The Zen Teachings of Huang Po

Shared Left Border

Help Yourself
And Others

Notices

What's New on
AYP Plus?

AYP Retreats
Worldwide Listing

AYP Teacher Training

Local Contacts
Meditation Groups,
Training & Retreats

Key Lessons

Spinal Breathing
Pranayama

Spinal Bastrika
Pranayama

Heart Breathing

Yoga Nidra
Cosmic Samyama

Self-Inquiry
Jnana - Advaita

Modifications to
Baseline System

Teaching

Retreats

Enlightenment
Milestones

More Resources

audioicon1.jpg (812 bytes)
AYP on Radio & TV

International
Translations

Press Releases

Articles & Media

Promotional
Materials

AYP Public Forum

Username:	Password:
Save Password
Forgot your Password?

All Forums

AYPsite.org Forum

Books, Web Sites, Audio, Video, etc.

The Zen Teachings of Huang Po

New Topic

Reply to Topic

Printer Friendly

Author

Topic

SeySorciere

Seychelles
1467 Posts

Posted - Nov 10 2021 : 11:04:23 AM

Anyone read The Zen Teachings of Huang Po on Transmission of Mind?

It is a fascinating book but so harsh an approach to Enlightenment that it is very hard to understand - it is good at making you throw away everything you think you know. But leaves you in the confused state of "then what do I know?"

Sey

k.cherry

USA
86 Posts

Posted - Nov 29 2021 : 11:33:14 PM

Hey Sey,

I was curious so decided to pick this up. After finishing I'm still not quite sure what to think...it's definitely some tough material to digest! The parallels to Taoism stood out to me, and I was pleased that the translator mentioned this as well. However, I had the same trouble with this text as I do with Buddhist texts in general, which is that, despite their goal of loosening one's intellectual grip of reality, it's ironically heady and dry in its approach. The intellect kills the intellect, like the sword kills the sword. Fine...but like you mention, what do I know now?

I also can't help but recall this joke by the late comedian Mitch Hedberg: "I saw a commercial on late night TV, it said, 'Forget everything you know about slipcovers.' So I did. And it was a load off my mind. Then the commercial tried to sell me slipcovers, and I didn't know what the hell they were."