Path: shell.portal.com!svc.portal.com!sdd.hp.com!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!gatech!paladin.american.edu!news.jhu.edu!news From: Joe Harkness Newsgroups: talk.religion.buddhism,alt.zen Subject: Re: What is NOT zen? Date: 7 Apr 1996 16:35:57 GMT Organization: JHU Lines: 49 Message-ID: <4k8qtd$qud@news.jhu.edu> References: <4jel6q$7hc@news1.halcyon.com> <4jiele$mdi@newsbf02.news.aol.com> <4jmipi$bvk@news.jhu.edu> <4jvkej$jvg@news1.halcyon.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.220.45.19 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 1.1N (Windows; I; 16bit) To: anon@coho.halcyon.com Xref: shell.portal.com talk.religion.buddhism:19545 alt.zen:29378 anon@coho.halcyon.com (Guru Busters) wrote: >For example, "imposing" your morality that child abuse or murder is >wrong, is not taking away or "state regulating" a religion. There simply >is an ethic which is so fundamental to human beings that no religion can >forgo them unter the pretense of "religiou freedom". If they did, let me >say taht I would be the first to declare as my religious freedom, my >right to break open ATM machines and take all the money :). > Ah, this is where the misunderstanding lies. You seem to think that unless something is expressly prohibited by some external authority, then it is "allowed". But this is not the correct understanding and owes more to the common Jewish/Christian image of God as lawgiver and judge than anything else. Let me try to say this again. In zen, the reliance on *any* external authority as the standard of "good" and "bad" must be overcome. Such authorities include scriptural teachings, guidelines, gurus, fine sayings (such as the Golden Rule), rationalizations, culturally inscribed codes of behavior, parents etc etc etc. Rather, the claim is that *in one's ordinary heart and mind, one already possesses the intrinsic wisdom to act appropriately in any situation*. As long as we are relying on words, rationalizations, precepts, admonitions etc, we are bound to err because we are not relying on the inherent purity of our true nature (ie ordinary heart & mind) which contains the wisdom and goodness of all ages. Whenever we invoke a moral system in an effort to justify our actions, we have automatically gone off the track. Because there is *no* justification for anything we do. Only when the "good" done is totally invisible to the doer, only when it flows with utter spontaneity and simplicity, can it be said to be *genuinely* good. This is why the fundamental ethical obligation of a zen buddhist is to realize one's true nature. This does *not* mean however that "anything goes". In a fundamental sense, anything *does* go -- but as soon as one draws upon this notion to justify one's actions, one is turning it into a moral system and thereby externalizing it. In other words, as long as you are still involved in playing the game of "what I do is good/what you do is bad" you aren't there yet, and you'd better get busy. Capish? Joe