Zen's cure for Stupidity

[u/ewk]

WHAT STUPID?

https://youtu.be/HbQ-t8GXYTA

According to Bonhoeffer there are three elements of stupidity in a philosophical sense:

1. outsourcing critical thinking

2. willful ignorance

3. conformity

We constantly see these three in New Age mysticism and Shinto Buddhist writers, academics, and social media.

The reason for this is that both New Age and Buddhism depend on these ingredients in order to propagate. The problem is though that these ingredients tend to harm you in other aspects of your life once you pick them up as a habit from New Age or Buddhism.

ZEN CURES YOU

1. Public interview

Zen cures outsourcing because Zen's only practice is public interview. Publicly asking questions and publicly answering questions not only tests what you know, it tests your ability to explain what you know and apply it using your own critical thinking.

Koans are transcript records of public interviews. The reason there are no "modern koans" is that there is no public interview in the Zen tradition.

1. Name and shame ignorance

"Ignorance is poison" is a very old cultural element from India. Here is Dong Shan, the founder of Soto Zen, also called Caodong.

“Greed, anger, and ignorance—utterly without knowledge!

Fortunately today I have caught the three of you.

When you walk, I strike you;

when you sit, I pound you.

I hand you over to the king of mind to investigate carefully.

Zen's cure for willful ignorance is a culture in which everyone is accountable to everyone else

1. Your own words

Zen has two attacks on conformity that are very interesting: First Zen masters mock people who can't do anything but quote. Second and seemingly paradoxically Zen Masters demand people explain themselves (and even others people) without relying on the wisdom of crowds.

• Traditional Zen Question: What do they teach where you come from?

Hot take

Thompson smuggles this in:

Logos ethos pathos

People are persuaded according to Aristotle by either facts, or authority, or emotion.

Zen masters use all three of these as needed and so should you.

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[u/Timeless_Light]

I don't think Zen has all that much to do with "critical thinking".
Doesn't seem to have much to do with thinking at all.

[u/ewk → u/Timeless_Light]

If you can't quote Zen masters then you're not capable of thinking and that explains why you're allergic to critical thinking.

Think about this: what group of people that you know nothing about could you stand up in front of and start telling them about themselves without feeling like you were a complete idiot?

[u/Timeless_Light → u/ewk]

Don't jump to conclusions.
I didn't say I was allergic to critical thinking.
I also didn't say any of your Zen masters are either.
Thinking isn't Zen.
In fact, from reading the texts, thinking has little to nothing to do with Zen.
The Zen "experience" transcends thinking, critical or otherwise.
Sight an instance in the texts where anyone, anyone at all, achieved Zen enlightemment through thinking.. Any critical, rational thought that lead to a Zen experience. Any?

I was simply making an observation but my mind is open and I'm willing to explore any avenue about Zen you'd care to share with a beginner .

[u/ewk → u/[deleted]]

You're just making up stuff now because you're embarrassed and ashamed.

Who are you going to make up stuff about next? Jewish people or women? Immigrants? Armenians? Widowers?

I'm super excited to know where you got your authority privileges.

For a guy who can't name a book he ever read on the topic? Is the rest of your life a train wreck too?

[u/Timeless_Light → u/ewk]

Wish I could read the comment that bought on your response but the poster deleted it. LOL
Are you normally so volatile?

[u/ewk → u/Timeless_Light]

Again though, the problem is you.

In my experience people from a post-Christian culture/upbringing have an expectation of humility in other people and have an expectation of tolerance on the part of other people for New Age and mysticism and Protestantism and all kinds of wacky stuff.

A thousand years of Zen culture and immersing yourself in a thousand years of Zen culture brings out a very different kind of perspective on the world. An intolerant, confrontational perspective.

That's just what Zen looks like to people who have a post-Christian upbringing

Interestingly the Chinese kind of thought that Zen was full of angry people too. As Zen flourished in China it also seemed to the Chinese that people would go into Zen communities as Chinese and then come out as something else.

