In Zen and Catholic or Evangelic Christianity alike, among others, it is not unusual to come across this peremptory tone, the same insane assertiveness…
Unexpectedly, this is good news for those traditions.
The one talking about God, just like the one who hammers gullible listeners with what Zen is, should be, was or wasn’t, .. do not talk really about their traditions but reveal something about themselves.
Both are equally irritating, they play the same simulation game consisting in pretending their advancement point along the path is further than it really is, as well as a strategy of dodging any upcoming doubt by pretending they have stepped over it.
One and the other, through their verbal positioning, are sculpting a hierarchical structure for the community among which they stand, unless their strategies be thwarted by silently observing eyes in the audience, they will appear wiser and will be the recipient of projected desires from others wishing to occupy the higher ranks of credibility among their group.
In their own eyes, such people are attempting to reach an ex post credibilisation of a somehow difficult or chaotic personal history.
This assessment induces tolerance. Let such people play their games, and based in a particular space of silence, let their ears resonate with the void of their own talks.
Entering a rhetorical exercise in those cases is counterproductive, for it feeds the self-existing engine.
The wisdom from silence is precisely what can activate bodhicitta, water their awakening seed.
It is necessary they hear the void to which our silence answers.
©FJ March 2022
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Many thanks to all
Notes & Silence 
Adopt both. Why limit yourself to one such name?
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Argh…a fit of modesty I guess.
One modddle name at a the more than enough,
Some people have none…this is unfair.
I’ll keep heretic, then
It sound more like a safeguard.
Controversial is too overused these days anyway… Almost a synonym for :mainstream.’
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This is a post I wrote a while ago,
I believe though we are on the same line.
The same reality occurs a lot in zen circles.
As for my experience… I have quite a large background of relationships with hysterical and loud profiles when it comes to religious matters.
This is where it gets personal..
We’ll discuss this some other day,
Some other place.
I’m walking in the woods for now and find it challenging to keep my eyes and ears off the beauties Nature is offering…
Wish you could here it.
What other teaching should we need ?
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I’m more a mountain or sea coast person, but I know what you mean.
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The good thing about being born a sea coast person is that you carry the ocean with you wherever you go.
I was born in Dunkirk.
Town of the Wild
Do you have mountains close to where you live ?
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I’m from the South Wales valleys, and live in the shadow of the Mynydd Maen (Stone Mountain) and Twyn Barllwm (a rather mysterious mound on the mountain top).
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Might I ask after your experience of evangelical Christianity?
Mine suggests the peremptory insanity is foundational, ingrained and not good news at all.
Happy to continue that via Diaspora PM’s if you feel it might be too controversial for this blog. Or to forget it if it is just « too controversial ».
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Hi Simon, Evangelical Christianity is as broad a reality as ‘being American’.
It covers som
any different faces.
I fully agree with you and have referred to this hysterical aspect in many former posts.
‘Controversial’ is my middle name.
Or is it ‘heretic?’ I keep forgetting…
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THis topic of peremptory tone in Evangelical ministers has continuously made me wonder it such people truly believed the louder they yelled Jesus’ name, the more likely he were to come…
Maybe they consider Christ an old person now, with hearing issues.
Seriously, this makes me think of the current context we have in our society where media keep hammering the same circular arguments…Without realizing the more they hit us with their insanity, the further away we (I, at least) will remain from where they want to drag us.
Sorry, I got tangled up in this parallel ….
THe bottom line is Spirituality and marketing can never be compatible, for the latter is consistently, inherently about manipulating.
(Buddhism, though, has an interesting approach to fooling people for their greater interest as long as they are not able to see for themselves (= skillful means) //The typical ex. is the one of a father yelling from outside his burning house, trying to call his kids, pretending they(re are wonderful gifts waiting for them outside…
HE knows, they are not aware the house is on fire and will not realize the urgency of the situation without him resorting to this trick.)
This digression is poorly related to our topic, though…well I told you about the conception I had of the academic need for structure and consistency as one of limitation, I guess.
My perception of such profiles — out of hands-on experience with people around me // and for having observed it in myself, at times — is that such reactions are reflecting inner suffering.
These people, when trying so hard, so loudly to preach others are actually revealing how lost they can really be. Yet, they are unaware their are trying to convince themselves of something they do not truly believe.
THis may appear contradictory, as they always seem so perfectly self confident in their faith.
But when you live close to such people and get to observe them here and there, in the course of a look, in the twist of an intonation,
you realize the make up is clearly flaking, and they keep readjusting it (their inner wobbly structures) permanently, in a desperate attempt not to definitively collapse.
Again, I shall remind these considerations do not claim to apply to every individual…They are simply conclusions I have been able to draw based on personal observations.
And correspond to the most outspoken version of this religious expressions.
THere are also very positive theological positions to be observed in it…their stance as the Reform within the Reform particularly seduces me and is, in spirit, not different from the essence of Zen.
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Evangelical certainty, preaching threatened damnation and twisted concepts of divine love, is, in my experience, a form of control, masking extreme social conservatism behind a false claim of spiritual radicalism.
It is a lie aimed at the benefit of a certain portion of society – the « believers »; rather, those they support.
A lie, eventually, becomes clear to any who refuse to allow their minds to be imprisoned.
These are the heretics and the apostates.
But, constant repetition is necessary in such an economy – to keep speaker and hearer alike believing the falsehood. Lest all apostacise.
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Zen is a death, Zazen is possible death of understanding. Only one breath at a time. One breath. Everything is there. peace love and greetings from Oz.
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Evening.
I am not a Buddhist, so forgive my reticence responding to a statement specifically about Zen and Zazen.
But peace love and greetings to you in turn.
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It isn’t as controversial as it may sound to say that Zen has nothing to do with Buddhism.
Zen is the essence.
When I say Zen I mean the Life within a living spiritual expression.
Here’s a quote by Thomas MErton, a Christian Monk I am sure you are familiar with :
(whose writings on Zen are fascinating)
« If I could not breathe Zen I would probably die of spiritual asphyxiation. »
CONTEXT :
« I will not be so foolish as to pretend to you that I understand Zen… And I think, too, that many of the Americans who are excited about Zen are perhaps, dealing with something in their own imagination, and not with a reality… All I know is that when I read your books — and I have read many of them — and above all when I read English versions of the little verses in which the Zen masters point their finger to something which flashed out at the time, I feel a profound and intimate agreement. Time after time, as I read your pages, something in me says, « That’s it! » Don’t ask me what … I have my own way to walk, and for some reason or other Zen is right in the middle of it wherever I go. So there it is, with all it’s beautiful purposelessness and it has become very familiar to me though I do not know « what it is. » Or even if it is an « it ». Not to be foolish and multiply words, I’ll say simply that it seems to me that Zen is the very atmosphere of the Gospels, and the Gospels are busting with it. It is the proper climate for any monk, no matter what kind of monk he may be. If I could not breathe Zen I would probably die of spiritual asphyxiation. But still I don’t know that it is. No matter. I don’t know that the air is either. »
Have a good day Simon
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