http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Its-History-and-Teachings/dp/0681153172

(1) Interesting from a historical perspective but doesn't it weaken much of the rest of his entire works when at the start of this book he claims, much as do the Scientologists, that vegetation thinks and feels: "Plants are telepathic" says he

(2) Osho among others claims that Zen is neither a religion nor a philosophy. What is it

(3) Is it possible they're just trying to put it over on us, that Zen is pure nonsense. As with Scientology (and arguably, almost all religion) the individual might gain a feeling of detachment if not fulfilment and happiness purely through a process of autosuggestion

In the latter connection one might also read The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James

when trees are being attached by gypsy moths, they start to release a pheramone type substance (via leaves and roots.)

other nearby trees (of the same species) respond by making their leaves more toxic (in the case of Oaks, they produce more tannins)
this makes the near by trees less attractive as food to the moths catapillars.

is this telapathic?

why would trees communicate at all, (and why would other trees respond to the communications?

we tend to think plants just sit there, defensiveless... but..

as to xen or scientology, or for that matter, any other religious beleivies or tenets.. that subject is not up for discussion on this board.

(OH, i know, you forgot.. again!)

well the trees communicate danger.

(1) Of course plants are telepathic. Did you not understand the Buddha's conversation with the flower? Let me tell you about my conversation yesterday with a snake.

The snake, a young copperhead, had somehow slithered inside my house. After a chase I cornered him behind a big chair and pinned him down with a broom handle. He was beautiful. I didn't want to kill him but I didn't want him to bite me or anyone else, and, as a matter of circumspection, I didn't want to beat him to death with the broom handle because the pounding might make deep indentures into the hardwood floor. So I just stood on the handle that pinned his head to the floor and watched him writhe and writhe for several minutes and during this time we had an honest man-to-snake, snake-to-man converstion about the nature of life and what we creatures are to each other and where we are going.

Then I grabbed a nearby metal floorlamp and with it's base I sawed his head off. And I've thought many thoughts about that snake today.


(2) Listen, Osho is telling you volumes about the nature of language.


(3) Hmm, dalehillman, it seems that you've missed Sosan's main point. Listen: (from pages 56-57)

If you wish to see the truth, then hold no opinions for or against. Move naked, with no clothes, with no opinions about truth, because truth abhors all opinions. Drop all your philosophies, theories, doctrines, scriptures! Drop all rubbish! Become silent, unchoosing. Your eyes ready to see what is, not in any way hoping to see your wishes fullfilled.

And then...

But if you drop these things then it will become a choice. -- this is a paradox. You are not supposed to drop it , because if you drop it that means you have chosen for or against and you are not supposed to make a choice.

And if you simply understand, then the very act of understanding becomes a dropping. Never drop it. Simply laugh...and ask for a cup of tea.

Understand?

<-- holding out her cup... wearing nothing but a smile.

(Hoping to drink up and retain all the wisdom of those here)

Now Dixie Rose, you march yourself and that cup right back in that house and put on some clothes. Don't you know there's a passel of menfolk lurking about out there? And ain't I done tole you about menfolk? They'll put a koan in your cup and call it wisdon and expect you to do tricks in return.

And go feed the chickens!

A koan is not wisdom; it is a light shone upon the ignorance that is disguised as wisdom.

Helen: Thank you for that, indeed applicable and pertinent

But it's hard sometimes to suppress related questions, in a forum where participants often post connected issues somewhat beyond the word's exact meaning

The busy participant is thus invited to read only (2), skipping (1) and (3). Admin: If I have once again violated Protocol (forgive an old coot on the threshold of Alzheimer's), feel free to delete the entire thread

them: Very enlightening indeed and thank you for that prodigious effort. Could it all be summed up by asserting that one of the benefits of Zen is that it permits you to entertain two conflicting ideas at the same time without rejecting either one

you are a participant

why don't you self edit and delete before posting?
that way only one person has to read only Q 2?

or edit and paraphrase so at to remove specific 'religions' i.e. some, hold that plants think or are telepathic.
(any one interested in comparative religious studies, or in any specific religous beliefs could read the book for themselves)

some, hold that plants think or are telepathic. is a religiously neutral statement, and still ask the question.
what is served by stating which religions?
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so what is it are you old and almost senile (and should be totally ignored by everyone because of that? [/b]

or
are you self serving and manipulative (and should be ignored for your bad manners?)

or
are you a willing, active participant, able to understand and abide by simple protocal who should be ignored be cause you refuse to?

