Buddhism in Russia: Zen (PunkMonk)

(PunkMonk)

• Kalmykia: Europe's only Buddhist region | Europe To The Maxx
• Eli from Russia: Is this Europe?! Celebrating the Native Russian Buddhist New Year in Kalmykia
• Lost In Kalmykia | Europe's Weirdest Republic

Why I'm not a Christian (Bert Russell)

Why I'm NOT a Christian | Bertrand Russell

(Jupitar Star) This thought-provoking video explores Bertrand Russell's classic essay, "Why I'm Not a Christian," in which the logician and renowned philosopher outlines his reasons for rejecting Christianity and organized religion.

(A Dose of Reason) Why organized religion makes absolutely NO sense

Russell critiques the historical and philosophical foundations of Christianity, addressing topics such as the problem of evil, the lack of empirical evidence for religious claims, and the contradictions within religious texts.

Alan Watts for when we think too much, what is the question?

Through logical reasoning and intellectual clarity, Russell presents a compelling case for skepticism and atheism (or at least rejection of monotheistic claims by the Abrahamic faiths), challenging traditional beliefs while encouraging viewers to think critically about religion and its role in society.

(MorgeOfficial) How to prove God doesn't exist - Why are women ill-treated in the Bible?

#atheist #theism #nontheism #religion #questions #science #atheism #bible #truth #catholic

Alan Watts for when you think too much

(T&H - Inspiration & Motivation) Alan Watts gives a clarifying and powerfully insightful lecture on knowing, religion, Jesus, and the big questions we ask. "Life is not a problem, in other words, not a contest between ourselves and our environment. This conception of life turns out to be basically phony." Original audio source: Alan Watts, "Extended Seminars, Early Radio Talks - Ghosts" (T&H).

• Jupitar Star, March 26, 2025; A Dose of Reason (YouTube), 2024; T&H - Inspiration & Motivation, Oct. 23, 2023; Sheldon S., Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Alan Watts on The Secret (video)

Alan Watts on The Secret: goosebumps

(T&H - Inspiration & Motivation) April 12, 2021: Here is an inspirational and profound speech on The Secret from the late British philosopher (and spiritual entertainer) from California Alan Watts (1915–1973), who said: "Really, the fundamental, ultimate mystery — the only thing you need to know to understand the deepest metaphysical secrets — is this: that for every outside there is an inside and for every inside there is an outside, and although they are different, they go together."

►Follow the Alan Watts Organization: Speech courtesy of alanwatts.org. Instagram: alanwattsorg. Facebook: alanwattsauthor. YouTube: alanwattsorg. Speech licensed from mindsetdrm.com. Original audio sourced from “Alan Watts - Myth of Myself." Video produced and edited by T&H Inspiration.

• Alan Watts (alanwatts.org) via T&H - Inspiration & Motivation), April 12, 2021; Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

The Paradox of Life: Alan Watts (video)

Wisdom of the East in Haiku (Alan Watts)

What is "zen"? It is jhana (Sanskrit dhyana, Chinese chan) or "meditative absorption" (WQ).

The simplest and most advanced form of art

Alan Watts is a British-American Zen genius

Alan Watts is translating haiku, which is regarded as the more sophisticated for its apparent artlessness, direct and unadorned.

• Haiku is not anything one wants to say in 17 syllables, as we are taught in the US, nor is it a rhyme. It is 17 on (phonetic units in Japanese) with no English equivalent. So, lacking an equivalent (of what linguists might call a phoneme or chunk), we have substituted syllables.

(IntelligenceExplosion) The lectures, books, and teachings of Alan Watts are commemorated at alanwatts.org. (More can also be found at alanwatts.com lovingly run by his son).

Why are haiku good? They are following many rules we are not told in English, where we just count syllables and chase pseudo-depth with something snappy and terse. "Brevity is the heart of wisdom." And of all the great haiku that ever came from the West, I have never heard something to rival the great American gay Jewish NAMBLA member Beat Poet Allen Ginsberg, author of Howl, or was it one-time Buddhist Jack Kerouac, author of The Dharma Bums and On the Road, perhaps Sephardic Jew Lawrence Ferlinghetti or American humorist Kurt Vonnegut.

