Greetings to all the veterans. We were a Coast Guard cadet sponsor family for 10 years while in CT. We still hear from many of our “daughters” on a regular basis, and will forever consider them to part of our family.
Interesting speculation on why Newsom was MIA for over 10 days. If true, just one more example of leftist denial of reality.
Visited Arlington some years ago; was very sobering (and it was not Veteran’s Day).
Just as sobering, if not more so, was visiting the US Military cemetery in Normandy, France, which contains the remains of just under 10,000 US military personnel. It’s the largest US cemetery in Europe.
Makes you think how very very few people (as compared to a nation’s population) , on the order of about 1000 people or so (which would include a parliament or a Congress) decide to bring a nation to war.
And of this 1000 or so, there are most likely about 25 people or so, at the very highest positions within a Presidents and/or Prime Minister’s circle, that “push” the decision to go to war.
It’s really incredible when you think about it.
But for thousands of years, those “at the top” pushing for war, usually never have a problem finding enough people to actually go out there and get killed or do the killing.
Speaking of military cemeteries in Europe, I also visited a German military cemetery in France (near Normandy); I was shocked to learn they even existed in France.
I may have erred; there is an American military cemetery from WWI in Meuse-Argonne, France, that appears to be larger than the one in Normady (from WWII,)
Since Barry and Zaphod we’re among the three commenters to my late /early morning post in the last Open Thread, I thought I’d repost my short post again for today:
A psychiatric explanation for the tribal slavishness to the “Dangerous Covid!” narrative mantra that’s totalitarian: Dr Mattias Desmet, Ghent University lecturer on mass formation.
He sees our situation as a large scale mass-formation event, a psychoanalytic term for a type of mass hysteria under perceived threat, answering to anxiety and social anomie.
Dr Desmet explains in detail and is quite illuminating. I think he nails it. Two long freaking years.
Yeah, I saw that interview a few weeks back and it was discussed on another blog. Recommended.
JohnTyler —
We interred my father’s ashes at the relatively tiny National Cemetery at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, and it was still sobering to see the acres of headstones.
Related to Veterans’ Day, the Seattle School District showed itself to be incompetent not only in teaching our children but in basic HR ability:
On Tuesday parents got an email blast saying “so sorry, we had a very large number of staff take vacation on Friday, so no school that day”.
As if it was somehow unforeseen that anybody with PTO days would take off the Friday after a holiday on Thursday to get a 4-day weekend. Even my 12-year-old daughter thought that was obvious.
I have custody this week and I work from home, so it’s not a great hardship for me, but lots of parents had very little notice that they would have to make arrangements for two days instead of one.
John Tyler–
Are you referring to the German military cemetery at La Cambe? There are five other German WWII cemeteries, all in Normandy, but La Cambe is the largest, with 21,000 soldiers buried there.
Rather ironically, this Veterans Day, Lee Smith describes the ever-clearer “Biden” strategy of transforming—by definition—half the country (IOW anyone who doesn’t support “him”) into “domestic terrorists”.
In fact, Smith nails this monstrous perversity to the wall.
It will be a huge challenge for the decent citizens of America to overcome, given the amount of power that “Biden” currently wields.
Since those Americans targeted by “Biden” will be forced to contend with their own government—a government that is supposed to help them and protect them but which, instead, has declared that they are the enemy.
That they are terrorists.
To be dealt with by the full brunt, the full force, of America’s vast security and law enforcement agencies.
The German War cemeteries are beautifully laid out and maintained. So sad that so many good boys gave their lives for a bad cause.
JohnTyler, my trip to Normandy cemetery in 2019 will be forever etched in my memory; along with the fact the French have turned the actual Omaha beach into a resort. 🙁
Very good questions coming out of the Rittenhouse case: Why was the FBI doing video surveillance, and is this the only video they have, or are there more?
When I was working in Germany in the early 1980’s we visited the American cemetery in Luxembourg. General Paton is buried right at the front, still leading the troops.
@Xylourgos:
“So sad that so many good boys gave their lives for a bad cause.”
True.
