All that you touch And all that you see All that you taste All you feel And all that you love And all that you hate All you distrust All you save And all that you give And all that you deal And all that you buy Beg, borrow or steal And all you create And all you destroy And all that you do And all that you say And all that you eat And everyone you meet (everyone you meet) And all that you slight And everyone you fight And all that is now And all that is gone And all that's to come And everything under the sun is in tune But the sun is eclipsed by the moon
Very clear. I experienced Buddhist ‘philosophy’ as skillful means to bring our limited, space-time conceptualizing mind to its ‚very end‘. To the gateway of Buddha nature, which we cannot ‚know‘ in subject object relationship, but only sink back and dissolve in.
Hi Brad. As you've asked for comments and thinking of your book, I'd like to offer a critique. Besides the fact that my Buddhist teacher would probably disagree with several "doctrinal" points, I really liked the video - very humble, sensible and thought provoking. The critique is that sometimes you and many other teachers make an error to compare some points of "their" tradition with other traditions. That usually comes out sketchy, because whilts they have solid grounding in their tradition (here zen) they lack nuance in others. The example was the soul comparison with Christianity and with "Hinduism". I will not comment on Christianity because someone in the comment section already did so. When it comes to Hinduism though. It is a very broad term construed by political reasons and including a huge multiplicity of different beliefs and traditions in the Indus valley. And only some of them have the idea of a soul the way you describe. For example, i know you like Nisargadatta who belongs to Advaita and in Advaita they deny the construct of self almost in identical way that Buddhists do. They just go forward to claim what real self is, whilst Theravada is not interested with this. The second comment is to try make one representation (or maybe two) about what Buddhism says about this topic. In reality there is far more nuance, about how different Buddhist schools understand emptiness, hence Buddha Nature. Please check the view of Shravakas, Chitamatras, Rantong and Shentong. There are subtle but important differences and in my opinion writting a book about it without being able to distinguish these views, might lead to loosing credibility of the author, as this is quite a basic knowledge for someone who knows a bit of Buddhism. It would be a pity, because clearly you have got some good ideas there. Looking forward to reading the new book. Hope it was helpful. If it was let me know and i can recommend an excellent book describing these proggresive views on Emptiness. It will not only have all these views described in one place, but also includes meditations for each. Nothing helped me as much as this book in my practice....
Happy New Year me, hope you are doing well. This version of me was listening while sat in the present applying brush strokes to an oil painting. All is well, transcend that void or don't, the next present moment always approaches.🙏
“The Buddha nature is always total existence, for total existence IS the Buddha nature. Total existence is not smashed into hundreds of bits and pieces, nor is it a single rail of iron. Because it is “the holding up of a fist,” it is beyond large and small.” Bussho is such a good work. I love the subtle reference to the Surangama
Instead of "self and other dissapears", we could say self and other are both accepted as experiences projected by the brain. Buddha nature is surely just normal awareness freed from fear and clinging.
There must be something to all this Dogen stuff as you keep talking about it. I'll figure it out one of these days, so help me Jesus! Have a happy and healthy New Year.
‘Nothing changes’ 無 😂 Dialectics and the space between them. It’s easy to get stuck between holding oneness and duality at the same time. And then it’s easier to get stuck between what you get from that and nothingness.😂 The most liberating realisation I ever had is that everyone gets ‘there, nowhere’ eventually (or already is) 😂慈
Although many take the Mahayana sutras to represent a later Buddhism, its negligent to not mention early Buddhist schools like the Mahasamghikas, Dharmaguptas and other who held all the central points of the Mahayanists
Hey Brad, thank you so much for your work. I’ve enjoyed most of your books (I haven’t read Hardcore Zen yet) and your channel! Because you want to write a book about the subject eventually, I need to say a few words that I’ve wanted to comment on in many of your videos, but was always too caught up in other things. So... Being a Catholic and, in this, a representative of the largest Christian denomination, I need to share a few thoughts on the concept of the soul from a Catholic perspective. When the concept of the soul comes up, you always seem to refer to the Christian soul as a homunculus-a separate spiritual self inside the body (material self). But our view is quite different. Body and soul are more like two inseparable parts of the self. The soul is not the part that remains after the material part ceases to exist. Both live eternally-that is what is meant by the resurrection of the body. I know this makes the introduction to the topic more nuanced and, in this matter, more complex, but I hope you find this interesting and that your take on the Christian soul does not become a straw man.