Someone in the 1960s wrote a genius three-word punchline (copied by droll comedian or reprehensible copycat Michael Lowenberg, who dared submit it as an original thought in 2022) that repeated Internet searches do not find. I am forced to compose a facsimile from memory:

walking down the street

i look up, see a pigeon

then hear a high coo

2022 WINNER:

a cicada’s husk

grandfather in his best suit

hands folded, eyes closed

— Ngo Binh Anh Khoa

• Allen Ginsberg's Mostly Sitting Haiku, Collected Haiku (terebess.hu)
• Those Women Writing Haiku inspired the Beat Poets to try to write it (thehaikufoundation.org)
• How to use Haiku poetry for mindfulness (Rest Less)
• ARTS: How to Haiku: 1: What is not a Haiku (treeleaf.org)
• The 22 Best Haiku of 2022 | Society of Classical Poets

Can anything be a haiku?

Sheron Bellio (left) and Tim Conway Jr. (KFI)

Yoko Sakamoto (channeled by Sheron Bellio): Obstacles do not block the path; they are the path. Life isn't as serious as the mind makes it out to be. A piece of bamboo bends but does not break. Only the hand that erases can write the truth.

Nothing ever exists entirely alone; everything exists in relation to everything else.

A world, a torch, and without, torch drop -- a world of trouble. A haiku a brought to you by Sue Beh'rue. I write, I erase, rewrite, erase again, and then [put a spell on you].

The past has no past. A picture of a rice cake does not fulfill. To seek is to suffer; to seek nothing is bliss.

Tim Conway: I understand that your husband, Vic, is a worldly guy. He traveled the world. He spent a lot of time in Tibet, India, China, Vietnam, [Japan but] he said you met at Dalt's?

Yoko: Dalt's, the Dojo of the Smoothie...together we are One, filling each other up. *Gong*

Tim: You've got a little gong, too?

Yoko: A ding-dong with you, Tim Conway, a ding-dong.

Haiku lessons for American poets

Kokuu, Canterbury, UK (ARTS: How to Haiku, 1: What is not a haiku) edited by Wisdom Quarterly

Kokuu | treeleaf.org

(Treeleaf.org) I can’t speak for other languages, but haiku poetry taught at school in English is almost universally bad.

The basic instruction my 13-year-old daughter recently received was that a haiku is a three-line Japanese poem comprising 17 syllables in lines of five, seven, and five syllables respectively.

If one is lucky, one might be told that it is usually about nature and our relationship with the natural world. Is this correct?

Well, it is not totally incorrect, but it focusses the attention in completely the wrong direction and thereby misses out several important factors.

It is true that in Japanese, a count of 17 sound units (morae) are employed in a three-line sequence.

• Good haiku examples by Matsuo Basho

"Quietly, quietly,/yellow mountain roses fall
–sound of the rapids" (Matsuo Bashō)

However, an English syllable tends to be longer than a Japanese sound unit, so English Language Haiku (ELH) written in 17 syllables often to feel too bloated and long compared to their Japanese equivalents.

Moreover, most people writing haiku with the 5-7-5 structure in mind pay far more attention to getting the right number of syllables than forming a good poem. Few modern day ELH poets write in 5-7-5. Some do.

Most bad haiku (the plural of haiku is haiku) on the internet are written in 5-7-5. The syllable count is often achieved by adding adjectives until the magic 17 is reached.

The three-line structure is also not a good way to think about haiku. It is better understood as a poem composed of two essential parts – a phrase (two lines usually containing a verb) and a fragment (one line). This can either be fragment-phrase or phrase-fragment. More about this later.