And if ours had known they were dying for compulsory Drag Queen Story Hour for their great grandchildren… School Busing/Integration for their children but not for their officers’ children… and for Detroit and Baltimore… and Hip Hop lyrics… and the USS Harvey Milk… and…
@Huxley:
This sort of your bailiwick. Last night I was listening to an Alan Watts lecture on YouTube. First time I’d ever heard his voice and style of delivery. Content aside, there was a man who could have led a crusade in that time and place if he’d wanted to.
I did a quick flip through his Wikipedia entry and looks like he spent WWII parked in an Episcopalian Seminary in the US and then promptly popped out of it and did other unrelated stuff as soon as the war ended. Am I being too cynical? Perhaps he had some kind of medical exemption.
Zaphod:
Is there a knight’s move from Cixin Liu to Alan Watts I’m unaware of? What brought you to Watts’ toffee-rich voice?
I doubt Watts lost sleep over missing WW II close-up. I don’t know what sort of exemption or other arrangement he had.
Watts did come from a religious family, he was something of a prodigy and by the time he was a teen, he was already deep on his journey to the East. It wasn’t something he discovered just in time, when the Germans became obstreperous.
My impression is that his heart belonged to the East, particularly Zen Buddhism, but he took a conventional shot at the Episcopal priesthood first. When that didn’t work out, he returned to Zen. As I recall, towards the end of his life he considered the priesthood again.
In any event, yes, he was an enormously charming and persuasive man, who I would say was the single most important influence on Americans with respect to Zen Buddhism. Likewise, he held a high place for LSD mysticism. Lesser known, he was the key influence for Werner Erhard’s creation of est (Erhard Seminar Training) which we’ve touched upon.
Though little blood was spilled, I would say Watts did lead a crusade in his time and place.
David Warren has a touching meditation on Armistice Day:
“…It is on this broad view that I forgive my countrymen — at least those in this part of the country — for neglecting to wear a poppy pin today. I did not spot even one, among all the transit customers, and only one in a medical waiting room (a very old lady). I was looking for poppies, obsessively, while riding buses and walking through crowds, on my way to and from the doctors’ appointments this morning. At the moment of eleven o’clock, there was nothing to be heard.
Except very softly, beating inside me: the echo of great wars. There was a time when we were capable of remembering, at least the more recent conflagrations; and gratitude for those who had leapt to our defence. But now, after a short interval, we, the nominally living, have found our place with the dead. There was no passage in which we attained dignity, and no one will remember us.”
@Huxley:
“Is there a knight’s move from Cixin Liu to Alan Watts I’m unaware of? What brought you to Watts’ toffee-rich voice?”
You’ll have to ask YouTube. The Algo moves in mysterious ways. I should be thankful that it hasn’t decided to bombard me with Bronies. Yet.
I’m going to listen to more of him. Not having been born early enough, I only ever dipped in and out via books in libraries — and that was ~30 years ago. Just bits of DT Suzuki and also Herrigel’s book on Zen and Archery.
Zaphod:
Watts is worth the effort and happily it’s not much effort. One could argue he makes enlightenment sound easy.
I had read some of his books, but only caught his lovely voice when I lived in Boston and WBUR would play a Watts talk on Sunday mornings. It became my weekly sermon.
He was a wonderful, complicated, imperfect man. Towards the end of his life he became an alcoholic. There’s a Suzuki Roshi story about a Zen meditation retreat, where Watts showed up and was obviously drunk. An American Zen student complained to Roshi. Roshi reproached the student, saying, “You don’t know who this man is and all he has done.” (Or words to that effect.)
Watts was an important influence on me. I try to remember him as an important teacher and a human being.
@Huxley:
“Watts is worth the effort and happily it’s not much effort. One could argue he makes enlightenment sound easy.”
I gave him points for stating at the beginning of the talk I heard that he made no claim to be classically trained in Zen and that his talk was to be approached and understood as an Entertainment.
