XPost: alt.philosophy.zen, alt.zen, alt.buddha.short.fat.guy   
   From: epsteinrob@yahoo.com   
      
   Tang Huyen wrote:   
      
   > On 2/6/2012 2:11 PM, halfawake wrote:   
   >   
   >> I used to think I understood "zen mind   
   >> is everyday mind" then I realized it   
   >> was conceptual. Now I've settled with   
   >> a much simpler formulation: "everyday   
   >> mind is everyday mind" which leaves   
   >> you exactly where you are.   
   >>   
   >> Honestly I'm not sure there's much of   
   >> an advantage in that, but it has the   
   >> advantage at least of being the truth.   
   >   
   >   
   > You take a tautology to be a truth.   
   > It is indeed a truth, but it would   
   > be truer to say that it is a bald   
   > tautology.   
   >   
   > It would be even more succinct if you   
   > changed it to: "just so, just so."   
   >   
   > Tang Huyen   
      
   Just so seems a little more obscure to me - probably my own failing at   
   having such difficulty in interpreting a more abstract form of response.   
     You are right I guess that tautology is a rather minor form of "truth"   
   since it adds no new information to that which is true, but as   
   verification of what would otherwise be transparent through   
   non-redundancy, and as an establishment of focus on a particular locus   
   of actuality, it does its job.  Why else would the Buddha say "in the   
   seen only the seen?"  I guess that is not quite a tautology, since it is   
   a statement of exclusion, but it still is basically a tautology used to   
   demonstrate an exclusionary point.   
      
   "Everyday mind is everyday mind" reminds me of the potential for tathata   
   in the most mundane of experiences.  Hopefully it is an antidote for the   
   false ego-based formula that if only one was enlightened, things would   
   be so much better.   
      
   Robert   
      
   - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)