Also a haiku isn’t a bunch of ideas and concepts. It is essentially a poetic form based on images, often coming from nature. Concepts can be included as well as images, but just concepts is far too heady and not nearly visual enough. Source: treeleaf.org

• AlanWatts.org, Jan. 17, 2015; KFI racist comedy duo Producer Sheron Bellio (impersonator) as "Yoko Sakamoto," wife of Vic the Brick Jacob, in conversation with suspended radio talk show host Tim Conway Jr.; composed, abbreviated, and edited by Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells, Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Physicist discovers 'paradox-free' time travel

ScienceAlert.com; Richard Bullivant; Eds., Wisdom Quarterly

Physicist discovers 'paradox-free' time travel is theoretically possible

Time Travel True Stories

No one has yet managed to travel through time [except for the US government's Project Pegasus chrononauts like Andrew D. Basiago (who is shadow banned on amazon.com by the government) and others] – at least to our knowledge – but the question of whether or not such a feat would be theoretically possible continues to fascinate scientists.

As movies such as The Terminator, Donnie Darko, Back to the Future, and many others show, moving around in time creates a lot of problems for the fundamental rules of the Universe:

If we go back in time and stop our parents from meeting, for instance, how can we possibly exist in order to go back in time in the first place?

It's a monumental head-scratcher known as the "grandfather paradox," but a few years ago physics student Germain Tobar, from the University of Queensland in Australia, worked out how to "square the numbers" to make time travel viable without the paradoxes.

The future is NOW unless you can get back to the past.

"Classical dynamics says if you know the state of a system at a particular time, this can tell us the entire history of the system," Tobar explained back in 2020.

"However, Einstein's theory of general relativity predicts the existence of time loops or time travel – where an event can be both in the past and future of itself – theoretically turning the study of dynamics on its head."

What the calculations show is that space-time can potentially adapt itself to avoid paradoxes. To use a topical example, imagine a time traveler journeying into the past to stop a disease from spreading – if the mission were successful, the time traveler would have no disease to go back in time to defeat. More + VIDEO

What do scientists say about time travel?

It’s fair to say that most scientists today will tell us that time travel is impossible. Three of today’s top physicists -- Charles Liu, Brian Green, and Michio Kaku -- all hold that time travel is, if not impossible, unlikely in the extreme.

However, one of the most brilliant minds of our time, physicist Stephen Hawking, disagrees -- although only partially. He believes that time travel is theoretically possible, but only into the future....

What do real people experience?

The college hipster with wrap around sunglasses, tee-shirt, shaggy hair, and newer camera

Modern guy is out-of-place-artifact, an anacrhronism, in cool clothes among Charlie Chaplins.

This is a real photo of Andrew D. Basiago sent back to the Gettysburg Address as a child.

.

The opinion of science, however, has never stopped thousands of people around the world from reporting what they firmly believe are actual experiences of spontaneous time travel!

Still others insist that time travel is not only possible, but they have already done it as part of top secret government programs.

Claims for time travel range from the highly flaky to the astoundingly believable. They are especially difficult to dismiss when time travel reports come from absolutely ordinary, rock-solid people who have nothing to gain by proclaiming they travelled in time.

Many people who report time travel experiences don’t necessarily believe it themselves. What happened to them was so strange, so unexpected, yet so real; they simply have no other good explanation for their experience.

Meet a number of such individuals in this book, most of their stories straight out of the headline of local newspapers. No doubt, on the one hand, a story or two will strike the reader as pure balderdash.

On the other hand, some of these cases of time travel are tantalizing and inexplicable. They also come with a certain amount of solid evidence, such as stopped clocks, frozen machines, and electromagnetic devices acting in unexplained ways.

There was a time when everyone dressed a certain way in public, but not this worker.

.

Physicist and NASA scientist Tom Campbell said that scientific advances always "come from the fringe."

Thus, even if we consider some of these stories stepping dangerously "out there" onto that fringy edge, remember that many of yesterday’s fringe theories are today’s scientific fact.

At the very least, it doesn’t hurt to approach the idea of time travel with an open mind and a sense of wonder.