Mind you, I was also greatly entertained the time I entered the lobby of the Le Meridien Bangalore and encountered a very White very American Tibetan Buddhist Monk in full kit hurling loud obscenities down a courtesy phone line. Didn’t stick around to find out what offences the malefactor had committed.
Zaphod:
Herrigel’s “Zen in the Art of Archery” has been decisively debunked. Shoji Yamada’s “Shots in the Dark: Japan, Zen, and the West” did the trick. From some notes I made for a friend:
___________________________________________
It’s not quite as bad as Carlos Castaneda. Herrigel really did study with a Japanese archer, but (1) the archer did not teach Zen and had never been a Zen student, (2) the archer was an eccentric who was trying to start a religion based on archery, (3) Herrigel barely understood Japanese, (4) the interpreter was hit and miss and sometimes absent, (5) Herrigel filled in the blanks rather liberally according to his own ideas.
The core story, which made the book, of the archer shooting twice blindly into the dark at a target with the first arrow hitting the target and the second splitting the first arrow was complete luck, which the archer explained to associates later.
And by the way, Herrigel went back to Germany to become an enthusiastic Nazi.
___________________________________________
In a similar vein D.T. Suzuki was a fan of Japanese nationalism and Nazis. Most Japanese Zen teachers were enthusiastic about the Japanese WW II effort. Suzuki Roshi (Shunryu Suzuki) was one of the few who wasn’t.
@Huxley:
Interesting re Herrigel. Thanks.
“In a similar vein D.T. Suzuki was a fan of Japanese nationalism and Nazis. Most Japanese Zen teachers were enthusiastic about the Japanese WW II effort. Suzuki Roshi (Shunryu Suzuki) was one of the few who wasn’t.”
Satori! I get it. Suzuki’s Zen was kind of like General Relativity being ‘Jewish Physics’?
Zaphod:
Well, I don’t know I would put it that way.
A problem with Tibetan and Zen Buddhism IMO is that with all the Enlightenment is Anything and Everything and Nothing paradoxes, ordinary morality can get lost in the shuffle, at least where the so-called Enlightened Teachers are concerned.
Suzuki Roshi (author of “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind,” the best place for an American to start I would say) was the epitome of the Zen Teacher as Ordinary Man, yet he had such a strong clear moral presence and teaching he made the San Francisco Zen Center the strong Zen place it became.
He didn’t screw around (literally and metaphorically) with his students like too many other Buddhist teachers did. It’s a sad list.
Referring to DT, of course.
@Huxley:
“Well, I don’t know I would put it that way.”
Hehe.
“A problem with Tibetan and Zen Buddhism IMO is that with all the Enlightenment is Anything and Everything and Nothing paradoxes, ordinary morality can get lost in the shuffle, at least where the so-called Enlightened Teachers are concerned.”
This would explain the attraction of Buddhism to the parade of celebrity Western assholes and self-centred scumbags we could both likely enumerate at length.
Thanks. I’ll look into Suzuki Roshi. YouTube also threw up this Good For Nothing Monk:
The “Good For Nothing Monk” has some of the most emphatic eye accesses I’ve ever noticed. He’s always looking to his right. Quite striking.
Makes me wonder if there is someone or something over there.
If I put on my NLP hat, eye accesses to the right mean he’s constructing or imagining something visual or auditory. Or perhaps it has to do with his lack of fluency in English and he’s building what he has to say.
@Huxley:
He’s checking his emails or reading his teleprompter. He’s a good for nothing wired up plugged in monk! Have a look at the wide angle view of him here.
If true, just one more case of Not a Serious Country. Not a Serious People.
Thanks much for the David Warren link.
I used to read him religiously….
Then dwindled down and inertia took care of the rest.
Not for everyone, obviously, but a genuine treasure.
Zaphod:
I dug up my material on the Alan Watts / Werner Erhard link. Erhard claims Zen was crucial to his creation of The est Training. Some, if not all, of his knowledge of Zen certainly came from Watts. Erhard attended lectures Watts gave on his houseboat in Sausalito.
I believe the Watts quotes below came from those lectures. If one has taken the Training, it is easy to see the blueprint Erhard used for the Training — including “assholes.”
