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The Koan of Achievement [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2024-01-21  

Fake Buddha quote: Shakyamuni Buddha was asked: “What have you gained from Meditation?” He replied: “Nothing. However, let me tell you what I lost: Anger, Anxiety, Depression, Insecurity, Fear of Old Age and Death.”

Seen in writings of Eknath Easwaran, Douglas M. Burns, and Osho (aka Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh).

Real quotations:

Huang Po, as translated by John Blofeld in “The Zen Teaching of Huang Po: On the Transmission of Mind”

I truly attained nothing from complete unexcelled Enlightenment. Nothing is born, nothing is destroyed. Away with your dualism, your likes and dislikes.”

Dogen Zenji, Shushogi, as translated by Rev. Abbess Jiyu Kennett and Rev. Abbot Suigan Yogo

The most important question for all Buddhists is how to understand birth and death completely for then, should you be able to find the Buddha within birth and death, they both vanish. All you have to do is realise that birth and death, as such, should not be avoided and they will cease to exist for then, if you can understand that birth and death are Nirvana itself, there is not only no necessity to avoid them but also nothing to search for that is called Nirvana. The understanding of the above breaks the chains that bind one to birth and death therefore this problem, which is the greatest in all Buddhism, must be completely understood.

Something can be true even if Shakyamuni Buddha never said it, but you have to understand how it is true or it does you no good. It is not enough to say, “Oh, right, no self,” if you are still mired in self. Let us therefore confess our selfish errors, take refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, practice the Eightfold Path, the ten perfections, the four Divine Abodes, and so on, as the Buddhas and Ancestors taught us with grandmotherly kindness in ways suited to our levels of misunderstanding.

It is very easy to see the beliefs of others as attachments—so easy that the vastly deluded see it in the Woke, denouncing Woke Buddha and Woke Jesus (proclaimed widely to be The False Messiah Destroying Christianity) and seeking to oppress their followers. We do not have any need to oppress the actually deluded. We can offer them every good thing available, even if they hate that, and refuse to escape the fires of Greed, Hatred, and Delusion.

We have talked about various ways of addressing delusion with Skill in Means. Next we will take up the Precept

Do not be proud of yourself and devalue others

which is at the heart of the problem, and points the way to various solutions.

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