Is Lay Zen Practice Deep Enough?

[@akrmnshops]

Easy to be a Saint on the mountain and difficult at the market. Jack Kornfield spent lots of years in monasteries, yet when he returned to lay people he found out that he wasn’t as tranquil and “developed” as he thought.

[@TheJedynak]

Chan master Sheng Yen would say: "if you want for 100% to become a monk, do it. If you want it for 99%, don't".

[@AkbarKarimi-y5x]

Honestly, I always thought living everyday life and going through all the shit that comes with it is much much harder than taking refuge in a monastery.

[@JimTempleman]

Vimalakirti was a lay Buddhist meditator who attained a very high degree of enlightenment considered by some second only to the Buddha's. The Vimalakirti Sutra is a great read!

[@jonwesick2844]

When you were living in a monastery in Japan, did Ultraman have to wear robes or did he wear his superhero suit?

[@HardcoreZen]

He wore robes while in the monastery.

[@yoga.theawarenessinstitute482]

Thank you so much Brad. Over many years of lay Zen practice and study I have wrestled with this idea of -never enough unless I wear the robe.

[@hammersaw3135]

Any practice is better than no practice.

[@EvanBerry.]

I remember mentioning a few years ago in the comments that I had difficulty reading Eat Sleep Sit because there were passages about how senior monks would physically abuse the younger/"lower" monks, though I think at the time you hadn't read the book yourself. I still very much appreciated your thoughtful answer!

[@danshaffer5916]

I did buy a copy of The Other Side of Nothing. I’ve been learning a lot from your books and I’m happy you wrote this one. I’m happy for all of your books. I am particularly interested in what you have to say about ethics. I’ll need to read it three times to absorb it all. Hah! If even that will be enough.

[@EvanBerry.]

I agree completely -- I loved the book, especially because I enjoy reading about ethics in this context, as well!

[@Itzkitchka]

Dearest Brad, your videos have become Joy and Delight of our days. We also LOVE your movie star precious puppy dog. And every time I see him in his plush and perfectly clean doggy bed, I am thinking, he needs an oval bed! Is it just because I am used to seeing my dog in his oval bed, or do you think Ziggy could stretch better in one too? Hope I got his name right. WE LOVE YOU!!!!!

[@HardcoreZen]

My wife recently cleaned his bed. She'll be glad to hear you described it as "perfectly clean" because she was depressed that she couldn't get it as clean as she wanted. He's got THREE doggy beds! One was given to us when we got him and it's too small. The other stays upstairs for when he goes up there. And the one you see in the videos is is downstairs bed. What a spoiled doggy! But I'll look into getting him an oval one.

[@dharmalearner7396]

Just ordered your book. Hopefully in this lifetime i get a chance to meet you but I am in the east coast so if not I hope karmic connections will take over in future lives.Stay well now so we test it much later.

[@Gaztronaut]

Imogen all the people, living for todaaay...

[@MisterMeow-vt8kl]

In the Pali Cannon the Buddha is asked if a lay person can become enlightened, and yes, they can.

[@blackbird5634]

IF you can't find ''it'' without the robes, the shaved head, the monastic life inside a temple, it ain't worth having.

[@samthesham4684]

Layman Pang has entered the chat...

[@peteuplink]

This is a repost of my reply to Shozan Jack Haubner's video on the same subject, with a bit more added to the end: Most people probably have a different view, which is fine (I'm no expert in these things), but I've always worked on the basis that you can meditate anywhere, anytime. Any act, be it walking, sitting, eating, taking a dump, whatever, can be a meditation, and the attainment of enlightenment comes from how much awareness you have of whatever act it is you're doing in your everyday life, and not whether or not you're living in a monastery. Your mind is your mind, and it's the same mind whether you're sitting cross-legged on a cushion in your bedroom or sitting cross-legged staring at a wall in a monastery. You have the same five skandhas in a monstery as you do outside of one, so I think you have the same potential to be enlightened as a lay practitioner as you do as a monastic... but, like I said, I'm no expert. 19:27 That one's easy, the answer is 42. 😆

[@michigandersea3485]

That's more or less what the great Thai Forest teacher Ajahn Chah said.

[@douglaslevettelson4417]

"That's what she said..." 😂

[@brandonthetruth1]

I'm interested in buying the book, but I think you need more sun, or not. Who am I anyway?

[@revdrjon]

"Something fell..." ;})>

[@TheJedynak]

Karen Armstrong in her book "Buddha" describes how monastic life looked in Gautama's times.

[@HardcoreZen]

I think I have a copy of that book somewhere. It's been a long time since I read it.

[@crafty50golf]

Brad help me out please - what is the full version of “since the beginning of your race, since…” as a way of calling on a question. I’ve heard it in past videos, you said it to me at a retreat, and I’ve been trying to find it on/off for a little bit. I think it was a way that Gudo Nishijima called questions and a tradition (or maybe just a thing) you were carrying along? Thanks for taking the time if you get a chance.

