To: alt.zen
From: jneatrou@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (John Neatrour)
Subject: Re: How would a Zen practitioner keep a schedule?
Date: 9 Jan 1995 09:19:36 GMT
Quoting: |John Schira <jcs@halcyon.com| 
         ||!
         |||>| unknown

|||>|how do you deal with the problems of the past and future. For example, 
|||>|suppose I am delinquent on a library book, and have a paper due this 
|||>|Friday.
|||>|
|||>|How do I deal with these two problems that don't seem to exist in the 
|||>|present?

||no, only you can validate this.  by 'real' here I mean 'have lasting own-
|| being'.  I am merely repeating a very central teaching within buddhism
|| (and Buddhism!): cf 'anatman' or 'anatta'

|So, what you are saying then is that you read somewhere that you and I are not 
|real and you are expressing a belief of this? Aside from what you read, and 
|aside from what you have come to believe, what is it that you experience? I am 
|much more interested in your experiences than dogmatic doctrine.

Forgive me for interjecting. The 'no real being' is a mark that characterizes
an aspect of practice, the attitude of viewing phenomena from the Absolute
position. There is also the Relative position. They function together.

In the Absolute there is no real being and all is unity. In the Relative
phenomena manifest and differences are to be noted. In the Absolute, your life
does not depend on paying the electric company. In the Relative you write the
check on schedule.

Many people living are dragged around by the nose by the Relative. Their sense
of worth is dependent on satisfying requirements they imagine to be real. The
unreality of any self is a good antidote to this. One can get just as stuck on
this unreality or Emptiness, in which case all sort of maladaptive behavior
appears. Balancing the two is key.

jn