• Time Travel True Stories: Amazing Real Life Stories in the News (by Richard Bullivant)

Paradox of Möbius strip and Klein bottle

The mind-bending paradox of the Möbius strip and Klein bottle: a 4-D visualization

(Andrew's Campfire) Mar 31, 2022. Embark on a mind-bending journey into the 4th dimension as we explore the fascinating geometry of the Möbius Strip and Klein Bottle. This video will take you on a whirlwind tour of time travel, geometric paradoxes, 4D visualization, and sentient primitive shapes.

CHAPTERS

• 00:00 - A Hexagon Illusion
• 00:50 - Defining Topology, Manifold, and Boundary
• 02:11 - An Open 2D Manifold
• 02:25 - Riddle #1
• 02:39 - Cutting the Möbius Strip in half
• 04:05 - Cutting the Möbius Strip in thirds
• 04:34 - The Grandfather Paradox
• 05:13 - Grandfather Paradox Solution Using a Möbius Strip
• 07:11 - A Closed 2D Manifold
• 07:46 - Riddle #2
• 08:03 - Visualizing the Klein Bottle with an Ant
• 09:12 - Spatial and Temporal Dimensions
• 09:24 - Linus - Two Dimensions for a 1D Creature
• 10:26 - Squirrel - Three Dimensions for a 2D Creature
• 11:19 - Time Evolution of a Flattened Möbius Strip's Boundary
• 12:07 - Klein Bottle
• 12:36 - Visualizing the Klein Bottle in 4 Dimensions

Patreon: patreon.com/andrewscampfire

The limits of computing -- a paradox (video)

Jade Tan-Holmes, Up and Atom;; CC Liu, Sheldon S. (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Hey, Jade, who is math genius "Cleo"?

How this one question breaks computers

(Up and Atom) June 21, 2023. The Nature of Computation: Cristopher Moore.

CHAPTERS

• 0:00 A double edged sword
• 1:00 Universality
• 3:09 Thanks Nebula
• 4:32 How do we know there are problems computers will never solve?
• 6:05 Hilbert's Program
• 7:59 Decidability
• 11:39 Turing hears about the Entscheidungsproblem (uh-oh)
• 13:27 The Halting Problem
• 16:42 Undecidability

Creator: Jade Tan-Holmes. Written by Zoe Cocchiaro and Jade Tan-Holmes. Animations by Tom Groenestyn.  Editing by Standard Productions. Music: epidemicsound.com.

Computer Science Get Nebula using my link for 40% off an annual subscription! go.nebula.tv/upandatom

Recommended shows

• Is Math Invented or Discovered?
• Becoming Human
• What is Code?

Hi! I'm Jade. [Give me money.] Like to consider supporting Up and Atom? Head over to the Patreon page: patreon.com/upandatom. Visit the Up and Atom store store.nebula.app/collections... Subscribe to Up and Atom for physics, math, and computer science videos: upandatom. For a one-time donation, head over to PayPal: paypal.me/upandatomshows. Sources matjaz.substack.com/p/why-are... khanacademy.org/computing... udacity.com/course/intro-...