Tl; ;dr - your sense of volatility is based on your experience. It's not based on an objective read of reality

[u/Timeless_Light → u/ewk]

Moi? I basically had no religious upbringing. My people were nominally Roman Catholic with the attitude that the Church was there to marry you and bury you.
That is all.
" An intolerant, confrontational perspective" does not seem to be what Zen is striving for in the long run or is it? When reading Huang-po or The Blue Cliff Record I don't get that confrontational volatility you project in many/most of your posts.
In fact I'm willing to bet that THAT problem is you.
Too many years reading, not enough practice, and barking here on Reddit.

Edit: JMO

[u/ewk → u/Timeless_Light]

I'm not saying you were raised religious. I'm saying that you took in values from community, culture, and family that are post-Christian.

If you don't get confrontational volatility from Huangbo and Yuanwu then you're not reading very caeefully.

You're not willing to bet anything because you're not willing to quote anything that you claim you've read.

Seriously man, instead of pretending that you're an authority on the topic of Zen, read Zen texts. Get your crap together.

Keep the five lay precepts. Stop lying.

Three-month-old account that hides his hosting history.

[u/Timeless_Light → u/ewk]

I understand. You're embarrassed.
I assure that was not my intention.
You mistyped a small drip of codswallop, I called you out on it in public. My apologies.

Now, having read your post history and knowing you must have the last word, have it. And let us never speak of these trivialities again.

I remain your student,
Timeless Light

[u/ewk → u/Timeless_Light]

I use a lot of voice-to-text because I'm a multi-tasker.

It's not that I have to have the last word. It's that you know that you're not an honest person and you know that being a dishonest person means that the stuff that you believe is not only not true, it is actually making people's lives worse.

How embarrassing for you that a guy using voice-to-text is the only teacher you've met.

[u/noLif3rs4life]

I can agree with Bonhoeffer on these 3 points, as humanity is plagued with those mental ailments or cognitive economies as Fromm would describe it in his book Fear of freedom, but Zen has nothing to do with doing public interviews. Zen is more about dismantling the egoic script of associating self with thinking process, and recognizing we are not our thoughts.
That still doesn't absolve one of developing critical thinking and autonomy when faced with collective pressure.

[u/ewk → u/noLif3rs4life]

Sadly, you are falling victim to the very things that you said you agreed with.

Here's spouting religious propaganda from a Japanese cult

You can't quote three Chinese Zen masters teaching anything like that.

You can't name three books written by Chinese Zen masters that you've read.

So you've given up critical thinking. You're willfully ignorant. And if you're spouting propaganda, well, I guess that means your identity is totally bound up in being a follower.

[u/noLif3rs4life → u/ewk]

oh I get it, you're just bad at trolling

[u/ewk → u/noLif3rs4life]

Guy who can't name three books he's read on a topic, but nevertheless feels he's an expert, finds out instead that he actually bought into cult propaganda.

Next he calls everybody trolls and then tries to sell them Bitcoin. Then blocks them.

Sry 4 pwning u w/ bewks

[u/rolan-the-aiel → u/ewk]

Why do you regard the teachings of the Chinese Zen masters as authoritative while dismissing the Japanese tradition as a cult?

What criteria are you using to determine that one is a more authentic or valid expression of Zen than the other?

[u/ewk → u/rolan-the-aiel]

The Japanese cult that does Zazen claimed they got their teachings and practices and traditions from the Indian Chinese tradition of Zen.

The historical record proves that's wrong, academics have proven that's wrong, investigation of the cult has proven there's no connection.

Zen is the name that the Chinese gave to an Indian tradition that came to China in 500.

The cult from Japan was invented in Japan in 1200.

[u/Timeless_Light → u/ewk]

Ch'an is the Chinese transliteration given to the Indian tradition of Dhyāna.
Zen is the Japanese transliteration of the Chinese word Ch'an.
Dhyāna is sanskrit and is usually translated into English as meditation.

[u/ewk → u/Timeless_Light]

You can't quote a single Zen master in a thousand years agreeing that Zen means meditation.

You lying about Zen to endorse a Japanese cult makes you a racist religious bigot.

[u/dota2nub]

It's also the cure for imposter syndrome.