XPost: alt.philosophy.taoism, alt.buddha.short.fat.guy, alt.zen   
   From: invalid@invalid.invalid   
      
   Tang Huyen  wrote:   
   > 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   
   >   
      
   I wasn't aware that Thai Buddhism fiddled with holy water, I though that   
   was a strictly-Christian shamanistic accretion.  What is their holy water   
   good for anyway, what are its touted properties?   
      
   --   
   email: noname.1234567.abcdef@gmail.com   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)