Many stuck on “label”, without thorough understanding what does the “label” refer to.
Nonetheless during Jesus times, the label “Zen” did not exist yet. (and so does the label of Catholics or Christianity).
But one perhaps can stick a label of “Buddha” to Jesus, the label “Buddha” refer to “enlightened/awakened” or a “Yogi”, the label refer to “those who seek/teaches unification with the infinite”.
The zen story I shared (of the farmer and the horse), refers to Ra saying that the balanced entity is unswayed by emotionally charged situations.
Just like Ra elaborates on adepthood, so do the zen stories. Zen just has this quality of lightheartedness and humour in their anecdotes. Zen is playful.
The Zen story of warlord and monk highight the base emotional frequency contrast between both role. Warlord was driven by fear, fear for survival, and attachment towards his ‘reputation’. The monk is the opposite with his ‘you can kill me and I don’t mind’ thus also ‘I don’t fear you or death’ attitude. Something which the warlord basically not able to do. The root of suffering is attachment, to be free just let it go. Back to Jesus core teaching, ‘forgiveness’ is a form of ‘letting it go’,
Even those labels, while positive, places the individual in a box.
Alan Watts was once interviewed by the San Francisco Oracle, I’ll share a snippet:
Of course, we have to use these designations/labels in everyday conversation, otherwise we won’t be able to communicate.
But this is why zen is so refreshing, because zen masters say things like this:
Although Zhuangzi would be called a Daoist, if we insist on labeling him.
Yes, the monk, looking at the warlord, knew he was looking at himself (unity/the path which is). The warlord knew it not (separation/the path which is not).
Think of karma for a moment, what does it teach? If you wrong someone and later on you are at the receiving end of the same deed. You will be made to feel (somehow) exactly what that person felt.
It teaches you that you did it to yourself, it teaches oneness. Few are those who make the connection.
The people who crucified Jesus, crucified themselves.
“for they know not what they do”
Put differently, “they know not that I am them, that we are one”
Service to self thinks it teaches it’s unjust as the whole world is. But it’s not point of view of the Creator but the opposition. And service to others looks at service to self and thus service to self teaches. Service to self finds such position doubly unjust.
Can someone help me find a particular quote in the Ra material? It’s like one of the most zen things Ra ever said.
It’s something along the lines of “everything that can be imagined, can be experienced”…or “any creation of the mind can become a (future) creation/reality”…or…“anything that can be conceptualised…da-da-da…”
I can’t find it for the life of me now.
The beauty of a catalyst / event, such as told in the warlord/monk story, is that it can be viewed (thus acted) from many different angles.
Offering different angle it can also be;
The monk is indeed stupid, he should know that when the warlord is not stopped, he and his cabal will plunder many other villages spreading suffering to the masses. The warlord need to be stopped, and the monk is the best person to lead the effort since he does not fear the warlord nor death.
As Ra mentioned, this is the ‘wisdom’ which Judas tried to “teach” Jesus :
Judas, felt that, if pushed into a corner, the entity you call Jesus would then be able to see the wisdom of using the power of intelligent infinity in order to rule others.
Jesus will certainly be a much better King than the brutal, self-centered “Roman Puppet King” named Herod. He can even be a much powerful emperor compared to emperor in Rome (Tiberius). A Jewish Revolt lead by Jesus might eventually resulted in the fall of Roman Empire and mark the start of Jewish Empire “golden age”. This is how Judas envision the “coming kingdom of heaven”.
As Ra said, there’s actually no right or wrong.
Only catalyst and how the entity react to such catalyst.
Back to “Zen and Buddhism”, the rise of Buddhism’s popularity in Japan actually marked by an event when the “monk” decided to become a warrior (Sohei) and when the warrior decided to become a monk (Embracement of Zen among Samurai classes).
That’s the beauty of zen, there is no one or right/wrong interpretation. Zen teases, confuses and frustrates, that’s by design…whatever is required to get the student “out of his own way”.
There was another zen master who was asked by a student “what is buddha?” and he said “buddha is a tried turd”, that’s the equivalent of a priest or minister calling Jesus a “dried turd” from the pulpit.
Zen is full of this crazyness, if buddha is a hindrance to a student, then buddha has to go. Any sacred cow will be smashed if it will help the student awaken.
I’m just at puppy school quickly, then I’ll get to the rest of your post! 
That interesting, I haven’t heard that one yet, but I know that a few “strains” of Zen reached Japan.
So Chan (Chinese) or Zen (Japanese) reached Japan quite late in the game. By that time the Golden Age of Zen (7th to the 10th century A.D.) was over, which all happened within China.