_______________________________________________
All humane people admit they are assholes.
I hoaxed you all into coming here to tell you … what?
This was a trap, you see.
— Tape 4:7:19
You only have to understand
that you can’t do anything about it
and as they say in Zen
you cannot take hold of it
but you can’t get rid of it
and not being able to get it
you get it.
So all these trials
gurus put their students through
have as their ultimate object
convincing you
that you can’t do anything.
Only it’s convincing you very thoroughly.
It’s convincing in more than a theoretical way.
Now perhaps I shouldn’t tell you that.
But you see I’m not a guru
in that I don’t give
individual spiritual direction to people
and I give away the guru’s tricks.
— Tape 5:4:4:00
–Alan Watts, “Out of Your Mind”
______________________________________
“Out of Your Mind” is an excellent set of Watts lectures. Available on Audiobook, if the Oligarchs don’t mind.
@Huxley:
Thanks! And this time it let me make the purchase. Bezos can live another day.
Zaphod:
You’re welcome!
BTW, that’s from my secret stash. As far as I know, I’m the only person in the world who has put together that quote and The est Training. (Pats self on back.)
Also, note the emphasis on “It.” “Getting It,” as you may be aware, is the climax of the Training.
Erhard and Watts were friends. Erhard enjoys telling the story of being invited to a big spiritual meeting of various luminaries. Watts is also present. Watts greets the exalted participants with appropriate addresses. When he gets to Erhard, he just smiles and says, “You rogue, you.”
@Huxley:
Always interested to hear your takes on these matters since you’ve been there, done that, and got the t-shirt!
When he gets to Erhard, he just smiles and says, “You rogue, you.”
Mutual Recognition FTW.
Would it be fair to say that one big difference between est training and following a Zen master in the traditional way is that in est the humiliations are more public?
Re the Watts quote, are there enough its in it to make your NLP whiskers twitch?
Zaphod:
Watts would have no trouble describing himself as a rogue. As you pointed out, he also referred to himself as an entertainer.
It’s common practice in some Zendos for the head assistant to whack students across the shoulders with a stick, should their steely erect meditation posture start to droop. Leonard Cohen attended one of those.
In Zen parables the teacher often instructs students harshly to guide them. A classic is Gutei cutting off a boy’s finger:
However, the Training deals with people’s emotions and stories much more than Zen does. Nor do Zen teachers resort to crude name-calling as est Trainers did. (That’s moderated in the Landmark Forum.)
As to It: In NLP that would come under the heading of Trance Language — vague, confusing language that mystifies more than specifies with the intention of bypassing the conscious mind.
The Landmark Forum, with its large Heidegger infusion, has taken that to a whole ‘nother level.
_______________________
It’s your choice whether you have taken the stand that you are the stand you take or merely living in the concept of it.
We are standing in the possibility of being our Word.
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Greetings to all the veterans. We were a Coast Guard cadet sponsor family for 10 years while in CT. We still hear from many of our “daughters” on a regular basis, and will forever consider them to part of our family.
Interesting speculation on why Newsom was MIA for over 10 days. If true, just one more example of leftist denial of reality.
https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/gavin-newsom-is-out-of-sight-likely
It’s Veterans Day, and Arlington National Cemetery is commemorating the 100th anniversary of the dedication of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_84L7DQH5qU&ab_channel=FoxNews
The parade to Arlington includes some soldiers dressed in WWI uniforms.
Greetings on this Veterans Day.
…as Joe Manchin continues to show that he deeply cares about the country:
“Manchin may delay Biden’s $1.75T Build Back Better plan until 2022 over fears it would make inflation even worse”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10189411/Manchin-delay-Biden-social-legislation-2022-inflation-worries-Axios.html
(Either that or he has a wonderfully wicked sense of humor.)
OTOH, the key word here is “may”….
+ Bonus:
A remarkable WWI forensic detective story involving a descendant of William Wordsworth’s—
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10188581/Poetic-end-long-lost-hero-inspiring-story-Wordsworths-descendant-told.html
Visited Arlington some years ago; was very sobering (and it was not Veteran’s Day).
