(July 22, 2020 at 7:50 am)Porcupine Wrote:Quote:Before his demise, the Buddha gave His last sermon. It has eight main points:
1. The more desires one has, the more they will suffer. Our mere existence is suffering. In our life we distinguish pleasure from suffering and tend to cling to pleasure. This is our inherent nature. But suffering is inseparable from pleasure, for one is never found without the other. Therefore, the more we seek pleasure and avoid suffering, the more entangled we become in the duality of pleasure and suffering.
2. Be content with our state of being. If we are not satisfied with our state of being we will be slaves to the five desires which stem from the five senses.
3. When the self and the external world become one, eternal serenity is enjoyed... Become one with no barrier between the self and the outside world.
4. Without any interruption, practice meditation. Meditation includes not only sitting. Every moment of one's life is meditation. This means to experience the oneness of yourself, time, and place.
5. Do not forget what the Buddha taught. As Buddha was dying, he told his disciples to forget about him and his belongings. The important thing was to remember his teachings.
6. When we enter samadhi and understand impermanence, we are unshaken. Everything is constantly changing, including ourselves.
7. Nonattachment (detachment) is the essential wisdom. Because all existence is fleeting, attachment to them is wasteful.
8. When we reach enlightenment we and the world become one, and there is no duality.
— Dr. Kato's Zen Buddhism Lecture Series, Zenshuji Soto Mission
Good stuff. Thank you for including it here.
Quote:1. The more desires one has, the more they will suffer.
I think this is the fundamental difference between Platonic/Christian thought and Buddhism. The former sees desire as inevitable and good. Our goal, which is a difficult one, is to aim it properly. The latter sees it as inevitably leading to suffering, so that even a desire to give up desiring is doomed to sorrow. Temperamentally, I feel more Western.
Quote:8. When we reach enlightenment we and the world become one, and there is no duality.
This is really tricky for me. There is a danger of interpreting it in the Western sense -- as you know, Plotinus and the other Neoplatonics say that the world is One, and the fall into division is error and illusion. It becomes a minority Christian tradition, which has lasted for millennia kind of out of the mainstream -- the Fall of Man is not about disobedience but about taking on the illusion of division. God, being immanent in every particle of existence, means that everything is One, and our separation from him and unity is due to perceptual closure.
The Buddhist unity may be different, but I don't know enough about it to be sure. Nirvana, after all, is total annihilation of the self, not unity.
Eons ago (it feels like) I was in art school in the US and we all read Alan Watts and thought we were Buddhists. Then in the late '80s I moved to Japan and thought I'd study at the source. Not a single Zen Buddhist at the Fukuyama Zen place I stayed at was the least bit interested in talking about it. Using the concepts is a part of what leads to error....
So I used to think I understood all this, long ago, and now I suspect I don't......