How deceiving food portions can be. No wonder we have trouble with moderation. Here is 200 calories in the form of peanut butter (38 grams).
Author: Warren Tang
I write about linguistics and philosophy. I also write poetry and take photographs.
No form
What is the ‘no’ in ‘no form’?
This ‘no’ is not the no in the phrase ‘I have no money’. Whether one has money or not is not of importance. The ‘no’ is rather like the ‘-less’ in ‘priceless’ meaning ‘beyond a value’ where it is not attached to existence or non-existence.
And what is the ‘form’ of ‘no form’? It the very way our physical body works. The heart pumps. The blood flows. Rhythm follows. We breathe. We grow. And we change. But to go beyond this understanding of good and bad is the meaning of the phrase ‘no form’.
It is this life, this reality, without principles, without discrimination that we have simply overlooked.
We should be attentive to the ‘no form’ which is without attachment in all its working.
(My translation of Choyaku Hannya Shingyo, pp88-9, by Sakaino Katsunori, ISBN 9784837981619)
Abuse within Zen
Even Buddhism is not immuned to problems. Was Sasaki Sensei enlightened? I doubt it.
There Is No Guarantee
Three pieces of news has made me think about existence – the news of the death of the great kabuki (a form of traditional Japanese play) actor Ichikawa Danjuro, the death of three Japanese tourists in Guam, and the explosion of a meteor over Russia.
Truly, there is no guarantee you will be alive by the end of the day, or even the end of this minute.
To take this a step further there is even no guarantee that you would have been brought into the world in the first place.
Think about that.
What the world needs
Bodhisattva
Taken at Senkoji, Onomichi, Hiroshima.
Interbeing
Interbeing is Thich Nanh Nhat’s term for no-self which is equated by him to emptiness. The act of naming is the act of separating, isolating the self from the other (as though this is possible). We are all connected, interconnected in a way that is profound. We are interbeing. That is all we need to know.
Ye Haiyan
Sometimes it is amazing to read about what people will do to help others. Chinese activist Ye Haiyan volunteered for two and a half days as a prosititute to highlight the plight of sex workers as well as to understand better their situation. She then went on to write about it on Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter.
In a sense she is a Bodhisattva. But whether this is the only recourse she had to help them is another story.
What is important is that there are people out there trying to make a difference, whether you hear about them or not. The media covers very few newsworthy stories and most are insignificant to making the world a better place.
Like Buddha one should see with their own eyes the truth.
Buddhism isn’t a philosophy
In this talk Thich Nhat Hanh said that Buddhism isn’t a philosophy but that it has philosophy in it. There is a minimum of knowledge of the world necessary in order to follow the Buddhist practice but after that we should get on with the practice and not dwell on philosophical speculation.
Thich Nhat Nanh talks about the much quoted Cula-Malunkyovada Sutta:
“Malunkyaputta, it’s not the case that when there is the view, ‘The cosmos is eternal,’ there is the living of the holy life. And it’s not the case that when there is the view, ‘The cosmos is not eternal,’ there is the living of the holy life. When there is the view, ‘The cosmos is eternal,’ and when there is the view, ‘The cosmos is not eternal,’ there is still the birth, there is the aging, there is the death, there is the sorrow, lamentation, pain, despair, & distress whose destruction I make known right in the here & now.”
“I am thinking now.”
What is it like to transform the world around you for the better? If you want to know listen to this inspiring talk by Patrick Awuah about his work to positively transform Ghana and the African continent.
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