One of my friends from the previous dojo, customary to utter provocative statements, used to repeat: “Zen is not Buddhist.”
And that annoyed me.
For some strange reason, this sentence resonated in me during this evening’s practice session.
There is no doubt for me now: I agree with him.
Zen is not Buddhist.
This seems obvious to me.
In the same way that Zen is not…. Any other tradition or religion.
Zen is much more than that: it is the key to Buddhism and the key to any other tradition that names it differently, or does not name it at all.
The one who enters deeply into the heart of his tradition, who thus moves away from the attachment to the forms and concepts inherent to this tradition by the very fact of its deepening, enters the practice of Zen.
Whether he knows it or not is of no importance here.
©FJ Feb 2024
Recueils / Participation/ Groupe De Pratique
Notes & Silence 
Might one be even more provocative, and say « Zen is not Zen »?
Or, am I able to say that only because I do not claim to practice anything called Zen?
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This is not provocative, Simon.
You’ll have to up the ante to sound provocative in this place.
Provocation
as a professional vocation
____
People who claim to practice Zen do not practice Zen,
They have their own bubble of behavioral and linguistic patterns, that is all ?
Zen practitioners are beyond claiming.
At least, this is what I claim,
therefore excluding myself from both Zen and non Zen.
Caramba !
J’aimeAimé par 1 personne
Nothing is provocative, save to the provoked!
J’aimeAimé par 1 personne
like : beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder;
Provocation lies in the heart of the recipient.
J’aimeAimé par 2 personnes