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zen buddhism and cage

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cage feel free zen
16K views 90 replies 19 participants last post by  millionrainbows 
G
#1 ·
Feel free.......
 
#4 · (Edited)
From the Heart Sutra

.... form is no other than emptiness,
emptiness no other than form;
form is exactly emptiness, emptiness exactly form;
sensation, perception, mental reaction, consciousness are also like this.
. . . in emptiness there is no form, no sensation, perception, mental reaction, consciousness;
no eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind,
no colour, sound, smell, taste, touch, object of thought;
no seeing and so on to no thinking . . .

And from my favourite Zen text, Hakuin's Song

“All living beings are originally buddhas, just like water and ice:
Without water there is no ice, and outside living beings thre is no Buddha.
Not knowing how near it is, people see it ouside themselves–what a pity!
Like someone in the middle of water crying out in thirst,
or the child of a rich man, wandering around likea a beggar,
we are bound to the six worlds because we are lost in the darkness
of ignorance.

Following dark path after dark path, when shall we escape birth and death?”
 
#9 ·
Zen can be realized through meditation (and meditation is I believe the most effective and dependable way of realizing zen - so I like that you have suggested it being related to zen, that is very good advice). But technically meditation is not zen. It is very possible to meditate and not experience zen. Likewise it is possible to experience zen while not meditating.
 
#18 ·
As I understand it, Zen attempts to achieve enlightenment by "emptying" the mind of distracting thoughts. Other forms of meditation focus on mantras, chanting, or activities such as counting beads, as in Shingon.

Also, Buddhism started in India and then spread to China. It came to Japan after that.

Cage's interest in Buddhism was helped by his study with the business-suited D.T. Suzuki in New York.

He visited Cage's loft, and the only thing in it was a bamboo mat, a small table, and a grand piano; no curtains or other furniture.

Suzuki said "An old shoe would look beautiful in this room."

I thought that was amusing.
 
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#19 · (Edited)
One popular form of Zen meditation is called "Just Sitting." You basically just sit, and focus on what's happening in your head, whenever you become distracted you just "firmly and gently" return to observing the flow of thoughts. No focus on the breath or on loving emotional states or anything like that. I used to do it, though not as often or as regularly as other practices. It isn't easy, but no meditation practice is easy.

Anyway I'm posting this because I wonder if that's what you're meant to do in 4,33 - which is clearly music Cage was very proud of and which he took very seriously. I remember an interview where he says he listenens to 4,33 every day. Like someone's daily meditation practice. Maybe 4,33 is about getting an audience to try a bit of Zen Just Sitting.

There's a whole side to Zen which I know nothing about, I've had no experience of it, and it has to do with Koans. When Cage makes music by tapping pots and pans and turning the radio on and off - well, is that a bit like a Koan? Forcing the listener to face up to the absurd. I don't know.
 
G
#20 ·
A koan is intended to force a break in rational thinking, in essence. It is usually a question chosen specifically for the practitioner to "work" with. Koans are associated mainly with Rinzai Zen.
 
#21 ·
Cage didn't practice zazen. Is it possible to understand (or get) Zen without meditation?

He decided not to "discipline my ego by sitting cross-legged but to find a means of writing music as strict with respect to my ego as sitting cross-legged." (Cage, "Tokyo Lecture and Three Mesostics")
 
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#22 ·
It is possible, of course, to understand intellectually what the word zen means. Beyond that the lived reality of all schools of Buddhism involves some form of meditation practice (whether zazen or other). Meditation is one of the eight parts of the so-called Eightfold Path; just about as fundamental to Buddhism as one can get.
 
#23 ·
I fully agree with the importance of meditation in Zen Buddhism.

In modern usage the term "zen" does not always literally refer to "meditation". It can be used in reference to things like simplicity and intuition. Interestingly, the root of the Sanskrit word that zen has its origins in is dhyā-, dhī- which means to observe or to see.
 
#27 ·
In Taoism, there is a form called "walking meditation." So it doesn't have to be just sitting.
 
#26 ·
Zen - the essence and the difficulty

Christmas Humphreys, one of the leading pioneers in the history of Buddhism in Britain, wrote that "Zen is a subject extremely easy to misunderstand." He was right.

Zen is something a person does. It's not a concept that can be described in words. Despite that, words on this site will help you get some idea of what Zen is about. But remember, Zen does not depend on words - it has to be experienced in order to 'understand'.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/buddhism/subdivisions/zen_1.shtml
 
G
#32 ·
I would submit that Buddhism has it wrong, Life is not suffering.
This is quite a common misunderstanding. The assertion made by the Buddha was that "Birth is dukkha*, aging is dukkha, death is dukkha; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair are dukkha; association with the unbeloved is dukkha; separation from the loved is dukkha; not getting what is wanted is dukkha."

*this is often broken into:
The physical and mental suffering of birth, aging, illness and dying.
The unsatisfactoriness pervading existence, since all is changing, impermanent and without independent selfhood.

Buddhism offers a means of overcoming "dukkha."
 
#38 ·
Buddhism is about balance not just suffering and joy. Being able to experience it all.
 
#39 ·
All this bickering over Buddha's true intentions of his teaching are so entirely bereft of having any point.

Pick up Buddhist literature and read them. Do the legwork. Read well and thoroughly. Don't make statements on half-baked knowledge. Come back here and enlighten us. The problem with most people, really. Just read a few lines here and there and write what the author meant.
 
#44 ·
Then the problem is the primary source which is often in a language that the student does not read. So now the problem is to determine which translation is closest to the primary.

An interesting aside, for the Koran to be approved, it must be published with the original Arabic printed parallel to the translation, that way anyone who has studied the language can verify the accuracy of the translation. That would seem to be a good idea for other religious works.
 
#47 ·
Quoted from Wiki: "Through his studies of Indian philosophy and Zen Buddhism in the late 1940s, Cage came to the idea of aleatoric or chance-controlled music, which he started composing in 1951. Cage accepted the goal of music as explained to
him by Sarabhai: "to sober and quiet the mind, thus rendering it susceptible to divine influences".

Perhaps help to explain works like 4'33" and other avant-garde pieces of his.
 
#49 ·
Perhaps help to explain works like 4'33" and other avant-garde pieces of his.
4'33" was a worthless piece of crap, foisted on the listening public as art, which it was not. It had nothing to do with Buddhism, but was pure nihilism at it's worst. If that was an expression of Cage's understanding of Zen, then he has no understanding at all. At best he is a greedy Charlatan.
 
#50 ·
Years ago I was in a conversation with a Buddhist priest and he stated that water in a stream would change it's nature to flow around a rock, but I pointed out to him that water, by it's very nature, would flow around the rock without changing. He thought about it for a second and agreed. We need to become like the water, that doesn't need to change anything, to cope with whatever we encounter.
 
#53 ·
I read some time ago that 'Everyone is enlightened, but just don't know it yet'. So I figured that if I was already enlightened and just didn't know it I'll skip all the hard work and enjoy myself, and quite honestly I don't think I could have much more fun than I am having with my grandchildren.
 
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