Friday, January 15, 2010

Either way. Whether perception is projection, or projection is perception, it is our choice what we see.
Enlightenment Song

Every green mountain is the
Cave of Amitabha Buddha
And the boundless sea is the
Palace of nirvana.

- Master Wonhyo (617-686)
"I'm glad you choose to see me the way you do." (Walter to Peter in episode of "Fringe" on Fox TV).

No thinking.

Only looking.

New moon.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Walking frozen pond. Hammering ceiling boards in place. Teaching nothing I know.
"The language used by Zen is therefore in some sense an antilanguage, and the “logic” of Zen is a radical reversal of philosophical logic. The human dilemma of communication is that we cannot communicate ordinarily without words and signs, but even ordinary experience tends to be falsified by our habits of verbalization and rationalization. The convenient tools of language enable us to decide beforehand what we think things mean, and tempt us all too easily to see things only in a way that fits our logical preconceptions and our verbal formulas. Instead of seeing things and facts as they are we see them as reflections and verifications of the sentences we have previously made up in our minds. We quickly forget how to simply see things and substitute our words and our formulas for the things themselves, manipulating facts so that we see only what conveniently fits our prejudices. Zen uses language against itself to blast out these preconceptions and to destroy the specious “reality” in our minds so that we can see directly. Zen is saying, as Wittgenstein said, “Don’t think: Look!”"
-Thomas Merton, Zen and the Birds of Appetite, pp. 48-49
No system of thought suffices. Only experience.

Thinking is not thought. Thinking is seeing.

Look here.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

We sorrow with Haiti.

Monday, January 11, 2010

There's nothing to say.

So, I'll say it.