The first fold of the Eightfold Path, Right View, is sometimes translated as Right Understanding and is explained by many commentators to mean that one has Right Understanding if one understands the Four Noble Truths. But that common explanation doesn’t jive with the Buddha’s words. He said the first fold of the Eightfold Path was… Continue reading Meat, Murder, Tofu And Zen
Category: The Four Noble Truths
Zen Practice And Sakkaya Ditthi
Sakkaya ditthi, the wrong view of self, is the first of the ten fetters that bind unenlightened beings. Its counterpart or antidote is Right View or Right Understanding, the first fold of the Eightfold Path. Until we arrive at samma ditthi, the correct view of self, it’s hard to loosen the other nine fetters. Who practices… Continue reading Zen Practice And Sakkaya Ditthi
Zen Emptiness Is Fullness
“All sentient beings” includes ourselves but “no sufferer is found, no doer of the deeds is there.” No person enters Nirvana and the path has no traveler. So who suffers, who does deeds, who enters Nirvana and who travels the path? Who finds the answer to these questions? When the Buddha announced the doctrine of… Continue reading Zen Emptiness Is Fullness
Zen Practice And The Tenth Fetter
The last and final fetter that an arahat breaks in order to realize nirvana/nibbana is the fetter of ignorance of the Four Noble Truths. Funny, but among the first things we learn of when studying Buddhism are the Four Noble Truths. Yet these truths are the last things we learn. As the last of the… Continue reading Zen Practice And The Tenth Fetter
Zen And The Heart Sutra
Nor is there pain or cause of pain or cease in pain or noble path to lead from pain, not even wisdom to attain, attainment too is emptiness. As Red Pine points out in his superb translation and commentary on The Heart Sutra, these lines were penned to directly refute the Four Noble Truths. The… Continue reading Zen And The Heart Sutra