09 Sep 08
You're out of the woods
You're out of the dark
You're out of the night
Step into the sun, step into the light
Keep straight ahead
For the most glorious place
On the Face of the Earth
Or the sky
Hold onto your breath
Hold onto your heart
Hold onto your hope
March up to the gate
And bid it open
09 Sep 08
Originally posted by ThinkOfOneDon’t seek the truth,
You're out of the woods
You're out of the dark
You're out of the night
Step into the sun, step into the light
Keep straight ahead
For the most glorious place
On the Face of the Earth
Or the sky
Hold onto your breath
Hold onto your heart
Hold onto your hope
March up to the gate
And bid it open
just let go of all your opinions . . .
—Seng Tsan, 3rd Zen Patriarch
. . . and what reveals itself
before your thoughts can clothe it
will at least be something,
before your opinions,
that you can then opine about . . .
__________________________________________
Not a critique, ToO! Just a Zennish footnote.
09 Sep 08
Originally posted by vistesdSee you at the next Bardo too
Don’t seek the truth,
just let go of all your opinions . . .
—Seng Tsan, 3rd Zen Patriarch
. . . and what reveals itself
before your thoughts can clothe it
will at least be something,
before your opinions,
that you can then opine about . . .
__________________________________________
Not a critique, ToO! Just a Zennish footnote.
27 Jun 09
Originally posted by vistesdDon't seek the truth?
Don’t seek the truth,
just let go of all your opinions . . .
—Seng Tsan, 3rd Zen Patriarch
. . . and what reveals itself
before your thoughts can clothe it
will at least be something,
before your opinions,
that you can then opine about . . .
__________________________________________
Not a critique, ToO! Just a Zennish footnote.
What is one supposed to make of that idea?
It's like saying there is truth, but don't try to learn what it is because knowing the truth might cause one to think soundly.
Don't seek the truth. Man, that's absurd!
28 Jun 09
Originally posted by karoly aczelYes. Although in this case it isn’t completely illogical, but still aimed at shaking up facile assumptions.
thank you for asking
I think it is supposed to act like a'tool' to 'snap' you out of your 'everyday' thinking and present to your mind a completely illogical thought (or koan) .
By leaping to an opinion—“Don’t seek the truth. Man, that’s absurd!”—Joseph both missed Seng Tsan’s point, and at the same time illustrated it. (Hello, Joseph! I didn’t know that I’d ignored your question; I didn’t even remember this post till it popped up again.)
On the one hand, if one does not already know what the truth would look like, how does one go about “seeking” it? How would one know it if one saw it? But, if one already knows what the truth looks like—why is one “seeking” it!?
On the other hand, if one first forms an opinion about what the truth should look like, then one will likely reject anything that does not look like that opinion (or set of opinions). What one then declares to be the truth is likely to look an awful lot like the opinion(s) that one formed in order to look for it: one is likely to find what one is looking for, whether that is really the truth or not.
And if one simply exchanges one set of opinions for another, then the “truth” will appear differently, according to that new set of opinions.
That is the dilemma.
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Note—
In English, the word “truth” is cognate with words like “trust” and “troth”. Thus, we have something called a “correspondence theory of truth”—a true statement is one whose conceptual content accurately corresponds with the reality.
Seng Tsan, as a Buddhist, comes out of a different linguistic matrix—one in which “truth” is cognate with “reality” (or “being” ): in Sanskrit, for example, satya and sat, respectively. In such a way of thinking, truth is reality, before we form any conceptual statements, or beliefs, or opinions, about it.
28 Jun 09
1 edit
My, my, my. You post the lyrics, of a widely known song, that few would recognize and look what comes of it. Almost a year later it inexplicably gets resurrected and becomes a primer of sorts for Zen koans. Come to think of it, the premise for the thread was a koan of sorts. And the circle closes on itself. 🙂