clodpool, in a rebellious mood, approached Wen and spake thusly:

    “Master, what is the difference between a humanistic, monastic system of belief in which wisdom in sought by means of an apparently nonsensical system of questions and answers, and a lot of mystic gibberish made up on the spur of the moment?”

    Wen considered this for some time, and at last said: “A fish!”

    And Clodpool went away, satisfied.

      • RaoulDook@lemmy.worldEnglish
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        12 days ago

        Here’s a legit Zen koan that fits the bill:

        Mumonkan number 14: Nansen kills the cat

        Once the monks of the Western and Eastern Halls were arguing about a cat. Nansen, holding up the cat, said, “You monks! If you can say a word of Zen, I will spare the cat. Otherwise I will kill it.” No one could answer, so Nansen cut the cat in two. That evening, when Joshu returned, Nansen told him of the incident. Joshu thereupon took off his sandal, put it on his head, and walked off. Nansen said, “If you had been there, the cat would have been saved!”

        • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
          0·
          12 days ago
          an interpretation

          It might make more sense if you replace Joshu’s actions with “doing a jerk-off motion.” He’s treating the discussion as unserious, as well as treating himself as unserious.

          Nansen shows up looking to start an argument in bad faith, no doubt with all sorts of rhetorical talking points prepared designed to catch the other side in a gotcha. Attempting to engage just takes you into his prepared talking points and responses, while evading the question or refusing to answer makes him feel like he’s “won,” and leaves his words unchallenged.

          The only thing you can really do is to take him off script and take the wind out of his sails. Nansen was prepared for the possibility that they’d answer, and prepared for the possibility that they’d refuse to engage, but he didn’t have a plan for what to do if someone put a shoe on their head.

          Also, by treating himself unseriously and humbling himself, Joshu removes Nansen’s motivation to prove his superiority and the superiority of his house. Joshu essentially “shows his belly,” and says through his actions, “Bro, I’m just a silly little guy, if you wanna kill that cat, that’s all you.” Nansen’s internal justification for killing the cat could only be that he wanted to knock the other side down off their high horse, and so by abandoning any sense of dignity he would remove that motivation, and the cat’s life would be saved.

          By both having the wisdom to understand Nansen’s thought process, and having the humility to put aside his dignity for the sake of saving the life of an innocent being, Joshu ironically displays a better grasp of Buddhist teachings than Nansen, regardless of whether Nansen could beat him in a debate through wordplay and rhetoric.

        • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
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          12 days ago

          Those koans were stories written by Mumon. They weren’t all based entirely on real events. Maybe Nansen gave a dharma talk where he said he would kill the cat, but to actually kill it would go against the precepts. Highly doubtful that actually happened.

          The point of the koan isn’t surface level though, and if you expect to be able to extract a lesson from a koan by one simple reading, then you’re approaching koans wrong to begin with.

          Mumon’s commentaries might help guide your understanding, and perhaps secondary scholarship like a translator’s notes or whatever. But unless you’re viewing it from inside the tradition, it’s likely to seem obscure/perplexing.

          But unless you already understand what he means by “say a word of Zen,” and why Joshu placing a sandal on his head was taken as an acceptable answer, then this story will elude you no matter how you look at it.

    • zimy@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      Mahayana can be pretty out there too.

      Siddhattha overhears these doubts being expressed so he takes of his clothes, spreads his legs and shows the ladies what is there - and what was there is his kosohitavatthaguyha glowing with a golden light. Then a lotus appeared and from its centre a baby boy’s penis emerges which gradually grows into an adult’s. More lotuses appear, each with a bodhisattva in it. The sutra doesn’t record what the ladies-in-waiting said about this extraordinary exhibition

      https://sdhammika.blogspot.com/2010/08/strangest-sutra-of-them-all.html>

      • Zarobi@aussie.zoneEnglish
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        11 days ago

        When I googled “kosohitavatthaguyha” I found this

        According to the Tipiṭaka, one of the 32 Signs of a Great Man is that ‘the cloth-hidden is encased in a sheath’ (kosohitavatthaguyha, M.II,135). This was interpreted to mean that the Buddha’s penis could be drawn into the body and remain there as with some animals like horses, cattle and elephants.

        the banyan tree was considered sacred, and the Buddha is supposed to have had the proportions of a banyan tree (nigrodhaparimaṇḍala), i.e. the length of his outstretched arms equalled his height. He is supposed to have had long curved eye lashes (gopakhuma) and a very long tongue (pahūtajivhā), both of which are features of the cow, an animal the Indians greatly revered.

        According to the Ṛg Veda, an attractive penis would be big and thick like a club. The Atharva Veda has a prayer to make the penis long and hard like a taut bow and also contains spells to make it as long as that of the wild ass, the elephant or the stallion. The Rāmāyana on the other hand, describes the auspicious man as having a slender, short penis with a smooth glans and drooping testicles. The Buddha seems to have had an aesthetic appreciation for this part of the male anatomy too.