A big thanks to my patrons: Jonathan Koppelman, Michael Seydel, Cy 'kkm' K'Nelson, Thorsten Auth, Chris Flynn, Tim Barnard, Izzy Ca, Millennial Glacier, Richard O McEwen Jr, Scott Ready, John H. Austin, Jr., Brian Wilkins, Thomas V Lohmeier, David Johnston, Thomas Krause, Lynn Shackelford, Ave Eva Thornton, Andrew Pann, Anne Tan, David Tuman, Richard Rensman, Ben Mitchell, Steve Archer, Luna, Viktor Lazarevich, Tyler Simms, Michael Geer, James Mahoney, Jim Felich, Fabio Manzini, Jeremy, Sam Richardson, Robin High, KiYun Roe, Christopher Rhoades, DONALD McLeod, Ron Hochsprung, Aria Bend, James Matheson, Kevin Anderson, Alexander230, Tim Ludwig, Alexander Del Toro Barba, Justin Smith, A. Duncan, Mark Littlehale, Tony T Flores, Dagmawi Elehu, Jeffrey Smith, Alex Hackman, bpatb, Joel Becane, Paul Barclay, 12tone, Sergey Ten, Damien Holloway, John Lakeman, Jana Christine Saout, Jeff Schwarz, Yana Chernobilsky, Louis Mashado, Michael Dean, Chris Amaris, Matt G, Dag-Erling Smørgrav, John Shioli, Todd Loreman, Susan Jones, Julian Nagel, Cassandra Durnord, Antony Birch, Paul Bunbury, Kent Arimura, Phillip Rhodes, Michael Nugent, James N Smith, Roland Gibson, Joe McTee, Dean Fantastic, Bernard Pang, Oleg Dats, John Spalding, Simon J. Dodd, Tang Chun, Michelle, William Toffey, Michel Speiser, Rigid Designator, James Horsley, Brian Williams, Craig Tumblison, Cameron Tacklind, 之元 丁, Kevin Chi, Lance Ahmu, Tim Cheseborough, Markus Lindström, Steve Watson, Midnight Skeptic, Dexter Scott, Potch, Indrajeet Sagar, Markus Herrmann (trekkie22), Gil Chesterton, Alipasha Sadri, Pablo de Caffe, Taylor Hornby, Mark Fisher, Emily, Colin Byrne, Nick H, Jesper de Jong, Loren Hart, Sofia Fredriksson, Phat Hoang, Spuddy, Sascha Bohemia, tesseract, Stephen Britt, KG, Hansjuerg Widmer, John Sigwald, O C, Carlos Gonzalez, Res, Thomas Kägi, James Palermo, Chris Teubert, Fran, Christopher Milton, Robert J Frey, Wolfgang Ripken, Jeremy Bowkett, Vincent Karpinski, Nicolas Frias, Louis M, kadhonn, Moose Thompson, Rick DeWitt, Andrew, Pedro Paulo Vezza Campos, S, Rebecca Lashua, Pat Gunn, George Fletcher, RobF, Vincent Seguin, Shawn, Israel Shirk, Jesse Clark, Steven Wheeler, Philip Freeman, Jareth Arnold, Simon Barker, Lou, and Simon Dargaville.

What is Zen Buddhism? (video)

Let's Talk Religion, June 4, 2023; Seth Auberon, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

How Zen is zen (jhana, dhyana, Chan)? One need not go to Asia. Focus here. Absorb now.

(Let's Talk Religion) This video continues exploring the rich spiritual tradition of Buddhism through one of its most popular and important schools, Chinese Chan/Japanese Zen.

Let's dive into the history and development of the school, as well as its characteristic teachings about meditation, koans [paradoxical riddles that pull one out of linear thinking], liberation, and Buddha-nature.

CHAPTERS

• 00:00 Intro
• 03:39 Basics of Buddhism
• 04:56 East Asian Buddhism (Mahayana)
• 13:19 The Origins of Chan
• 17:22 Bodhidharma
• 20:17 Teachings and Practices of Chan
• 33:49 Chan's relationship to Taoism
• 35:31 Later developments and subschools
• 37:50 Japanese Zen and Dogen
• 41:16 Chan/Zen today and conclusions

Support Let's Talk Religion on Patreon (patreon.com/letstalkreligion) or through a one-time donation: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/letst... Also check out the Let's Talk Religion Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/0ih4sqt... Most of my music can be found here: Filip Holm: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2O7FL... Zini: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0jy5K... Sources/Suggested Reading: Chuang Zhi (2019). "Exploring Chán: An Introduction to the Religious and Mystical Tradition of Chinese Buddhism." Songlark Publishing. Hershock, Peter D. (2004). "Chan Buddhism". University of Hawaii Press. Red Pine (translated by) (1989). "The Zen Teachings of Bodhidharma". North Point Press. Red Pine (translated by) (2002). "The Diamond Sutra". Counterpoint. Red Pine (translated by) (2008). "The Platform Sutra: The Zen Teaching of Hui-neng". Counterpoint. Westerhoff, Jan (2009). "Nagarjuna's Madhyamaka: A Philosophical Introduction". Oxford University Press. Ziporyn, Brook (2016). "Emptiness and Omnipresence: An essential introduction to Tiantai Buddhism". Indiana University Press.  #zen #buddhism #china

