Dan74 wrote:alan... wrote:daverupa wrote:
but asking Theravada Buddhists to justify Mahayana tactics is somewhat odd, isn't it?
apparently it was quite a waste of time lol!
although everyone shares vinaya i think right? so it's still a reasonable question: how do they get around the vinaya and still maintain status as masters?
but clearly i'm getting no where and asking actual zen practitioners already proved useless as well so i give up.
Japanese Zen does not have the Vinaya, not for a long time really.
As for your earlier statements, a narrative by Hakuin like the one you've quoted does not make him a violent man in my book, nor within the Japanese culture of the time. When you said in your earlier post violent, this to me implies intention, and this is how the Buddha taught. If the intention is to harm, this makes a person violent. I don't see that passage by Hakuin going anywhere to prove his intention to harm.
But more importantly can you show me the Vinaya rule about striking your disciple? I am not familiar with it.
Yeah, sure, I am biased. But it'd be good to get things straight first. As it stands we have one Rinzai Zen master writing about his poor disciples who toiled and suffered under his harsh words and blows and another known much more for his poetry and eccentric ways. Have you actually studied under a Zen teacher? Mine's a celibate nun who neither drinks, nor beats me, nor goes to brothels, and neither did her teacher who was one of the foremost Zen masters of his generation. The two other Zen teachers I know, who are Japanese Soto are hard-working gentle people who do none of these things either.
So what are you after, exactly? A condemnation by the Theravadins of Zen masters as heretics? Actually Japanese Zen establishment said that of Ikkyu during his lifetime and afterwards too.
The bottom-line for me is human beings do as human beings do. And if one is a true Zen master he/she will manifest their enlightenment in skillful compassionate action and yet sometimes they may have some rough edges. Maybe some don't, but most will!
PS As for useless, perhaps communication needs some fine tuning here..
a condemnation of zen masters? no! my teacher is a celibate, non-violent, zen priest, i don't know of him to drink or smoke or anything like that either! he is one of the most calm and kind guys i have ever met. i have no theravada teacher and that's what i study, the only buddhist temple anywhere near me is zen so that's where i've been going since i was a teenager. i unfortunately rarely get to go but i still consider him my teacher and correspond with people at the temple by email. that is where my path of buddhism began and i'll always consider that temple my dharma home, i'm actually going to spend a two day retreat there in a few months which i'm really excited about.
and as i keep saying and said roughly in the OP: i love zen! i think these teachers could have been enlightened and many of their methods surly worked regardless of vinaya or whatever else. i studied solely zen for six or seven years before discovering theravada. i became theravada only because it makes more sense to me. i discovered it because my zen temple has books from the pali canon and does dharma talks on suttas from it. although the teachings at the temple on meditation are completely zen, hence all my posts about jhana and what not on here. my teacher knows about jhana but won't teach it, not sure why. i've never asked, maybe he was never trained in them or sees zen methods as more fruitful. i still consider myself a zen/theravada hybrid
this thread was just a curiosity. i think it's a real stretch trying to fit violence into the theravada dhamma. a HUGE stretch and i was just wondering how this stretch came about and was accepted by zen peoples in history. i don't even know of any teachers today who use it like the teachers of old. i'm only talking about violence at this point because all the other stuff i can't find direct quotes for and i'm kind of over this whole thing. just wanted to be clear on my stance on zen. love zen, don't see anything wrong with posing a question about how it can be validated that some masters were violent (drank, married, etc.).
i think most people use the whole "skillful means" thing from the lotus sutra (and surly it's in other sutras as well). using this logic one can do basically anything as long as one can justify that it leads to enlightenment in some way or another, and certainly this has some truth to it.
this being largely a mahayana idea in the sense of stretching out this idea and certainly the lotus sutra being so popular and illustrating it so well is the reason it does not match up with theravada. at least i don't think it does, no one has really answered that part of the question but i believe theravada does not do the whole "violence as skillful means" (at least not in buddhas time) and monks are not allowed to marry or drink alcohol.
there we go, answered my own question lol! i already knew that stuff but was thinking others might know more, like maybe influence from chinese law, confucianism, taoism or something like that allowed for these things? as you said japanese law allowed for monks to marry so that's the kind of info i was looking for.
basically, as i said, all i wanted to know is:
"how is it justified?"
answers i was looking for were something about: laws? other religious influence? other philosophies?
because it did happen and clearly was somehow justified when it didn't happen in the older suttas and certainly was not justified so that was the comparison.
and
"is it the same in theravada"
yes? no? details?
but i am over it as this is leading no where since it seems like no one knows.
thanks for your time and patience Dan74! you're a gentleman and a scholar. i need to work on typing with more tact!