The strain I’m well familiar with is the Sōtō Zen strain, Dōgen Zenji’s school. What’s interesting about the time that he lived, was that it coincided with Genghis Khan’s brutal rampage across Asia.
So all of this story, Buddhism making its way to China through Bodhidharma, Buddhism mixing with Daoism becomming Chan (Zen), all happened during a pretty tumultuous (political) time in China’s history.
At one point Emperor Wu, who reigned from 814 to 847, was bent upon wiping out this “foreign religion”, so he ordered 4 600 monasteries, and more than 40 000 temples and shrines throughout the empire to be destroyed.
I guess, and this is just me thinking aloud, I guess the oriental mind and the occidental mind have developed along distinctively different evolutionary tracks. They seem to have a very different approach to “religion” - and I’m using this word loosely - than we do.
This is not a new idea by any means, I remember when Carl Jung read The Secret of the Golden Flower, he expressed some concern for placing the book in Western hands.
He even called it dangerous, if I remember correctly.
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Zen Buddhism influenced “The Bushido”, the code of conduct of Samurai (warrior caste) in Japan.
Zen as label originated from Chyan which originated from sanskrit Dhyana or Pali Jyana and correlated with Samadhi, a label for certain meditative state.
Those who are involved in war, fight or conflict definitely learned that panic, fear, anger and lack of focus are considered as weaknesses and seek ways to eliminate those weaknesses. Zen / Buddhism practice of mindful meditation helped them to aleviate those weaknesses, up to the point where they no longer have fear of death and having a very sharp focus.
Sometimes I think, can it be good analogy to compare it with left and right brain hemispheres?
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I have no clue, it is just…strange to me. I see teachings complimenting one another…but then I see other stuff I just can’t wrap my head around.
I take the things that are meaningful to me, and put the other stuff aside for now, maybe it’ll make sense one day.
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You mean in terms of “Strong Identification” and “Fanaticism” towards only a specific religion?
I observe similar pattern, but rather than “Western” vs “Eastern”.
I saw it as “Those who are heavily influenced by Judaism” and “Those who are not”.
Or “Church/Synagogue/Mosque” vs “Pagans”.
Japanese/Chinese families have no issues when their family member decided to join Christianity. Yet so does Native Americans. And since “America” is categorized as “Western Countries” thus the labelling by geography is not entirely accurate.
Traditional Chinese temple for example usually contain at least 3 stream of teachings, Taoism (which worship no deity), Ancestral Confucianism (worshipping deities such Guan Yu/Guan Kong, Kwan Yin and their respective ancestors) and Buddhism (honoring Siddhartha). There are no strict ritual or “liturgy” as it was named by the church and everyone is free to worship or not worship whomever they want and how including mixing with any of those streams.
This reminds me of one of the zen stories in my book The Gateless Gate, or as it is sometimes called The Gateless Barrier:
Zhuge Liang, a famous general in Sam Kok (Tales of Three Kingdom) once said:
Those who are skilled in combat do not become angered, those who are skilled at winning do not become afraid. Thus the wise win before they fight, while the ignorant fight to win.
And on the story it tell the detailed technique on how Zhuge Liang took advantage of his enemies anger, lack of focus and fear. Sam Kok and Zhuge Liang became so popular in Japan, his techniques are meticulously studied by Japanese Shogun and Samurai. Once the root cause of weaknesses has been identified, next they try to find a solution for it, which they found on Zen Buddhism. Thus starting the transformation of “warrior becoming a monk” or should I say “warrior-monk”.
Only in the mind of an American, would America be categorised as “Western Countries”. When I use the word “West” in conversations of this nature, I refer to a distinctive type of “mentality / way of thinking” which traces its roots back to mainland Europe (Anglo-Saxon), and then spreading through colonialism, with the Abrahamic religions at its core (for better or for worse).
And its this “handicap” that we seem to have, that makes us “struggle” with Zen, Daoism, Buddhism and Hinduism. We have pedestalised the intellect, and these teachings transcend (or circumvent) the intellect / conditioned mind.
And it was this “handicap” which Alan Watts so often touched upon in his talks. That was his genius, to “rewire” if you will. He does this masterfully in his lecture series “Out of Your Mind”.
You see I learned my zen from Alan Watts, so I can’t separate the two anymore. When I read these zen stories, I hear Alan Watts’ voice, see his face, and most of all that laughter.
Well yes, that too, but so much more than that, as I tried to convey above. A fanatic is simply someone for whom religion is an ideology, rather than an open door. If there’s any notion of “us vs them”, they still have a long way to go…
I can’t really convey what I’m trying to get at, as it pertains to this strangeness of “the Eastern mind”…it’s as if they think circular, and we think linear.