        It seems probable that like the ancient Greeks, the Buddha’s contemporaries considered having a penis whose foreskin (kosa) remained over the glans (makula) when either flaccid or erect, to be a sign of beauty and nobility and that at a later period this physical characteristic was attributed to the Buddha.

        I didn’t know Buddhism had so much dick lore ~ I want that horse cock spell.

    • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
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      12 days ago

      You haven’t read much Abhidharma if “comprehensible” is how you would describe Theravada.

      Not saying anything is wrong with Theravada. Entire cultures are built on its principles. But it takes a surface-level glance to think of it as something simple and easy to understand.

      Zen though, most of the teachings are about pedagogical methods rather than doctrine. That’s why it sounds weird to westerners who think of “religion” as dusty old books and priests who tell you what to do/think.

      Zen teachings literally tell you “Don’t cling to fixed ideas. Don’t seek answers from some external authority figure.” Everything they teach is about guiding you to internalize those things. It’s about showing, not telling.

      So expecting it to “make sense” in the lens of “just let me read a book that will tell me what to believe” is already starting from the wrong foot.

  • pebbles@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    0·
    12 days ago

    I know it is a shitpost but I think the goal is sometimes to force a student to move away from thought.

  • MutantTailThing@lemmy.world
    0·
    12 days ago

    Buddha did say you could put whatever you want on your pizza, even if he himself didn’t like it, which is pretty fucking based as far as religions go.

      • hansolo@lemmy.today
        0·
        11 days ago

        The most Zen thing would be to eat it all up, every bite, and say nothing since obviously durian pizza for the group would be intended to get a rise from them. You accept the adversity, and learn never to let that guy order pizza for the group ever again.

        • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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          11 days ago

          Durian pizza is quite popular in China, people buy it unironically.

          I also tried Durian coffee. I could still taste it 4 hours later.

          • hansolo@lemmy.today
            0·
            11 days ago

            Flavored coffee is a crime.

            How is the pizza? I love me some Gorgonzola on one, so I can see the appeal of some funk.

            • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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              11 days ago

              I didn’t try the pizza, pizza in asia is almost always disappointing.

              I can understand if someone doesn’t like coffee and just wants a flavored milk drink with coffee undertones.

  • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
    0·
    12 days ago

    Koans are designed to be given by a teacher to a student when the teacher personally assesses that the student could benefit from considering it. They’re also designed to not be comprehensible rationally or immediately, but rather to prompt introspection and to get someone to reflect on their own thought patterns. You can’t just rip them out of that context while not understanding the belief system and treat them like a riddle from Reader’s Digest and expect to get anything out of them.

    • Akasazh@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      11 days ago

      I admire your knowledge of Buddhist theory.

      But this is a shit post community so it’s as unserious as the most zen person in the world.

      • Balinares@pawb.social
        0·
        10 days ago

        Fair, although I wouldn’t assume there is zero overlap between Zen and shitposting. Discordianism for instance is – possibly – a sort of DIY Zen shaped like a shitpost, though the jury’s still out on whether it’s just a shitpost shaped like a sort of DIY Zen.

    • Hossenfeffer@feddit.ukEnglish
      0·
      10 days ago

      I once came to understand the answer to the classic: “Show me the face you had before your parents were born.” koan. One of the most amazing experiences of my life - the golden needle penetrated the veil of my mind.

      I could tell you my answer but it would seem trivial and uninteresting. The answer has to be experienced to be grokked (fuck you, Elon). Plus also, perhaps the answer would be different for different people. Now, if only I could work out the sound of one hand fapping…

    • Kangae_Hishiryo@scribe.disroot.org
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      10 days ago

      Rationality is the basis of any understanding. Something that can be understood but without the involvenment of rationality, is an oximoron. Nothing can be understood without rationality.

      • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
        0·
        10 days ago

        How do you understand the taste of a peach with rationality?

        Just taste it, then you’ll understand it. No rationality required, unless you’d rather spend hours being distracted by a series of abstractions that never actually tell you what a peach tastes like.

    • Davel23@fedia.io
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      12 days ago

      The hot dog vendor hands over the sausage and bun with all the trimmings, and the Buddhist hands over a twenty. The vendor pockets it.

      The Buddhist asks “Where’s my change?” and the vendor replies “change must come from within”.

      • tetrachromacy@lemmy.world
        0·
        12 days ago

        Then the Buddhist pulls out a pistol and sights it on the hot dog vendor. The vendor holds up his hands and says, “Whoa, whatever happened to inner peace?”

        The Buddhist replies, “This is my inner piece.”

  • btsax@reddthat.com
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    11 days ago

    You (self) will never achieve nirvana (enlightenment) unless your Buddhist (eastern religion) stories have a bunch of untranslated Sanskrit (language) words in them that the translator (language expert) was too lazy (high on their own farts) to translate (explain). So every Buddhist buddhavacana (text) reads like this