From: Robert Owen (rowen@technologist.com)
Date: Sun Sep 19 1999 - 21:45:28 MDT
Joe E Dees wrote:
> > >> > One of the basic tenets of Zen Buddhism is that there is no
> way to characterize what Zen is. No matter what verbal space you
> try to enclose Zen in, it resists, and spills over. It might seem, then,
> that all efforts to explain Zen are complete wastes of time. But that
> is not the attitude of Zen masters and students.
The problem is the Occidental declarative sentence. Every definition
is a statement of the identity of subject and predicate. But we are
then trapped into saying:
T H I S I S T H A T
Therefore the correct answer to all declaratives transformed into the
interrogative mode is: Wu = Mu = Neti-Neti. That is, [neither this nor
that nor (neither this nor that)].
What is Zen? Mu. What is not-Zen? Mu.
=======================
Robert M. Owen
Director
The Orion Institute
57 W. Morgan Street
Brevard, NC 28712-3659 USA
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