XPost: alt.buddha.short.fat.guy, alt.zen, alt.philosophy.taoism   
   From: tanghuyen@gmail.com   
      
   On 8/6/2016 10:19 AM, awaken21 wrote:   
      
   > I would agree with the tone of this actually,   
   > that the Zen tradition is a relic in many ways.   
   > It is clunky and inefficient outside it's original   
   > environment. The Japanese pentant for   
   > codifing everything is like trying to freeze a   
   > person in place in a way.   
   >   
   > I'm pretty sure we just made a drastic   
   > context change for the quoted part of the   
   > statement though.   
      
   The Japanese tendency for codifying everything   
   is indeed like trying to freeze a flow (like a river)   
   in place in a way. But a drastic context change   
   for the ancient texts is inevitable, even if we   
   understand the ancient languages, as the world   
   has changed. In the case of Stoicism, there is no   
   living tradition, but even when there are living   
   traditions to keep up the flames, there have   
   been changes, small or large (e. g., there were   
   no incense and statues in the early canon, and   
   the shamanistic accretions, like holy water in   
   Thai Buddhism and the mantra-s and dharani-s   
   of the Great Vehicle) which need to be   
   readjusted if we want to penetrate to the   
   original spirit. Yet Stoicism still has to be   
   re-intuited a priori and reconstructed a priori if   
   we want to get to its spirit. Practically nobody   
   understands it now, least of all the academic   
   scholars.   
      
   However some developments after the original   
   stage can well be understood and absorbed   
   as faithful to the original spirit, whatever the   
   last was. Stoicism, Buddhism and Daoism are   
   into flexibility of reception and scepticism of   
   knowledge, so some developments are to be   
   expected. Frozen they would not exist. To live   
   them would be into full flow, so to speak.   
      
   Tang Huyen   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)