Toxic Zen Stories - Background -

[Disbasing Zen Stories]

____ Background for Toxic Zen Stories _____________________

____ Preface: Zen Founder _________________________________

Zen is the snake that bites its own tail. If you embrace the void and
acausality, you will find yourself later in the midst of catastrophic
emptiness saying "how'd that happen?".

Under Prajnatara (Perfect Wisdom Shining Star) of India, there was a
disciple named Bodhidharma (Buddha Law). Under these grandiose names,
they studied the Buddha's teachings, after Buddhism had traveled East
to China. The Buddha foretold that Buddhism would fall into a Hellish
path in India, after the Buddha's highest teachings had moved on.

Bodhidharma was a native of Conjeeveram, near Madras in India. He
traveled from India and arrived at Ching-Ling (now Nanking), or
perhaps at Guangzhou (Canton), perhaps both. There, Bodhidharma met
with the Emperor's emissary (some say Emperor Wu of the Liang Dynasty,
see footnote), where they discussed the Sutras.

As Bodhidharma (also called Da Mo, or Ta Mo in China, and Daruma in
Japan) believed in dhyana or meditation upon the nothingness at the
heart of life, and as the Lotus Sutra had been translated into
Chinese by Kumarajiva who traveled from India a century earlier and
had served the Liang Dynasty well, the lesser and distorted teaching
of dhyana/ch'an/zen was rejected by practitioners of the highest
teaching, and Bodhidharma was banished from Imperial territory.

As an icchantika, or incorrigible disbeliever in the Lotus Sutra, he
could not be allowed to spread his teachings in the Emperor's domain
(they wished to live happily, you see). But by banishing him, they
did not act as bodhisattvas, to thoroughly correct his errors and not
let him slip away to corrupt others, and thusly fall into the hell of
incessant sufferings (Aviichi Hell) for countless lifetimes. Out of
this single uncompassionate act, much of the suffering of the world
has come.

After he was banished, Bodhidharma went to the Shaolin Monastery at
Loyang, West of Kaifeng in the Henan (Honan) Province of Western
China, where the Huang He (Yangtze or Yellow River) tumbles out of the
break between Zhongtiao Shan (2367m) on the North and Quanbao Shan
(2094m) on the South, to flood the rest of China. At the Shaolin
Monastery, he widely disseminated his distorted views of Buddhism,
corrupting first the Shaolin Monks and ultimately the rest of the
world.

Bodhidharma's school was known as Dhyana (from the Mahayana source),
or as Ch'an in China, and eventually as Zen in Japan. It comes to
flower in many different forms, in many different places down through
the ages.

Bodhidharma's very existence is denied by the Zen community,
rendering the life of their founder as itself a void. This allows no
one to be responsible, and the Zen community to walk away from the
train wreck. So let's assume that the history is true, and hold
Bodhidharma and Zen accountable, just this once. There was surely a
founder who brought Dhyana from India, however many names he is
called.

Footnotes on Wu-Ti:

Concerning Emperor Wu: from "The Selection of the Time - Nichiren,
disciple of Shakyamuni Buddha", Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, p.
544:

. 'Those concerned about their next life would
. do better to be common people in this, the Latter
. Day of the Law, than be mighty rulers during the
. two thousand years of the Former and Middle Days
. of the Law. Why won't people believe this? Rather
. than be the chief priest of the Tendai school, it
. is better to be a leper who chants Nam-myoho-
. renge-kyo! As Emperor Wu of the Liang dynasty said
. in his vow, "I would rather be Devadatta and sink
. into the hell of incessant suffering than be the
. non-Buddhist sage Udraka Ramaputra."'

This reference is to a document in which Emperor Wu (464--549), the
first ruler of the Liang dynasty, pledged not to follow the way of
Taoism. It actually says that he would rather sink into the evil paths
for a long period of time for going against Buddhism (yet nevertheless
forming a bond with it) than be reborn in heaven by embracing the non-
Buddhist teachings. This story appears in The Annotations on "Great
Concentration and Insight." Udraka Ramaputra was a hermit and master
of yogic meditation, the second teacher under whom Shakyamuni
practiced. He is said to have been reborn in the highest of the four
realms in the world of formlessness.

