Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!snorkelwacker!usc!rutgers!njin!princeton!vicom.com
From: roderic@vicom.com (Roderic Taylor)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: Re: Looking for a philosophy/religion.
Message-ID: <1410@idunno.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 25 Jul 90 13:48:59 GMT
Sender: mukund@idunno.Princeton.EDU
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Approved: mukund@idunno.Princeton.EDU

In <1211@idunno.Princeton.EDU>, Mike Taylor writes:

> Maybe I try too hard to understand Zen.  "I have nothing to teach you
> about Zen", "keep the beginner's mind", and "if you see the Buddha, you
> must kill him" are the types of phrases that keep coming up.  It seems
> very elusive and meant to be that way.


   The first "eastern" religious writer I read seriously was Krishnamurti.
He is not specifically Buddhist, but I think he teaches the same things
the Zen Masters did.  Only his approach is comparitively analytical;
there are no paradoxical conundrums or koans.  Still, not easy reading.

   I also recommend the sermons of Bankei.  He was a zen teacher who would
give talks to thousands of people at a time.  Since he wasn't just teaching
to people who had given up their lives to become monks, but to lay people
from all sorts of backgrounds, his talks are unusually accesible.
   The book "Bankei Zen-- Translations From the Record of Bankei", by Peter
Haskel, is an excellent translation of Bankei's words.

                                                 --Roderic T