Predictive programming: Batman's computer

There was predictive programming about computing, a web, web searching, and even mobile telephony or cell phones. Batman the TV series (1966-1968) as a kids' show. These technologies were envisioned long before they were perfected and deployed to the general population. What alien or extraterrestrial source can account for such rapid development? It comes in fits and starts called punctuated equilibrium, sudden spurts of growth on an overall even keel. Who and where are the Outsiders feeding the planet and the current civilization, iteration of humankind, this generation?

Plant Paradox: Dr. Gundry on bad health foods

Dr. Steven R Gundry MD, 4/25/17; Ananda (DBM), Ashley Wells (eds.). Wisdom Quarterly


The Plant Paradox: Hidden Dangers in "Healthy" Foods That Cause Disease and Weight Gain

Most of us have heard of toxic gluten — a protein found in wheat, pizza, flour, pasta, and bread that causes widespread inflammation and other problems in the body.

Americans spend billions of dollars on gluten-free diets in an effort to protect their health. But what if we’ve been missing the root of the problem?

In The Plant Paradox, renowned California cardiologist Dr. Steven Gundry reveals that gluten is just one variety of a common, highly toxic, plant-based protein called lectin.

Lectins are found in grains like wheat and also in the “gluten-free” foods most of us commonly  think are healthy -- including many fruits, vegetables, nuts (like peanuts, which are actually beans), beans, and conventional dairy products.

These proteins, which are found in the grains, seeds, skins, rinds, and leaves of plants, are designed by nature to protect plants from predators like humans.

Once ingested, they incite a kind of chemical warfare in our bodies, causing inflammatory reactions that can lead to weight gain and serious health conditions, like auto-immune diseases.

• "I read this book...it worked. My auto-immune disease is gone, and I'm 37 pounds lighter in my pleather." - Kelly Clarkson

This fruit is a health food full of good fat.

At his clinics in California, Dr. Gundry has successfully treated tens of thousands of patients suffering from auto-immune disorders, diabetes, leaky gut syndrome, heart disease, and neurodegenerative diseases with a protocol that detoxes the cells, repairs the gut, and nourishes the body.

Now, in the book series The Plant Paradox, he shares this clinically-proven program with readers everywhere.

The simple and daunting fact is, lectins are everywhere. Fortunately, Dr. Gundry offers simple hacks to employ to avoid them, including:

• Peel veggies. Most of the lectins are contained in the skin and seeds of plants; simply peeling and de-seeding vegetables (like tomatoes and peppers) reduces their lectin content.
• Eat fruit in season. Fruit contain fewer lectins when ripe, so eating apples, berries, and other lectin-containing fruits at the peak of ripeness helps minimize lectin consumption.
• Swap brown rice for white. Whole grains and seeds with hard outer coatings are designed by nature to cause digestive distress — because they are full of lectins.

With a full list of lectin-containing foods and simple substitutes for each, a step-by-step detox and eating plan, and delicious lectin-free recipes, The Plant Paradox illuminates the hidden dangers lurking in a salad bowl — and shows us how to eat whole foods in a whole new way. More

Zen Riddles for Millennials (video)

College Humor, 5/12/15; Alan Watts; Pat Macpherson, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Zen has koans (lit. "public case") or paradoxical "riddles" to derail the ordinary assumptions of our thinking process and thereby free the mind of obsessive loops in discursive thinking. For example, "In order to move out of your parents' basement, you must first move into your parents' basement."