@@PeterFurlos Interesting. But that makes no sense at all to me. What is left of my parents’ bodies, for example, is a bunch of ashes in cardboard boxes in my closet. I cannot conceive of any way that could be resurrected.
@@HardcoreZen I didn’t say you need to believe in it, but to take the proper position of the Christian faith into account, if you talk about it. The general idea is a new body (made out of dust, if necessary), so the ashes in your cardboard might be the substance for a new body. What this means theologically is a whole other chapter-and a complicated one. I would not dare to say what happens in the afterlife this explicitly. How the intermingling of substances for different bodies over time is handled, for example.
@@PeterFurlos I know I don't have to believe it. And I appreciate your explanation. When I have looked up what Christians believe about life after death on the Internet, I get a huge variety of answers. It doesn't seem like there is much agreement except that after you die you get judged by God and sent either to Heaven or Hell for eternity. I'm sure even that is not a universal belief among Christians, but it does seem to be the majority belief (in some form or other). I know in Catholicism you also have Limbo and Purgatory. There doesn't seem to be much agreement among Christians on the matter of whether the spirit/soul is a separate thing from the body or not. In the Hindu tradition, it's enshrined in scripture that the material body is different from the immaterial soul. A lot of Christians also believe that. I know they do because they've told me so! But the Bible is never explicit on the matter.
@@HardcoreZen I totally agree on the variation of faiths in the Christian afterlife and the mainstream belief in the soul-only paradise. I just wanted to set things straight by giving you the doctrinal version of the Catholic Church. You talk about this concept in a variety of books and videos, and it always strikes me. But maybe it is not very important, because with my background, I’m a bit of a strange reader for your main subject. I enjoy your books very much, and I’m looking forward to the soul/Buddha nature book.
@@PeterFurlos Would it be correct to say that the soul is not defined at all in the bible - and most 99.9% christians are not aware of any official definitions of what the soul actually is. We all just presume that we all know what we're talking about : some essence of being that is eternal (by which we mean some essential part of Mr or Mrs. X born whenever, whose name is on their driving license)?
While I can't vouch for the English translation of the passage, consider there may be no contradiction: All those beings acting consciously are living beings. Those acting unconsciously may also be living beings, for living beings are just minds. In Jung's version of the same, the conscious and unconscious distinction is traced all the way back to the white horse and black horse of Plato's Phaedrus.
"the personal self is just a mixture of these five things" What Buddha explains in the Pali Suttas is actually the opposite of that. In the Anatta-Lakkhana Sutta he describes these five aggregates as NOT the self. "On one occasion the Blessed One was living at Benares, in the Deer Park at Isipatana. There he addressed the bhikkhus: "Bhikkhus, form is not-self. Were form self, then this form would not lead to affliction, and one could have it of form: 'Let my form be thus, let my form be not thus.' And since form is not-self, so it leads to affliction, and none can have it of form: 'Let my form be thus, let my form be not thus.' "Bhikkhus, feeling is not-self... "Bhikkhus, perception is not-self... "Bhikkhus, determinations are not-self... "Bhikkhus, consciousness is not self. Were consciousness self, then this consciousness would not lead to affliction, and one could have it of consciousness: 'Let my consciousness be thus, let my consciousness be not thus.' And since consciousness is not-self, so it leads to affliction, and none can have it of consciousness: 'Let my consciousness be thus, let my consciousness be not thus."
@@macdougdoug Buddha constantly refers to a subject he calls the CITTA. Without a subject all Buddhist principles are meaningless. The Citta is not one of the Skandhas/Aggregates. There's a English Buddhist Monk who does a great video on this topic. Its called...CITTA & VINNĀNA, MIND in RELATION to CONSCIOUSNESS
"Dogen knew, as people have known for centuries, that the Sutra in which that quote appears was written hundreds of years after the Buddha lived." Where was no way to know anything about it, for anyone living in medieval Japan. Buddhists of his time had been drinking the kool-aid for generations, and believed that the Mahayana Sutras were dictated by the founder but were somehow kept secret until the time was right. Its probably the biggest scam in Asian history.
Where hell is the music, Brad???
All that you touch
And all that you see
All that you taste
All you feel
And all that you love
And all that you hate
All you distrust
All you save
And all that you give
And all that you deal
And all that you buy
Beg, borrow or steal
And all you create
And all you destroy
And all that you do
And all that you say
And all that you eat
And everyone you meet (everyone you meet)
And all that you slight
And everyone you fight
And all that is now
And all that is gone
And all that's to come
And everything under the sun is in tune
But the sun is eclipsed by the moon
Great song
@@zachvanslyke4341 Small but perfectly formed.
