Aristotle is possibly Ancient Greece's greatest philosopher, even though he got a lot of his "science" wrong.

    In China, within the Chinese Ch'an (Japanese: Zen) tradition, the greatest is, of course, Hui-neng (Japanese: Eno) -- the Sixth Patriarch of the Southern School of Chinese Zen (emphasizing "instantaneous enlightenment"), who lived in the seventh and eighth centuries.

    According to T. P. Kasulis, in his article entitled TRUTH AND ZEN, "... Aristotle and Hui-neng agree on one crucial issue: the major cause of falsehood is our mistaken interpretations of what appears. The world is not fundamentally illusory: it is our own delusions that prevent us from seeing the way things are."

    The Zen practitioner seeks consciousnessly to disassociate himself (herself) from his (her) delusions -- via unpolluted no-thinking ("wu-nien") -- and thus, removed of these delusions, to "awaken" by seeing into one's own mind -- into one's own primal nature or original nature or "original face" ("pen-hsing").

    And the process is, apparently, not a one-time or one-off matter. The Japanese -- in their unique way of re-engineering anything (in the reverse engineering sense, perhaps?) -- came to the conclusion that there can be more than one "awakening" episodes, and that the initial "awakening" episode or episodes (called "kensho"; "kenshos") should not be construed as "final enlightenment". After one or more "kenshos", there can follow eventually (which could mean a long period of time after a kensho episode or a series of kensho episodes) the final "awakening" or "liberation", which the Japanese calls "satori" or "dae-kensho", this being the big "nirvana" or "enlightenment" experience of the historical Buddha, who was the "Shakyamuni" (the "muni", or venerable teacher, of the Shakya clan) Siddhartha Gautama.

    About 150 years after Hui-neng, the Chinese Zen Master Lin-chi (Japanese: Rinzai) founded a dominant line of transmission named after him, but still of the Southern School persuasion of "instantaneous enlightenment" that Hui-neng/Eno had established. As one of Hui-neng's spiritual descendants, Lin-chi emphasizes the "true person" ("chen-ren") and speaks of "no position" ("wu-wei") rather than Hui-neng's no-thinking ("wu-nien"). Hence, to Lin-chi, the ideal to strive for is the "true person of no position", echoing Chuang-tzu's "There must first be a true person before there can be true knowledge."

    The "true person" is one of Chuang-tzu's common designations for the sage who acts spontaneously, responsively, and without contrivance. In this respect, we can understand Hui-neng's "no-thinking" ["wu-nine'] as a state of responsive awareness in which one is not self-consciously putting one's experience into static conceptual frameworks. In any case, Lin-chi expressly states that the true person represents the spontaneous functioning at the basis of all human activity ... and the mode in which intention and act are inseparable.

      -- T. P. Kasulis, "TRUTH AND ZEN"

-- Paul Quek

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w: -- "Personal Log" (Website) @ Tripod.com
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This blog is called "The Explorer's Log" because it is a (partial, necessarily!) record of our explorations into the wonders of the Universe (or Creation) ... Of course, as I stated in the parentheses, this Log is only a partial record, since the entirety of knowledge in and about the Universe is just "ginormous" (obviously, a portmanteau of "gigantic" and "enormous"), reflecting directly the glory of our God ... Well, as the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 1, "From the creation of the world [i.e., Universe], His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what He has made. As a result, people are without excuse." (Holman Christian Standard Bible) 

    Let's begin our exploration with this topic that appear in today's paper -- The Straits Times (Forum page, page H9), which is our main daily broadsheet on this day (14 February 2008), in the fair-and-sunny-but-humid island-state of Singapore.

    Naturally, as is my usual practice, when I find something interesting to read, I will Google it on the Internet (or 'Net) ... and then save and read the online/'Net version on my PC. And in the case of paper-based newspapers, I do not handle the physical item for too long, as I go through the whole thing (through all the various sections/parts) in less than 10 minutes ... and also because I prefer to be able to make notes and stylistic changes to the 'Net version already saved on my HDD, it being easier and less measier to do so, and I can quickly seek/search out via Google related texts based on the keywords that are already in the text and/or which come to my mind as I read, notate, etc.

    The process is highly iterative, of course. Notes made from the main text lead to further Google searches, which lead to further notations, which then leads to further searches, and so on and so forth.

    Now, about the topic of "success", especially in the secular sense ... this is always interesting to many people, especially my fellow Singaporeans. But today's text has the very interesting blurb "Success not built on honesty, truth - is failure".

    The article -- or letter to the ST Forum page -- is available online at this 'Net address: http://preview.tinyurl.com/2vnfmu

    If, for some reason, you can't access it @ that URL, CLICK HERE.

-- Paul Quek

e: Paul's Email Address @ Yahoo!.com
( paulquek88@yahoo.com )


b: "Thoughts And Things" (a WordPress Blog @ 3ix.com)
( http://www.thoughts-and-things.com )

b: Paul's Free Blog @ Tripod.com
( http://paulquek888.tripod.com/blog/ )

b: "Personal Log" (Blog) @ Tripod.com
( http://paul-quek.tripod.com/index.blog )

b: "The Explorer Log" (a Tripod Blog) - this blog!
( http://paul.quek.tripod.com/blog/ )

b: "Angels & Demons" @ Tripod.com
( http://p-angels-888.tripod.com/index.blog )


w: -- Mysteries of the World
( http://www.mysteries-of-the-world.com/index.html )

w: -- Paul Quek's Website @ aokhost.com
( http://paulquek.aokhost.com/index.html )

w: -- Personal Web Site
( http://paulquek888.tripod.com/index.html )

w: -- "Personal Log" (Website) @ Tripod.com
( http://paul-quek.tripod.com/index.html )

w: -- "The Explorer Log" (a Tripod Website)
( http://paul.quek.tripod.com/index.html )

w: -- Paul's Free E-Scrapbook @ Tripod.com
( http://pq.escrapbook.tripod.com/index.html )