Western British-Californian Spiritual Entertainer Alan Watts on Zen koans

• More at collegehumor.com
• facebook.com/collegehumor
• twitter.com/collegehumor
• collegehumor.tumblr.com
• New channel CH2: youtube.com/ch2

CAST: Guru: Cary Mizobe. Millennial: Zac Oyama. CREW: Director: Matthew Pollock. Producer: Michele Santoro. Writer: Brian Murphy. Cinematography: Idan Menin. Editor: Nicky Young. President of Original Content: Sam Reich. Vice President of Production/Executive Producer: Spencer Griffin. Director of Production: Sam Sparks. Director of Post Production: Michael Schaubach. Production Manager: Sam Kirkpatrick. Art Director: Rachel Aguirre. 1st Assistant Director: Jordan Little. Production Coordinator: Shane Crown. 1st Assistant Camera: Giselle Gonzalez. 2nd Assistant Camera/DIT: Brian White. Gaffer: Jacob Abrams. Key Grip: Matt Toledo. Best Boy Electric: Kevin Campbell. Driver/Swing Grip: Massimo Bordonaro. Production Sound: David Beede of Iceman. AUDIO: Assistant Editor: Amy Vanderlip. Assistant Editor: Jeffrey Vega. Post Production Supervisor: Evan Watkins. Post Production Manager: Stephanie Zorn. Head Assistant Editor: Phil Fox. Production Legal: Karen Segall. Production Accountant: Christine Rodriguez. Assistant Production Accountant: Shay Parsons. Second Assistant Production Accountant: Rebecca Call. Production Assistant: Scott Tammel. Production Assistant: John Horan. Intern: Isaac Park. Intern: Andrea Chrunyk.

Surfing the Flood (sutra)

Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson (eds.) based on Ven. Thanissaro (trans.), SN 1.1, Ogha-Tarana Sutra: "Crossing Over the Flood," Wisdom Quarterly; Surfing for Beginners

Best places to surf in Ireland (Surfer Today)

A wave is coming, a great wave. A flood is coming, another one. We are inundated. All around is this flood. There are four "floods" or ogha, the four corruptions, cankers, taints, intoxicating biases.

NOTE: This sutra opens The Connected Discourses (Samyutta Nikaya, "Kindred Sayings") with a paradox. The Commentary informs us that the Buddha teaches this deva* using a paradox to subdue her pride.

• *"Shining one," radiant light being, woodland fairy, or glowing space visitor.

To put this paradox in context, read other passages from the Pali canon that discuss right effort.

SUTRA

Thus have I heard. On one occasion the Blessed One (the Buddha) was staying near Savatthi in Jeta's Grove in the multi-millionaire's monastery.

Then a certain devi, when the night was far gone, her radiance lighting up the entire Jeta's Grove, went to the Blessed One.

When she arrived, she bowed, stood respectfully to one side, and said: "Tell me, dear sir, how you crossed over the flood."

[The Buddha replied:] "I crossed over the flood by neither pushing forward nor staying in place"* [in the way one rides a wave when surfing.]

• *Or "unestablished." See Udana 8.1 and related references at SN 12.38 and SN 12.64.

"But how, dear sir, did you cross over the flood without pushing forward and not staying in place?"

"If I were to push forward, I whirled about. If I were to stay in place, I sank. So I crossed over the flood by neither pushing forward nor staying in place."

[The devi replied:]

At long last I behold

a Brahmin, fully awakened,

who without pushing forward,

without staying in place,

has crossed over

the entanglements

of the world.

That is what the deva said. The Teacher approved. Realizing "the Teacher has approved of me," she bowed, circumambulated him — respectfully keeping him on the right — then vanished right then and there.

ZEN: What is a paradox? (video)

Brilliant (Vsauce2, 4/18); Philip J. Bossert, "Paradox and Enlightenment in Zen Dialogue..." Journal of Chinese Philosophy (buddhism.lib.ntu.edu.tw); Bob Gavagan; Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

What if they were to make a Zen movie? (imdb)

Dr. Chung-ying Cheng discussed the seemingly paradoxical use of language in Zen dialogues and suggested a means for understanding this paradoxical quality.