> my other obsession

harassing dale instead of just ignoring him....

Helen: My No. 2 Son suggests that you may have a many as 15 cats. We have two, their names Bob (because he has a bob tail and because he looks like a bobcat) and Butters, becuse that's the nickname of our No. 1 Son Lee

what does owning (if a person can own?) a cat have to do with anything?

I'm not quite sure, as No. 2 Son and I were in our cups when we posted it

them: I understand but I can't quite agree. Osho writes:"...a scientist...sitting with a plant with electrodes fixed. He thought, 'If I cut this plant....Suddenly, the needle...jumped. The plant became afraid of death...recording that the plant was trembling...just a thought and the plant received it....

...think of cutting one plant, all the other plants...become emotionally disturbed...plants...are more sensitive than the human mind"

Thus one gathers that this fellow has revealed himself, like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as terribly ignorant or immensely credulous and though in other respects it's a beautiful book, he has cast some qualms about Zen

Interestingly enough, even though Zen isn't trumpeted as a religion, if you question or criticize it in the present extreme Politically-Correct social environment you'll be called sacreligious

However, as I suggested, I think they're laughing at us, as well they might, since we imagine their approach to be far more complex than it is

Then I grabbed a nearby metal floorlamp and with it's base I sawed his head off.

Savage! Cruel! I do not think I like you at all.

Who, me?

no, the quote is milo's, dale.

How poisonous is a young copperhead? What would you have done?
You can't just sit and meditate it away.
I ate salad and a tomatoe (!)(slowly as recommended by the biodynamicals)
What's more cruel, to eat the salad and the tomatoe or to kill
(in the quickest way) a snake that might bite someone?

eta, as you gather, I'm not very literate. Actually, I have 11 books going, but I read only during the tv commercials. Hence very slowly

However I'm still vitally interested in comments from anyone else who might have an insight into Zen. Evidently it's kind of obscure, as a similar thread in another site of this sort yielded only 2 responses

Forgive me for bubbling this one back up, I won't make it a habit; but I have been wondering whether anyone with an afterthought might have further comment

Also, meantime I have encountered in Osho several more puzzling if not egregious instances. For example, on page 58 he makes reference to a Zen allegory with an illustration where a bewildered fellow "...sees the back of the ox standing in the thick forest," though the plate itself shows him observing it head-on, and not in a thick forest but across the banks of a stream

I feel bewildered too

Ah, young wow, if you do not like me you do not like life.

Take time and think.

Damnation, dalehileman, you see heads when you should be seeing butts.
The old Zen story is allegorical not literal. You should be looking for the meaning of the allegory rather than looking for a forest through the trees.

But I see that Osho doesn't know the meaning of the allegory either so I'll give you this...

The two thousand year old panels are teaching aids about life.

Each of the ten paintings represents a phase of graduated understanding between the reflective man and life.

First, with wisdom, when the driving dynamics of youth lose their vigor, we then lose ourselves and our programed reason for our being.

Then many of us set out to find our ox (our selves) by looking within, and without, in all the wrong places.

After a time we began to understand that only by looking at the world in a different way can we find our oxselves. But in time, some do.

Hurrah! Now we can tie down the ox of our biological nature and for the first time in our lives we are in control of ourselves. We are very happy, so naturally we go out and get drunk.

Now we reach the ninth panel, the blank panel, the uninscribed panel, that by it's blankness instructs us that reunion with the nothingness of being is bliss ( but not really bliss because bliss is something and nothingness is nothingness and not bliss.)

And finally the tenth panel. The drunken panel, the panel that instructs us to live happily on Earth amongst our own kind until we die and reach nirvana.

O' happy day.

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>>Then many of us, set out to find our ox, (our selves) by looking within, and without, in all the wrong places.<<

Gods! Zens! Oshes! this sounds somehow familiar to me.Oh, happy day!

Me too