>>I
saw you post about how many Zen folks sit in a very cursory level of
Shamatha and call it a day. I thought it was hilarious. There are
ALOT of unqualified Zen teachers out there for sure.
--I
trained in rinzai zen where there is great emphasis on
shamatha/samadhi. Then when a rinzai student has a meeting with
roshi, the roshi shouts or hits the student with a stick and bang, it
breaks the samadhi... to make the natural state appear, and this
makes the student have kensho, proper recognition of the natural
state. In dzogchen, they figured out that you don't need to develop
samadhi by countless hours of concentration practice. You can just
shout syllables yourself and have the same benefit. This means that by shouting or what we call Dynamic Concentration in Pemako Sangha, anyone can have instant release of the samsaric body and instant access to their buddhanature. This is why I do not teach shamatha at all because why would you want to put your time in something that is not it?
But
yeah most zen groups I've seen over the past 20 years, just cultivate
shamatha and a lot of them confuse that for the natural state or as
they say shikantaza, or how I like to call it buddha nature sitting.
They waste their time for years and years, even decades and think
that that's it. Sometimes they might get lucky and have a glimpse or
even a shift but then it doesn't ring their bells to make them
question their views and methods. They think that that's how it is
supposed to be, that you sit for ten thousand hours, have a moment of
kensho, then you sit another ten thousand and have a kensho and so
on... It is incredible waste of time. Again, this is something
that dzogchen masters such as Longchenpa have made clear for
centuries, that one should not confuse shamatha or samadhi with rigpa
or the natural state. According to masters, this actually
creates a karma that is very detrimental to real dharma practice. I actually have story about this but will save it for later.
This is not what dharma professionals do.
Yes,
there are many zen teachers with papers in order, all right.
Unfortunately, most suffer of these basic problems and since they
have so much faith for their tradition, I don't see it will change
any time soon. The greatest masters like Hakuin or Linchi make it perfectly clear that kensho is the way and that there is no other way. Ugi sent me a message yesterday and said, "Not of lineage holders, not of Lamas, not of Tibetans, but of liberated beings." I think that there are very few people who really wish to know themselves fully, wish to become buddhas, because so many practitioners are so attached to the external paraphernalia of traditions. It is an awful trap to be in... Anyway, having said that, this problem of subtle ignorance is very very common at all places.
-Kim Katami
Pemako Buddhism,
Pemako Buddhism,