Very clear. I experienced Buddhist ‘philosophy’ as skillful means to bring our limited, space-time conceptualizing mind to its ‚very end‘. To the gateway of Buddha nature, which we cannot ‚know‘ in subject object relationship, but only sink back and dissolve in.
Hi Brad. As you've asked for comments and thinking of your book, I'd like to offer a critique. Besides the fact that my Buddhist teacher would probably disagree with several "doctrinal" points, I really liked the video - very humble, sensible and thought provoking. The critique is that sometimes you and many other teachers make an error to compare some points of "their" tradition with other traditions. That usually comes out sketchy, because whilts they have solid grounding in their tradition (here zen) they lack nuance in others. The example was the soul comparison with Christianity and with "Hinduism". I will not comment on Christianity because someone in the comment section already did so. When it comes to Hinduism though. It is a very broad term construed by political reasons and including a huge multiplicity of different beliefs and traditions in the Indus valley. And only some of them have the idea of a soul the way you describe. For example, i know you like Nisargadatta who belongs to Advaita and in Advaita they deny the construct of self almost in identical way that Buddhists do. They just go forward to claim what real self is, whilst Theravada is not interested with this. The second comment is to try make one representation (or maybe two) about what Buddhism says about this topic. In reality there is far more nuance, about how different Buddhist schools understand emptiness, hence Buddha Nature. Please check the view of Shravakas, Chitamatras, Rantong and Shentong. There are subtle but important differences and in my opinion writting a book about it without being able to distinguish these views, might lead to loosing credibility of the author, as this is quite a basic knowledge for someone who knows a bit of Buddhism. It would be a pity, because clearly you have got some good ideas there. Looking forward to reading the new book. Hope it was helpful. If it was let me know and i can recommend an excellent book describing these proggresive views on Emptiness. It will not only have all these views described in one place, but also includes meditations for each. Nothing helped me as much as this book in my practice....
"You can't have everything. Where would you put it?" -Stephen Wright.🙃
Happy New Year me, hope you are doing well. This version of me was listening while sat in the present applying brush strokes to an oil painting. All is well, transcend that void or don't, the next present moment always approaches.🙏
“The Buddha nature is always total existence, for total existence IS the Buddha nature. Total existence is not smashed into hundreds of bits and pieces, nor is it a single rail of iron. Because it is “the holding up of a fist,” it is beyond large and small.”
Bussho is such a good work. I love the subtle reference to the Surangama
'You can't see your own eyes' I like that. 👍
i really enjoyed this!
Instead of "self and other dissapears", we could say self and other are both accepted as experiences projected by the brain. Buddha nature is surely just normal awareness freed from fear and clinging.
There must be something to all this Dogen stuff as you keep talking about it.
I'll figure it out one of these days, so help me Jesus!
Have a happy and healthy New Year.
‘Nothing changes’ 無 😂
Dialectics and the space between them. It’s easy to get stuck between holding oneness and duality at the same time. And then it’s easier to get stuck between what you get from that and nothingness.😂
The most liberating realisation I ever had is that everyone gets ‘there, nowhere’ eventually (or already is) 😂慈
Although many take the Mahayana sutras to represent a later Buddhism, its negligent to not mention early Buddhist schools like the Mahasamghikas, Dharmaguptas and other who held all the central points of the Mahayanists
@@danielhopkins296 Sure. But I’m not a good Buddhist scholar. I can never remember which historical schools believed what.
Interesting discussion. I've come to the conclusion that I will never understand some of this stuff. And that's ok. I'll just keep sitting.
Hey Brad,
thank you so much for your work. I’ve enjoyed most of your books (I haven’t read Hardcore Zen yet) and your channel! Because you want to write a book about the subject eventually, I need to say a few words that I’ve wanted to comment on in many of your videos, but was always too caught up in other things. So...
Being a Catholic and, in this, a representative of the largest Christian denomination, I need to share a few thoughts on the concept of the soul from a Catholic perspective.
When the concept of the soul comes up, you always seem to refer to the Christian soul as a homunculus-a separate spiritual self inside the body (material self). But our view is quite different. Body and soul are more like two inseparable parts of the self. The soul is not the part that remains after the material part ceases to exist. Both live eternally-that is what is meant by the resurrection of the body.
