Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!usc!wuarchive!udel!princeton!phoenix!poincare.geom.umn.edu!meuer From: meuer@poincare.geom.umn.edu Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern Subject: Re: Zen Buddhism Message-ID: <14567@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> Date: 15 Mar 90 18:29:55 GMT References: <14546@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> Sender: mukund@phoenix.Princeton.EDU Lines: 54 Approved: mukund@phoenix.Princeton.EDU simmonds@demon.siemens.com (Tom Simmonds) writes: >Historically, Buddhism began in an environment that was predominantly >Hindu. The idea of Atman ( or 'Higher Self") is central to Hinduism. The >Buddhists saw this as a concept which had to be transcended in order to >experience 'tathata', so they contradicted it with a counter-concept of >'Anatman' or 'No-Self'. The purpose was tho eliminate an obstacle to >Zen experience. It was intended to jolt people out of what was then the >predominant conceptual model of reality. Tom (or anyone else), could you elborate on Anatman? What does it mean that there is "No-Self?" I have almost no exposure to Zen and this is new to me. Doesn't all of our conscious experience tell us we each have a "self?" If fact, isn't conscious experience itself an experience or even a definition of the self? If I experience consciousness, am I not a self? If not, what am I? >Of course, since conceptualization IS a part of conscious experience, it >can't be ignored or denied by a pre-bias against it, and Zen Buddhists >recognize that fact. For this reason they also reject 'quietistic' >meditation, which seeks to stop the flow of thoughts. What they seek >to do is to stop *judging* concepts, or any other type of experience, as >'true' or 'false', 'valid' or 'invalid'. To them, conscious experience >is reality; and to set up a fixed conceptual model as a 'true' representation >of reality is to exclude some part of experience, since any model imposes >a set of bounds. A Zen Buddhist seeks to remain open to all experience, >whether or not it fits into some rational scheme. Conceptual schemes come >and go, but conscious experience rolls on. 'Tathata' is viewed as being >unlimited and inexhaustible, hence there is no model which can accurately >describe it. >----------------------------------------------------------------------- > Tom Simmonds (simmonds@demon.siemens.com) Does Zen make a distinction between reality and a conceptual model that describes reality? It seems obvious that a conceptual model is not the same thing as reality and therefore can not be complete. But does Zen teach that the underlying reality does not exist at all, or only that our conceptualization of it will never be complete? -mark -- Mark Meuer Geometry Supercomputer Project meuer@geom.umn.edu 1200 Washington Ave. So. Minneapolis, MN 55415 (612) 624-1867