From the Encyclopedia Britannica:

. Wu-Ti: Born 464 , China. Died 549 , China
.
. Pinyin Wudi (posthumous name, or shih), personal
. name (hsing-ming) Hsiao Yen , temple name (miao-
. hao) (nan-liang) Kao-tsu founder and first emperor
. of the Southern Liang dynasty (502–557), which
. briefly held sway over South China. A great patron
. of Buddhism , he helped establish that religion in
. the south of China.
.
. Wu-ti was a relative of the emperor of the
. Southern Ch'i dynasty (479–502), one of the
. numerous dynasties that existed in South China in
. the turbulent period between the Han (206 BC–AD
. 220) and T'ang (618–907) dynasties. He led a
. successful revolt against the Southern Ch'i after
. his elder brother was put to death by the emperor.
. He proclaimed himself first emperor of the Liang
. dynasty in 502, and his reign proved to be longer
. and more stable than that of any other southern
. emperor in this period.
.
. A devout believer, Wu-ti diligently promoted
. Buddhism, preparing the first Chinese Tripitaka,
. or collection of all Buddhist scripts. In 527 and
. again in 529 he renounced the world and entered a
. monastery. He was persuaded to reassume office
. only with great difficulty. In 549 the capital was
. captured by a “barbarian” general, and Wu-ti died
. of starvation in a monastery.

____ Preface: Types of Zen _______________________________

There is a hierarchy of Zen, in power and toxicity. The lesser forms
of Zen pave the way in societies and cultures for the more powerful
forms. Once a society or culture is corrupted, in even the tiniest
way, by any form of Zen, the tendency will be to move inevitably
towards greater corruption by the more powerful and toxic variants. In
this way, Zen undermines everything that can be undermined in the
world, leaving only that which is incorruptible (the correct practice
of the Lotus Sutra). The hierarchy of Zen is as follows, in general
terms:

Physical Zen: All of the martial arts are based on Zen, starting
. with Shaolin Kung Fu, Tai Chi, Karate, Aikido, JiuJitsu,
. Judo, Kendo, Bushido, Ninjitsu, etc. Tai Chi came from
. Shaolin Qigong, which also led to Acupuncture,
. Acupressure and Falun Gong. As the chaos in society
. grows, people need to feel they can protect themselves and
. their loved ones, and in this way they are corrupted further.

Christian Zen, Jewish Zen, Hindu Zen, Islamic Zen: These are
. basically mixtures, wherein the monotheist believer in a
. deity, feels they can practice Zen meditation without a
. problem, since it is not theistic. While this reasoning is true,
. it ignores the absolutely overwhelming corruption produced
. by Zen, which will ultimately undermine their belief system
. and every facet of their life, by bringing all of the negatives
. in the Zen adherent's's daily life and environment to the
. forefront, with increasing amplification and psychotic
. effect.

Nuremberg Zen: The widespread belief by a population, that
. the purpose of the Buddha's advent in the world was to
. teach Zen: that Zen is Buddhism. This is, of course, an
. absolutely distorted view of the Buddha's life and teachings.
. Shakyamuni made it transparently clear, at the very end of
. his life in the Nirvana Sutra, wherein he states that the Lotus
. Sutra is his highest teaching in the past, present and future,
. and is the purpose of his advent on this Earth, and that his
. followers should honestly discard provisional teachings
. (teachings other than the Lotus Sutra).
.
. Nuremberg Zen was promulgated first by D.T. Suzuki's
. work with Paul Carus, then by Eugen Herrigel's Zen in the
. Art of Archery (and the many who copies: Zen in the Art
. of Marketing, Sales, Bakery, etc.) and finally by Alan Watts,
. the Norman Vincent Peale of Zen. Nuremberg Zen creates
. the environment of chaos and widespread misery that are
. the preconditions for the spread of more toxic forms of
. Zen.

Stanford Zen: This is the Lay organization of Zen. It was
. developed in conjunction with the activities of Frederic
. Spiegelberg, a Lutheran who taught theology at the
. University of Dresden, and fleeing the effects of Nuremberg
. Zen in Germany, came to teach at Stanford, and founded
. the American Academy of Asian Studies with Alan Watts
. and others, which became the California Institute of Integral
. Studies, after it spawned Esalen with Richard Price and
. Michael Murphy. Esalen was the proving ground for the
. Large Group Awareness Therapy organizations, of which
. Werner Erhard's EST was most prominent. EST morphed
. into a business school executive training seminar
. organization called the Landmark Forum, or Landmark
. Education, which has now become the de facto Lay
. organization for Zen, projecting itself onto Wall Street and
. the Fortune 500.

Green Dragon Zen: In this category I place Soto, which is the
. parent of the Green Dragon Society, Rinzai, Fuke, Northern
. and Southern Chinese Ch'an sects, Vietnamese and Korean
. sects, and all the variant sects which practice the most toxic
. forms of Zen: those which actually use the Lotus Sutra as a
. means to promulgate their distorted views of Buddhism.
. This is the greatest slander of the Lotus Sutra which is
. possible. I lump them all under the Green Dragon banner
. (I'm sure they do not appreciate this, but that is not a
. concern), because Green Dragon has had a tradition of
. secret propagation, and penetration of new areas with the
. most aggressive intent to build a lasting foothold in every
. society it touches. All of the other sects in any locale, will
. orient themselves to the Green Dragon.