Just as sobering, if not more so, was visiting the US Military cemetery in Normandy, France, which contains the remains of just under 10,000 US military personnel. It’s the largest US cemetery in Europe.
Makes you think how very very few people (as compared to a nation’s population) , on the order of about 1000 people or so (which would include a parliament or a Congress) decide to bring a nation to war.
And of this 1000 or so, there are most likely about 25 people or so, at the very highest positions within a Presidents and/or Prime Minister’s circle, that “push” the decision to go to war.
It’s really incredible when you think about it.
But for thousands of years, those “at the top” pushing for war, usually never have a problem finding enough people to actually go out there and get killed or do the killing.
Speaking of military cemeteries in Europe, I also visited a German military cemetery in France (near Normandy); I was shocked to learn they even existed in France.
I may have erred; there is an American military cemetery from WWI in Meuse-Argonne, France, that appears to be larger than the one in Normady (from WWII,)
Since Barry and Zaphod we’re among the three commenters to my late /early morning post in the last Open Thread, I thought I’d repost my short post again for today:
A psychiatric explanation for the tribal slavishness to the “Dangerous Covid!” narrative mantra that’s totalitarian: Dr Mattias Desmet, Ghent University lecturer on mass formation.
He sees our situation as a large scale mass-formation event, a psychoanalytic term for a type of mass hysteria under perceived threat, answering to anxiety and social anomie.
Dr Desmet explains in detail and is quite illuminating. I think he nails it. Two long freaking years.
Long sympathetic interview here
https://youtu.be/uLDpZ8daIVM
Yeah, I saw that interview a few weeks back and it was discussed on another blog. Recommended.
JohnTyler —
We interred my father’s ashes at the relatively tiny National Cemetery at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, and it was still sobering to see the acres of headstones.
Related to Veterans’ Day, the Seattle School District showed itself to be incompetent not only in teaching our children but in basic HR ability:
On Tuesday parents got an email blast saying “so sorry, we had a very large number of staff take vacation on Friday, so no school that day”.
As if it was somehow unforeseen that anybody with PTO days would take off the Friday after a holiday on Thursday to get a 4-day weekend. Even my 12-year-old daughter thought that was obvious.
I have custody this week and I work from home, so it’s not a great hardship for me, but lots of parents had very little notice that they would have to make arrangements for two days instead of one.
John Tyler–
Are you referring to the German military cemetery at La Cambe? There are five other German WWII cemeteries, all in Normandy, but La Cambe is the largest, with 21,000 soldiers buried there.
Rather ironically, this Veterans Day, Lee Smith describes the ever-clearer “Biden” strategy of transforming—by definition—half the country (IOW anyone who doesn’t support “him”) into “domestic terrorists”.
In fact, Smith nails this monstrous perversity to the wall.
It will be a huge challenge for the decent citizens of America to overcome, given the amount of power that “Biden” currently wields.
Since those Americans targeted by “Biden” will be forced to contend with their own government—a government that is supposed to help them and protect them but which, instead, has declared that they are the enemy.
That they are terrorists.
To be dealt with by the full brunt, the full force, of America’s vast security and law enforcement agencies.
(All this on Veterans Day…)
But first the grotesque Unamerican policy initiative has to be characterized.
Described.
Exposed for what it is.
And it is catastrophic.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/counter-terrorism-bruce-hoffman
The German War cemeteries are beautifully laid out and maintained. So sad that so many good boys gave their lives for a bad cause.
JohnTyler, my trip to Normandy cemetery in 2019 will be forever etched in my memory; along with the fact the French have turned the actual Omaha beach into a resort. 🙁
Very good questions coming out of the Rittenhouse case: Why was the FBI doing video surveillance, and is this the only video they have, or are there more?
https://thefederalist.com/2021/11/11/sen-johnson-probes-fbi-aerial-surveillance-after-rittenhouse-defense-suspects-foul-play-in-kenosha-case/
When I was working in Germany in the early 1980’s we visited the American cemetery in Luxembourg. General Paton is buried right at the front, still leading the troops.
