TimothyConway

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TheRingess (talk) 17:50, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Pure rules of Baizhang

Hi. You made an interesting contribution to the Hongzhou school-article, but I'm curious what the exact source is for "but scholars Ishii Shudo, T. Griffith Foulk and Mario Poceski find no good evidence that this text ever existed." I wasn't able to find it with Google, though I guess it's in "Zen Classics: Formative Texts In The History Of Zen Buddhism". Could you please provide the source? Greetings, Joshua Jonathan (talk) 20:30, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Hi 184.187.164.60. Thanks for adding the sources. They were missing }} at the end; that's why the Wiki-make-up appeared. The next step is to add a reference. See Help:Shortened footnotes. Basically, you add a template behind the text that contains info on the publication, for example: {{sfn|Pocescki|2007|p=15}}. Greetings, Joshua Jonathan (talk) 06:42, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Joshua, thank you for your kind outreach here. I'm such a novice in adding to Wikipedia entries. My main source for that comment about "no such text" for Baizhang's "Pure Rules" is Mario Poceski in several of his writings--including a book review of Rev. Yifa's book of several years ago, his own book on the Hongzhou school, and this fascinating article by Poceski, “Xuefeng’s Code and the Chan School’s Participation in the Development of Monastic Regulations,” Asia Major, Third Series 16/2, 2003, pp. 33–56. This might be the best resource to link to the Wiki page, since it is clickable and anyone will be easily able to read Poceski's views at some length and there are ample references for further reading. The Foulk essays on this topic are older and less easily accessed.I'm hugely busy these days--working 90 hours / week. Any chance you could do all the formatting (because i'll likely mess things up)? I really appreciate that if you can. Thanks for all your work on the Wiki Chan/Zen-related pages. TimothyConway (talk) 22:55, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Hi Timothy. I've already added a reference + source; it was in "Poceski, Mario (2010), Monastic Innovator, Iconoclast, and Teacher of Doctrine: The Varied Images of chan Master Baizhang. In: steven Heine and Dale S. Wright (eds.), "Zen Masters", Oxford University Press", p.19, footnote 42 (if I remember correctly the number of the footnote).

User account

You're the same Timothy Conway as in [1] and [2]? Interesting. You might consider putting those links at your user page, so interested Wikipedians get an impression of who you are.

I've put a redirect at User talk:184.187.164.60, so when an editor goes there, he/she is redirected to this page. I've also put a short message at User:184.187.164.60, to notify editors that this account is your user-account. See WP:MULTIPLE for the reason why.

Your description of your awakening "experience" is interesting. My interest in these topics arose when I was 18, and realized that this "I" does not exist. At first this was marvellous, and funny, but then it became totally frightening: nothing to hold on to. Ever since then I've been trying to understand this, studying and practicing Zen, but also psychology of religion, and a lot of research on religion. Now, 25 years later, there is some sort of "answer", but also a disappointment in the "truths" of religions - after all, each tradition seems to contain narrative and constructed reality. I'm also planning to do a PhD-research, on "spontaneous awakening" and how people frame these "experiences".

Greetings, Joshua Jonathan (talk) 07:57, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks again for all your acts of kindness here, Joshua. One day i may put up those links at the Conway user page. Thank you for sharing about that revelation when you were 18-- realizing that "this 'I' does not exist." FWIW, it might help to further realize that this great Supra-personal Reality (not merely "impersonal") giving rise to quarks, galaxies, planets, mountains, streams, heaven-states, hell-states, etc., is also giving rise to all kinds of "persons," i.e., personal consciousnesses or "viewpoints"--human, animal, and subtle-plane beings. The Buddha's exquisite teachings about the 5 khandhas/skandhas makes it clear that EXPERIENTIALLY a self-sense certainly exists as a moment-by-moment set of functions and appearances, so, pragmatically and conventionally a "me, I, self" can be said to "exist" (literally "standing out" as a set of phenomena), though ABSOLUTELY SPEAKING there is no solid, fixed, eternal, "self-existing" entity here. This is why the Buddha and Nagarjuna, Sankara et al. distinguish an Absolute Truth-level (paramarthika satya) and a conventional truth-level (samvriti-satya or vyavaharika-satya level), and why the Buddha articulates a very fine line, a "Middle Way" between the "eternalist heresy" and the "nihilist heresy" concerning the existence or non-existence of the self. The Buddha makes it clear that anyone who posits an eternally existing separate self is falling into the former heresy, while anyone who denies the experiential reality of a self and the law of karma and rebirth is a heretic falling into the uccheda ditthi view. Therefore, the anatta/anatman doctrine is a "not self" disidentification method, it is not a nihilistic "no-self" ontology. This is the basis for all those paradoxical combinations of via negativa teachings mixed with affirmative teachings in Buddhism about "saving all sentient beings" and "there are no sentient beings." It's the wondeerful dance of utterly deconstructive wisdom and all-embracing compassion. As my Indian advaita mentor Sri Nisargadatta said, "Wisdom says i am nobody; Love says i am everybody. My life is a balance of the two perspectives."

Joshua, i hope you get that PhD dissertation done. You might be interested in the one i wrote for CIIS in San Francisco in the 1980s on the convergences and divergences in the sacred traditions on the topic of spiritual realization/awakening. And if you ever want to chat more, feel free to email me at t.conway1@cox.net . TimothyConway (talk) 17:13, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Ramana Maharshi

Hi Timothy. You may be interested in this master thesis: Ramana Maharshi and the colonial encounter. The author argues that Ramana Maharshi was a Tamil Shaivite Bhakta, who became elevated to the status of a timeless spiritual hero due to the "vedantication" of Indian culture during the struggle for independence. it's a very good thesis, which radically alters the image of Ramana Maharshi. Greetings, Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 04:25, 14 April 2013 (UTC)