XPost: alt.philosophy.zen, alt.society.liberalism, alt.society.kindness   
   XPost: talk.politics.theory   
   From: epsteinrob@yahoo.com   
      
   Hollywood Lee wrote:   
      
   > NYC XYZ wrote:   
   >   
   >> Hollywood Lee wrote:   
   >>   
   >>>   
   >>> Gak.  It may be visceral.  It may be unmediated by conceptual thinking.   
   >>>   But "truth"?  Pure Bushido bullshit.   
   >>   
   >>   
   >>   
   >> So you think Bushido is a corruption of Zen?   
   >   
   >   
   > You would have to ask a zennie.  From my perspective Bushido is to   
   > Buddhism what Rapture theology is to the Sermon on the Mount. Corruption   
   > hardly describes the foul stench.   
   >   
   >   
   >>   
   >> I've long wondered how Zen can be applied to something like murder.   
   >   
   >   
   > Banish all dualisms you don't like, such as good/evil, life/death and   
   > substitute in a strict code of obedience and mindless response and you   
   > got one mean killin machine, brutha.   
   >   
   >   
   >   
   >   
   >> Did samurai let themselves off the hook by rationalizing that it wasn't   
   >> personal?   
   >   
   >   
   > "In D. T. Suzuki's highly influential and praised Zen and Japanese   
   > Culture, published in 1959 by Princeton University, he wrote:   
   >   
   >     The sword is generally associated with killing, and most of us   
   > wonder how it can come into connection with Zen, which is a school of   
   > Buddhism teaching the gospel of love and mercy. The fact is that the art   
   > of swordsmanship distinguishes between the sword that kills and the   
   > sword that gives life. The one that is used by a technician cannot go   
   > any further than killing, for he never appeals to the sword unless he   
   > intends to kill. The case is altogether different with the one who is   
   > compelled to lift the sword. For it is really not he but the sword   
   > itself that does the killing. He had no desire to do harm to anybody,   
   > but the enemy appears and makes himself a victim. It is as though the   
   > sword performs automatically its function of justice, with is the   
   > function of mercy…the swordsman turns into an artist of the first grade,   
   > engaged in producing a work of genuine originality."   
   >   
   > F'n bullshit for the stupid and easily led.   
      
   I'm afraid so.   
      
   robert   
      
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   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)