@Xylourgos:
“So sad that so many good boys gave their lives for a bad cause.”
True.
And if ours had known they were dying for compulsory Drag Queen Story Hour for their great grandchildren… School Busing/Integration for their children but not for their officers’ children… and for Detroit and Baltimore… and Hip Hop lyrics… and the USS Harvey Milk… and…
@Huxley:
This sort of your bailiwick. Last night I was listening to an Alan Watts lecture on YouTube. First time I’d ever heard his voice and style of delivery. Content aside, there was a man who could have led a crusade in that time and place if he’d wanted to.
I did a quick flip through his Wikipedia entry and looks like he spent WWII parked in an Episcopalian Seminary in the US and then promptly popped out of it and did other unrelated stuff as soon as the war ended. Am I being too cynical? Perhaps he had some kind of medical exemption.
Zaphod:
Is there a knight’s move from Cixin Liu to Alan Watts I’m unaware of? What brought you to Watts’ toffee-rich voice?
I doubt Watts lost sleep over missing WW II close-up. I don’t know what sort of exemption or other arrangement he had.
Watts did come from a religious family, he was something of a prodigy and by the time he was a teen, he was already deep on his journey to the East. It wasn’t something he discovered just in time, when the Germans became obstreperous.
My impression is that his heart belonged to the East, particularly Zen Buddhism, but he took a conventional shot at the Episcopal priesthood first. When that didn’t work out, he returned to Zen. As I recall, towards the end of his life he considered the priesthood again.
In any event, yes, he was an enormously charming and persuasive man, who I would say was the single most important influence on Americans with respect to Zen Buddhism. Likewise, he held a high place for LSD mysticism. Lesser known, he was the key influence for Werner Erhard’s creation of est (Erhard Seminar Training) which we’ve touched upon.
Though little blood was spilled, I would say Watts did lead a crusade in his time and place.
David Warren has a touching meditation on Armistice Day:
https://www.davidwarrenonline.com/2021/11/11/armistice/
“…It is on this broad view that I forgive my countrymen — at least those in this part of the country — for neglecting to wear a poppy pin today. I did not spot even one, among all the transit customers, and only one in a medical waiting room (a very old lady). I was looking for poppies, obsessively, while riding buses and walking through crowds, on my way to and from the doctors’ appointments this morning. At the moment of eleven o’clock, there was nothing to be heard.
Except very softly, beating inside me: the echo of great wars. There was a time when we were capable of remembering, at least the more recent conflagrations; and gratitude for those who had leapt to our defence. But now, after a short interval, we, the nominally living, have found our place with the dead. There was no passage in which we attained dignity, and no one will remember us.”
@Huxley:
“Is there a knight’s move from Cixin Liu to Alan Watts I’m unaware of? What brought you to Watts’ toffee-rich voice?”
You’ll have to ask YouTube. The Algo moves in mysterious ways. I should be thankful that it hasn’t decided to bombard me with Bronies. Yet.
I’m going to listen to more of him. Not having been born early enough, I only ever dipped in and out via books in libraries — and that was ~30 years ago. Just bits of DT Suzuki and also Herrigel’s book on Zen and Archery.
Zaphod:
Watts is worth the effort and happily it’s not much effort. One could argue he makes enlightenment sound easy.
I had read some of his books, but only caught his lovely voice when I lived in Boston and WBUR would play a Watts talk on Sunday mornings. It became my weekly sermon.
He was a wonderful, complicated, imperfect man. Towards the end of his life he became an alcoholic. There’s a Suzuki Roshi story about a Zen meditation retreat, where Watts showed up and was obviously drunk. An American Zen student complained to Roshi. Roshi reproached the student, saying, “You don’t know who this man is and all he has done.” (Or words to that effect.)
Watts was an important influence on me. I try to remember him as an important teacher and a human being.
@Huxley:
“Watts is worth the effort and happily it’s not much effort. One could argue he makes enlightenment sound easy.”
