Optimistic Voices

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

Originally posted by ThinkOfOne
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

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.

Originally posted by vistesd
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.

See you at the next Bardo too

If you don't seek the Truth nobody can seek it for you.

Originally posted by daniel58
If you don't seek the Truth nobody can seek it for you.

The Truth will seek you if you let it.

Originally posted by vistesd
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.

Don't seek the truth?

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!

Originally posted by josephw
Don't seek the truth?

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!

its absurd for a reason.

Originally posted by karoly aczel
its absurd for a reason.

Is that true?

Originally posted by josephw
Is that true?

yep. just ask vistesd.

Originally posted by karoly aczel
yep. just ask vistesd.

I have.

Originally posted by josephw
I have.

aargh! just stop it josephw.
Are you trying to tell me that vistesd did not answer you?
Ask him again. If still no answer then ask me.

Originally posted by karoly aczel
aargh! just stop it josephw.
Are you trying to tell me that vistesd did not answer you?
Ask him again. If still no answer then ask me.

Okay karoly. What is the reason?

Originally posted by josephw
Okay karoly. What is the reason?

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) .

Originally posted by karoly aczel
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) .

Yes. Although in this case it isn’t completely illogical, but still aimed at shaking up facile assumptions.

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.

______________________________________________

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.

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. 🙂