[@HardcoreZen]

It's a line from the Star Trek episode City on the Edge of Forever.

[@HardcoreZen]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/b2WZZJt4jN5jn8ksi=agkbxwowinj3Qgib

[@HardcoreZen]

My answer is simply as your level of understanding makes possible.

[@saralawlor780]

Maybe the questioner could go for three months to live in a monastery such as Throssel in the U.K. and get a sense of whether the monastic life is for them. They could then become a postulant if it felt right but could leave after a year or two if it wasn’t right for them. I can highly recommend your book The other side of nothing. It really is excellent.

[@zerusgaming4019]

I have always been interested in monastic practice and plan on one day becoming a monk. But to say that it is necessary is the product of delusion. There are no absolutes and the means for which we attain enlightenment is just that means there is no inherent substance to it. As Zen master bankei says we're not here to sit we're here to be awakened and sitting is just a tool that we use to get there. You can realize the way as a layity just as you could as a monk because there is no inherent difference. Everyone has the Buddha mind and they are inherently the Buddha and if they only get out of the way they can see it. The monastic life is just more conducive to it. It makes it easier to obtain Awakening. But it is not necessary. It doesn't give you the Buddha mind

[@fhoniemcphonsen8987]

Wherever you go, there you are. B. Banzi Dude that's quite a hard sell ya got there🙃😊 Neat observation re christian monastics.

[@dennisdolan7250]

Don’t think Buddhist monasticism ever touched the Desert Fathers. Most scholars believe the influence on that movement came from Jewish and Greek movements in Egypt

[@mattrkelly]

I think if you really want to know zen you have to do a few longer ango retreats... but then again some people do lots of those and dream their life away 😅

[@shenpenlhamo22]

Hi Brad..so are you a monk? or not? I don't believe I understand this term "monk" as it is used in Zen. Can you please clarify? Is it lay monasticism? or some other something else. if that makes sense. lol and thank you 🙏

[@HardcoreZen]

My teacher told me I am a monk. But I am not a monk in other people's opinion.

[@AnneX77_]

Descendants rule!

[@dr.jeffreyzacko-smith324]

Interesting topic as usual, but odd question to ask you … if you had answered in the affirmative, and given that this questioner seems to respect you, it would mean you spent 35+ years doing nothing worthwhile (from a Zen perspective). 😅

[@HardcoreZen]

True!

[@s3sellsword]

no effort is wasted. if one is only practicing zen at 46.76% instead of the 96.7% that a monk does, it doesn't matter.

[@skrrskrr99]

If you want to be a monk go try for a year. You don’t have to commit for life. There are many stories of lay people achieving enlightenment and there’s nothing wrong with being a layperson. If you take the teaching seriously and stay diligent you’ll be fine. In the end you kind of need to let go of the pursuit of craving even enlightenment to achieve it no?

[@MisterMeow-vt8kl]

Clearly The Vimalakirti Sutra is not appreciated here, lol 😆

[@smoothrenunciation]

I believe the missing years of Jesus were due to him studying Buddhism. Where, I cannot say.

[@jamesfellows5081]

I think it's a bit more Complex, that Isreal at the time was a Trade Hub and by Extension a Melting Pot in a spot that Intersected the Silk Road and Sea Trade Routes. So, it was more ov a Cultural Dynamic similar to the US with all these People Mixing it up from Gaul Through Rome, to Isreal, over to India and off as far as the Chinese Empire. Like, if you read some ov the Various Text from the Region and how diverse the Ideas were. I can see how Buddhism might Heavily Influence Jesus without Jesus becoming a Buddhist as a Label.

[@jheffer8200]

Don't quote me but I believe there are alleged records from an old Tibetan monastery that said he spent 10 plus years there? I believe it may have been this individual who was discussing it.....kzbin.info/www/bejne/iaHZnHeFZZuWm5Isi=Rry5-o6xTfaPRc7m

[@kriseikenbery112]

China, Kashmir, and India are places that Jesus is said to have practiced. That is what I have read and seen on various documentaries.🙏😎

[@AnthonyMakesVideos]

Mormons say he came to the Americas and proselytized native americans!

[@HardcoreZen]

There was a book that came out in the 1940s (I think) by a Russian author in which he claimed to have seen documents in a certain Buddhist monastery about a fellow named Yesu (or something like that) who came from the Middle East to study Buddhism in India sometime around the time of Christ and then returned to his native country. Unfortunately, later researchers who went to the monastery named in the book have been unable to find the documents the author mentioned, nor did they find anyone there who had even heard of such documents. Still, it is true that there were Buddhist monks in Palestine at the time Christ lived. It's not impossible that Jesus learned from them or accompanied them to India. It seems more likely to me that Jesus might have encountered Buddhist ideas than that he traveled to India. It's also possible that Buddhist ideas were incorporated into the stories about Jesus at a later time (but before the Gospels were canonized).