I gave him points for stating at the beginning of the talk I heard that he made no claim to be classically trained in Zen and that his talk was to be approached and understood as an Entertainment.
Mind you, I was also greatly entertained the time I entered the lobby of the Le Meridien Bangalore and encountered a very White very American Tibetan Buddhist Monk in full kit hurling loud obscenities down a courtesy phone line. Didn’t stick around to find out what offences the malefactor had committed.
Zaphod:
Herrigel’s “Zen in the Art of Archery” has been decisively debunked. Shoji Yamada’s “Shots in the Dark: Japan, Zen, and the West” did the trick. From some notes I made for a friend:
___________________________________________
It’s not quite as bad as Carlos Castaneda. Herrigel really did study with a Japanese archer, but (1) the archer did not teach Zen and had never been a Zen student, (2) the archer was an eccentric who was trying to start a religion based on archery, (3) Herrigel barely understood Japanese, (4) the interpreter was hit and miss and sometimes absent, (5) Herrigel filled in the blanks rather liberally according to his own ideas.
The core story, which made the book, of the archer shooting twice blindly into the dark at a target with the first arrow hitting the target and the second splitting the first arrow was complete luck, which the archer explained to associates later.
And by the way, Herrigel went back to Germany to become an enthusiastic Nazi.
___________________________________________
In a similar vein D.T. Suzuki was a fan of Japanese nationalism and Nazis. Most Japanese Zen teachers were enthusiastic about the Japanese WW II effort. Suzuki Roshi (Shunryu Suzuki) was one of the few who wasn’t.
@Huxley:
Interesting re Herrigel. Thanks.
“In a similar vein D.T. Suzuki was a fan of Japanese nationalism and Nazis. Most Japanese Zen teachers were enthusiastic about the Japanese WW II effort. Suzuki Roshi (Shunryu Suzuki) was one of the few who wasn’t.”
Satori! I get it. Suzuki’s Zen was kind of like General Relativity being ‘Jewish Physics’?
Zaphod:
Well, I don’t know I would put it that way.
A problem with Tibetan and Zen Buddhism IMO is that with all the Enlightenment is Anything and Everything and Nothing paradoxes, ordinary morality can get lost in the shuffle, at least where the so-called Enlightened Teachers are concerned.
Suzuki Roshi (author of “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind,” the best place for an American to start I would say) was the epitome of the Zen Teacher as Ordinary Man, yet he had such a strong clear moral presence and teaching he made the San Francisco Zen Center the strong Zen place it became.
He didn’t screw around (literally and metaphorically) with his students like too many other Buddhist teachers did. It’s a sad list.
Referring to DT, of course.
@Huxley:
“Well, I don’t know I would put it that way.”
Hehe.
“A problem with Tibetan and Zen Buddhism IMO is that with all the Enlightenment is Anything and Everything and Nothing paradoxes, ordinary morality can get lost in the shuffle, at least where the so-called Enlightened Teachers are concerned.”
This would explain the attraction of Buddhism to the parade of celebrity Western assholes and self-centred scumbags we could both likely enumerate at length.
Thanks. I’ll look into Suzuki Roshi. YouTube also threw up this Good For Nothing Monk:
Zazen is Good for Nothing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T-Z1WoFXkk
Zaphod:
The “Good For Nothing Monk” has some of the most emphatic eye accesses I’ve ever noticed. He’s always looking to his right. Quite striking.
Makes me wonder if there is someone or something over there.
If I put on my NLP hat, eye accesses to the right mean he’s constructing or imagining something visual or auditory. Or perhaps it has to do with his lack of fluency in English and he’s building what he has to say.
@Huxley:
He’s checking his emails or reading his teleprompter. He’s a good for nothing wired up plugged in monk! Have a look at the wide angle view of him here.
https://www.sanshinji.org/about-sanshin-zen-community.html
Darkness Visible.
YouTube Algo’s Gift of the Day:
All of Paradise Lost. Wait until you hear who plays Satan. Perfect casting!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GINzUBvQ5nw
Satan kicks in at the 5:20 mark for those impatient to know.