I know this makes the introduction to the topic more nuanced and, in this matter, more complex, but I hope you find this interesting and that your take on the Christian soul does not become a straw man.
@@PeterFurlos Interesting. But that makes no sense at all to me. What is left of my parents’ bodies, for example, is a bunch of ashes in cardboard boxes in my closet. I cannot conceive of any way that could be resurrected.
@@HardcoreZen I didn’t say you need to believe in it, but to take the proper position of the Christian faith into account, if you talk about it.
The general idea is a new body (made out of dust, if necessary), so the ashes in your cardboard might be the substance for a new body. What this means theologically is a whole other chapter-and a complicated one. I would not dare to say what happens in the afterlife this explicitly. How the intermingling of substances for different bodies over time is handled, for example.
@@PeterFurlos I know I don't have to believe it. And I appreciate your explanation. When I have looked up what Christians believe about life after death on the Internet, I get a huge variety of answers. It doesn't seem like there is much agreement except that after you die you get judged by God and sent either to Heaven or Hell for eternity. I'm sure even that is not a universal belief among Christians, but it does seem to be the majority belief (in some form or other). I know in Catholicism you also have Limbo and Purgatory. There doesn't seem to be much agreement among Christians on the matter of whether the spirit/soul is a separate thing from the body or not. In the Hindu tradition, it's enshrined in scripture that the material body is different from the immaterial soul. A lot of Christians also believe that. I know they do because they've told me so! But the Bible is never explicit on the matter.
@@HardcoreZen I totally agree on the variation of faiths in the Christian afterlife and the mainstream belief in the soul-only paradise. I just wanted to set things straight by giving you the doctrinal version of the Catholic Church. You talk about this concept in a variety of books and videos, and it always strikes me. But maybe it is not very important, because with my background, I’m a bit of a strange reader for your main subject. I enjoy your books very much, and I’m looking forward to the soul/Buddha nature book.
@@PeterFurlos Would it be correct to say that the soul is not defined at all in the bible - and most 99.9% christians are not aware of any official definitions of what the soul actually is. We all just presume that we all know what we're talking about : some essence of being that is eternal (by which we mean some essential part of Mr or Mrs. X born whenever, whose name is on their driving license)?
Music??? More importantly.."WHERE IS ZIGGY !?."
It must be ironic. You want to write a book about the self but all you have is just scattered around xd
Poetically expressed
While I can't vouch for the English translation of the passage, consider there may be no contradiction: All those beings acting consciously are living beings. Those acting unconsciously may also be living beings, for living beings are just minds. In Jung's version of the same, the conscious and unconscious distinction is traced all the way back to the white horse and black horse of Plato's Phaedrus.
"the personal self is just a mixture of these five things"
What Buddha explains in the Pali Suttas is actually the opposite of that.
In the Anatta-Lakkhana Sutta he describes these five aggregates as NOT the self.
"On one occasion the Blessed One was living at Benares, in the Deer Park at Isipatana. There he addressed the bhikkhus:
"Bhikkhus, form is not-self. Were form self, then this form would not lead to affliction, and one could have it of form: 'Let my form be thus, let my form be not thus.' And since form is not-self, so it leads to affliction, and none can have it of form: 'Let my form be thus, let my form be not thus.'
"Bhikkhus, feeling is not-self...
"Bhikkhus, perception is not-self...
"Bhikkhus, determinations are not-self...
"Bhikkhus, consciousness is not self. Were consciousness self, then this consciousness would not lead to affliction, and one could have it of consciousness: 'Let my consciousness be thus, let my consciousness be not thus.' And since consciousness is not-self, so it leads to affliction, and none can have it of consciousness: 'Let my consciousness be thus, let my consciousness be not thus."
Does he say that there is a self in these Pali Suttas?
@@macdougdoug
Buddha constantly refers to a subject he calls the CITTA.
Without a subject all Buddhist principles are meaningless.
The Citta is not one of the Skandhas/Aggregates.
There's a English Buddhist Monk who does a great video on this topic.
Its called...CITTA & VINNĀNA, MIND in RELATION to CONSCIOUSNESS
"Dogen knew, as people have known for centuries, that the Sutra in which that quote appears was written hundreds of years after the Buddha lived."
Where was no way to know anything about it, for anyone living in medieval Japan. Buddhists of his time had been drinking the kool-aid for generations, and believed that the Mahayana Sutras were dictated by the founder but were somehow kept secret until the time was right. Its probably the biggest scam in Asian history.
@@Teller3448 I doubt that.