The "principle of ontic non-commitment" and the method of "ontological reduction" he described as an approach to resolving the paradoxical qualities of Zen language appear to be quite similar to the phenomenological technique of epoche and the method of phenomenological reduction the German philosopher Edmund Husserl developed early in this century to deal with certain paradoxes of subjectivity and objectivity.

A discussion of this issue of language and paradox might provide a fruitful point of comparative philosophical dialogue between Zen Buddhism and phenomenological philosophy.

Hence, using Dr. Cheng's article as a basis, there are various similarities.... After mentioning how these methods are used to treat seemingly paradoxical situations, the notions of enlightenment in Zen Buddhism and transcendental phenomenology deserve remark.

Dr. Cheng points out that the paradoxes of Zen dialogue are due to an attempt to understand an utterance in terms of its surface semantic structure and the common-sensical ontological structure that normally provides the referential framework it.

However, instead of the semantic structure of an utterance ("Listen to the dog") referring to some past or present ontological event (the experience or concept of a barking dog), the Zen koan ("Listen to the sound of one hand clapping") appears to refer to an ontological absurdity (neither the concept nor the experience of a clapping sound can be meaningfully associated as originating from a single hand).

10 Brain-Splitting Paradoxes


The semantic structure of the utterance does not seem to "point to" anything and is thus an apparently meaningless use of language.

This means that the language of the Zen paradoxes contradicts the background reference presuppositions of surface-level terms in ordinary usage and by doing so points to the singular absence of reference or that of reference framework for the language of the paradoxes.

But the insight that the Zen dialogue seeks to offer is not at the common sense level of ordinary linguistic usage.

And it is precisely the first step toward enlightenment to realize that the paradox is valid only as long as one remains at the common sense level of understanding.

The Zen koan uses language not to refer but as a tool or a dialectical process for revealing a very deep ontological structure by means of or in virtue of the incongruity of the surface semantic structure of the paradoxes in reference to a standard framework of reference.

To get at this deep ontological structure, the surface level of understanding must be sundered, and it is precisely the paradoxicality of the language of the koan that accomplishes this.

But this is only the negative side of the paradox, that is, its destruction of the common-sensical understanding of the world.

If the listener does not retreat from the apparent absurdity of the paradoxical statement but instead grapples with it, the positive side of the paradox may have the constructive effect of producing in the person an insight into this deeper level of understanding.

A paradox is something that is "contrary to common belief," that is, something that does not have a place in the ontology of everyday life.

The destruction of this "common ontology" as a basis for understanding leaves one open for understanding at a different level.

The insight into this deeper level of understanding is a result of a shift in attitude toward the language of the utterance, a shift that separates the semantic structure from its ordinary ontological framework of reference. This shift resolves the paradox.

It does not solve it or dissolve it by explaining away the incongruity involved but resolves it by clarifying the paradoxicality of the paradox. At the level of common sense understanding and ordinary linguistic usage, the paradox still remains. The individual who has mastered the koan, however, now understands... More

Alan Watts: ZEN, waking up; basic truth (video)

Alan Watts.org; Seth Auberon, Pat Macpherson, Crystal Quintero (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Alan Watts: A most basic thing we often miss but should remember

The Spiritual Library, Sept. 1, 2017: Alan Watts addresses the paradox of life.

Listen to Alan Watts on Los Angeles "Buddhist Radio" (somethingshappening.com), Pacifica's (KPFK 90.7 FM) "Something's Happening" with Roy of Hollywood Tuckman, Sundays 8:00 AM and Thursdays 12:00 AM (midnight) and in the archives for 90 days following that. Roy of Hollywood plays the most incredible health and spirituality shows on his show. Learn all about vaccines and cures we are never allowed to hear about in the mainstream (like the Bob Beck Protocol) and other luminaries like Jack Kornfield, Caroline Casey, Shinzen Young, Sharon Salzberg, Tara Brock, Roshi Joan Halifax, SoundsTrue.com, Eckhart Tolle, DK Suzuki...Thom Hartmann.