News You Can Use:
https://asiatimes.com/2021/11/south-asian-gene-affects-covid-severity-study/
BREAKING-Federal Judge Orders FBI to cease with O’Keefe’s cell phone.
The story broke over three hours ago. See Instapundit or Zerohedge or elsewhere for further information.
UPDATE
The FIB has leaked contents to the vile NYTimes.Sean Davis condemns … SEE Instapundit
Link to an article by Michael Yon claiming that Governor Abbott is only pretending to do something about Aliens at the border.
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2021/11/texas-isnt-stopping-illegal-aliens-its.html
If true, just one more case of Not a Serious Country. Not a Serious People.
Thanks much for the David Warren link.
I used to read him religiously….
Then dwindled down and inertia took care of the rest.
Not for everyone, obviously, but a genuine treasure.
Zaphod:
I dug up my material on the Alan Watts / Werner Erhard link. Erhard claims Zen was crucial to his creation of The est Training. Some, if not all, of his knowledge of Zen certainly came from Watts. Erhard attended lectures Watts gave on his houseboat in Sausalito.
I believe the Watts quotes below came from those lectures. If one has taken the Training, it is easy to see the blueprint Erhard used for the Training — including “assholes.”
_______________________________________________
All humane people admit they are assholes.
I hoaxed you all into coming here to tell you … what?
This was a trap, you see.
— Tape 4:7:19
You only have to understand
that you can’t do anything about it
and as they say in Zen
you cannot take hold of it
but you can’t get rid of it
and not being able to get it
you get it.
So all these trials
gurus put their students through
have as their ultimate object
convincing you
that you can’t do anything.
Only it’s convincing you very thoroughly.
It’s convincing in more than a theoretical way.
Now perhaps I shouldn’t tell you that.
But you see I’m not a guru
in that I don’t give
individual spiritual direction to people
and I give away the guru’s tricks.
— Tape 5:4:4:00
–Alan Watts, “Out of Your Mind”
______________________________________
“Out of Your Mind” is an excellent set of Watts lectures. Available on Audiobook, if the Oligarchs don’t mind.
@Huxley:
Thanks! And this time it let me make the purchase. Bezos can live another day.
Zaphod:
You’re welcome!
BTW, that’s from my secret stash. As far as I know, I’m the only person in the world who has put together that quote and The est Training. (Pats self on back.)
Also, note the emphasis on “It.” “Getting It,” as you may be aware, is the climax of the Training.
Erhard and Watts were friends. Erhard enjoys telling the story of being invited to a big spiritual meeting of various luminaries. Watts is also present. Watts greets the exalted participants with appropriate addresses. When he gets to Erhard, he just smiles and says, “You rogue, you.”
@Huxley:
Always interested to hear your takes on these matters since you’ve been there, done that, and got the t-shirt!
When he gets to Erhard, he just smiles and says, “You rogue, you.”
Mutual Recognition FTW.
Would it be fair to say that one big difference between est training and following a Zen master in the traditional way is that in est the humiliations are more public?
Re the Watts quote, are there enough its in it to make your NLP whiskers twitch?
Zaphod:
Watts would have no trouble describing himself as a rogue. As you pointed out, he also referred to himself as an entertainer.
It’s common practice in some Zendos for the head assistant to whack students across the shoulders with a stick, should their steely erect meditation posture start to droop. Leonard Cohen attended one of those.
In Zen parables the teacher often instructs students harshly to guide them. A classic is Gutei cutting off a boy’s finger:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juzhi_Yizhi
However, the Training deals with people’s emotions and stories much more than Zen does. Nor do Zen teachers resort to crude name-calling as est Trainers did. (That’s moderated in the Landmark Forum.)
As to It: In NLP that would come under the heading of Trance Language — vague, confusing language that mystifies more than specifies with the intention of bypassing the conscious mind.
The Landmark Forum, with its large Heidegger infusion, has taken that to a whole ‘nother level.
_______________________
It’s your choice whether you have taken the stand that you are the stand you take or merely living in the concept of it.
We are standing in the possibility of being our Word.