Nuremberg Zen, Physical Zen and the monotheist Zen mixtures will all
eventually pave the way for Stanford Zen and the Green Dragon, if they
are not themselves undercut by the king of sutras, the Lotus Sutra.
(Zen believers cannot resist the allure of greater power. When they
try the Lotus Sutra and find that it fills the void inside, they will
find they like it.)

Finally, there is the enabling group for all of the worst religious
and social movements in history:

Fellowship of Evil Friends: This loosely collected group of
. Occultists,Theology professors and educators, is at the
. branching point for most of corrupt religious movements
. of the world. This grandfather of this group is the occultist
. Meister Eckart, and it includes: Dietrich Eckart (Thule
. Society), Paul Carus (Open Court Publishing), Frederic
. Spiegelberg (Stanford, AAAS), Michael Murphy (Esalen),
. and a host of powerful media people, pundits, gurus and
. self-help authors. They are all quite happy to connect you
. up with some form of evil, but step back from
. commitment themselves, always stopping at the door, as
. you foolishly, trustingly pass through. In this way they
. catalyze the evil transformation, but survive its effects to
. spread further evil, later on.

____ Preface: Powers of Zen ______________________________

Variations upon Zen which have evolved into new strains and then major
branches of Zen, have increased their toxic power by piling slander
upon slander over hundreds of years. The greatest slanders are
attached to the most powerfully evil forms of Zen, which are those
that have attacked the Lotus Sutra directly or the votaries (devotees)
of the Lotus Sutra, the Sangha, directly. One can think of this with
the mathematical analogy of a powers of a variable, that Zen becomes
exponentially more powerful and evil as slanders are piled upon
slanders ...

[Zen] Bodhidharma discards the Lotus Sutra, seeking wisdom that is
from transmissions outside the sutras, transmitted from person to
person (ishin denshin). The families of Chinese Zen under
Bodhidharma's influence include: Dhyana, Ch'an, Western Ch'an, Qigong,
Tai-Chi, Acupuncture, and the Chinese and Korean Martial Arts up to
1200 CE.

[Zen Squared] Dogen uses the Lotus Sutra as a means to teach and
propagate Zen. The families of Japanese Zen under Dogen's influence
are: Soto Zen, Rinzai Zen, Green Dragon Zen, Bushido and the Japanese
Martial Arts up to 1500 CE.

[Zen Cubed] Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and the Tokugawa Shogunate use various
Samurai and Daimyo tactics, which are based on Zen, to subjugate and
crush Nichiren Buddhism of the Lotus Sutra in the 1500s and 1600s. The
families of Japanese Zen under the Tokugawa influence are: Soto Zen,
Rinzai Zen, Green Dragon Zen, Bushido and the Japanese Martial Arts up
to 1867 CE.

[Zen Squared Squared] After the Meiji regime's overthrow of the
Tokugawa Shogunate, the militarization and buildup of Japanese society
into an armed camp, forces all of Buddhism under Shinto, and Zen
becomes Imperial Way Zen. This ultimately leads to the crushing of the
Lay organization of Nikko's School of Nichiren Buddhism, the Soka
Kyoiku Gakkai and the imprisonment of their leaders during the war,
and the death of their President Tsunesaburo Makiguchi. The families
of Imperial Way Zen are: Soto Zen, Rinzai Zen, Green Dragon Zen,
Bushido and the Japanese Martial Arts up to 1945 CE.

[Zen to the 5th] American Lay Zen from George Leonard's [Esalen]
influence: the Large Group Awareness Therapy or Training sessions,
Werner Erhard's EST, Landmark Forum, Landmark Education Seminars.

____ Preface: Zen Offends the Law ________________________

There is a principle which is central to the Buddhism of the Lotus
Sutra: Oneness of Person and Law, known as Nimpo-ikka in Japanese.

It is eternally true that the Law and the Buddha are fused, to make
life as we know it.

Since, according to Nichiren in the Ongi Kuden (The Oral Teachings, or
class notes from his lectures on the Lotus Sutra, taken by Nikko), one
meaning of "Myoho" is that delusion and enlightenment are fused (this
is also explained in the essential teachings of the Lotus Sutra, in
the Juryo or Life Span chapter) ...

This means that even for deluded mortals, there is always a condition
of oneness of person and Law.

The implication of this, is that wherever there is a slander of the
Law, then nearby and coincident with it, there is a slander of
humanity, by the principle of the simultaneity of cause and effect.

Hence, wherever Zen is propagated widely, there will be in each and
every instance, Toxic Zen Stories to tell.

What follows is one of these ...

[lyal...@gmail.com]

"apparently Chas has real faith because for the last 25 years he's spammed this forum and also posted many of the same duplicates over on Alt Zen (under a different name), and Jules has chipped in with exactly the same interjections he's used here. The Zen forum just ignore them both and get on with their activities. So much for refutation."

Lain - Former ARBN Blogger