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From: simmonds@demon.siemens.com (Tom Simmonds)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: Re: Are Zen enlightened people superior?
Message-ID: <1991Jan10.012524.17843@nas.nasa.gov>
Date: 10 Jan 91 01:25:24 GMT
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> tp0x+@CS.CMU.EDU (Thomas Price)
>Subject: Re: Are Zen enlightened people superior?

>Perhaps I misunderstood my copy of ... Suzuki's "Living By Zen"
>which tells the following tale: (from memory)
>
>A student asks the master what his enlightenment consists in. "In eating
>when I am hungry, sleeping when I am tired." "But do not common people do
>the same? Why are they not Zen Masters?" "Because they are ignorant and do
>not realize the importance of these actions."

What is your understanding of this?  You seem to imply that it somehow
contradicts what I wrote about the transcendence of such concepts as
better, worse, superior, inferior, etc. in enlightenment.   The words
"common" and "ignorant" don't necessarily imply "inferior".  Is a rose
less of a rose for not knowing that it's a rose?  Is a daisy less beautiful
for being common?

Nansen said, "If you want to find the true path beyond doubt, place yourself
in the same freedom as sky.  You name it neither good nor not-good."

>Or, John Cage's story about Suzuki giving a lecture:
>Suzuki: Before studying Zen, men are men and mountains are mountains. After
> 	studying Zen, however, men are men and mountains are mountains.
>Q:	What's the difference?
>Suzuki: (smiling) Afterwards your feet are a little bit off the ground.

Which is "better":  Feet off the ground or on the ground?
Suzuki made a statement without adding a judgment about it.

Even in doing that he may have gone too far:

"An assertion is not Zen unless it is itself an action and does not refer
to anything asserted in it."  (D.T. Suzuki)

"He who knows does not speak.  He who speaks does not know."
         (Lao Tzu - another fellow who did an awful lot of speaking)

>I think the difficulties here are in confusing the Korean, Japanese, and
>American concepts of "better" or "superior".

I think that concepts, regardless of their origin, have little to do with
zen.  The essence of zen is to experience without attachment to concepts.

The original post that I responded to was about an artist with a condescending
attitude who claimed to be enlightened and who seemed to be attached to the
idea that, because of his alleged enlightenment, he is superior in some way
to other artists.  From a Zen point of view, it doesn't matter what his
definition of "superior" is; it is his attachment to that idea and to egoism
that reveals his ignorance.  If he really thinks he's a better artist than
Picasso, his claims about enlightenment are false, and would be so even if
Picasso had never painted.

--
 ((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((
  ))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))tom simmonds))))))))))))))))))))
 ((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((
  ))))))) "True beauty consists in purity of heart." - Mahatma Gandhi ))))))))