Zen and the Inner Flame: Kindling through Friction | Dogen | Primordial Man

➡ The text discusses the concept of enlightenment and the teachings of Zen masters, suggesting that everyone has the potential to be enlightened but may not realize it. It explores the idea of free will versus predetermination, using the metaphor of a pool game to argue that we have control over our reality. The text also criticizes modern society’s disconnection from nature and sacred geometry, contrasting it with ancient societies that lived in harmony with their environment. Finally, it encourages the reader to question their own beliefs and consider different perspectives.
➡ The text discusses the practice of zazen, a form of meditation that helps train consciousness and achieve states of ecstasy. It criticizes modern, monetized forms of meditation that deviate from the original intent of zazen. The author suggests that meditation should be a personal journey of self-discovery, not influenced by external stimuli or guided by specific rules. The goal is to understand one’s thought patterns and reactions, leading to a clearer outlook and better self-awareness.
➡ This text talks about the power of self-awareness and discipline in shaping our lives. It uses the metaphor of taming an ox to explain how meditation and self-reflection can help us control our actions and use our strengths to our advantage. It also emphasizes the importance of an open mind, free from rigid beliefs, to allow new insights. Lastly, it suggests that by enduring hardships and making sacrifices, we can ignite an inner flame that wards off negativity and allows us to choose our own path.

Bit too brutal. But it kind of makes me wonder if this might have led to the mythology of the fire breathing dragon. Considering that fire kept us safe from the beasts that ate us, the one fear that would be left is those very same monstrous creatures also harnessing this incredible power. Today, I’d like to talk some about Dogen. To be clear, I am in no way, shape or form enlightened in. In any way. But I am curious, and this so happens to be one of my favorite subjects to read about. And being that reading is very calming as well as the practice of Zen, I would recommend to anybody with anxiety to combine these two activities.

So, although the Zen masters did very little writing themselves, we are lucky to have preserved the records of those who spoke with these realized beings. And when I say realized beings, that is exactly what I mean, down to the word. It’s my understanding that if you were to call one of these great Zen masters enlightened, or as they termed it back then, a Buddha, which is more of a title than a name, not to be confused with Siddhartha, who often is coined as the original Buddha, they might respond by saying that you are a Buddha as well, basically meaning that you also are enlightened, but just haven’t realized it yet.

In a way, just by being conscious and able to ponder your own being, you are in fact enlightened. But we do a really good job of ignoring that these realized beings simply realized that they are, and that you are too. Despite being a little distracted right now, quite a few Zen masters are just born this way. However, it is inspiring to know that even the original Buddha, as we mentioned, being Siddhartha, was not at all born enlightened. He had to realize the bitter truths of death, sickness and famine before he sat under that tree and realized his own Buddhahood.

Now, before you comment a correction on that. Yes, I. I am aware that legend has it that when Siddhartha was born, he could instantly speak and walk and declared himself to be the Enlightened One. But that seems to me a bit of an archetypal legend that applies to all Buddhas as opposed to the one individual man. In the mythology of the individual man, Siddhartha, there was a great deal of suffering involved before so called Enlightenment took place. And once becoming this painless being, he vowed to reincarnate on earth as many times as necessary to alleviate the suffering of all creatures of Earth.

This obviously hasn’t happened yet, and in a way, this really goes against my hypothesis in the prior video about us coming to Earth to learn of suffering as a form of a school. Despite this contradiction with my own hypothesis, I still like the idea and I would like to explore it. I could be flat wrong about my own ideas, which is honestly derived from not gnostic teachings of the west or this legendary vow to relieve the suffering of all earth creatures might just be an example to live by. If we all consider ourselves the reincarnation of Siddhartha, well, in that way it would greatly alleviate the suffering of earth.

And. And perhaps that’s the idea. Perhaps that’s the point. Perhaps it is a school until we all learn enough to get our shit together in order to alleviate the suffering of each other’s despite our own. Perhaps the individual as a school takes place until the entire planet is ready to ascend as one creature. If we are all born of the earth, that is to say our physical bodies, it doesn’t seem that strange to think that we cannot transcend the boundaries of suffering without everyone being on board. Just like a healthy body can be athletic. But if there’s only one little bit of cancer, cancer within, the whole body dies with the cancer.

The cancer is ignorant to the fact that it is killing itself by the very same means that it is a parasite to the body. It just consumes and consumes until the body dies, and thus the cancer dies with it. And that is, if you ask me, truly an archetype for ignorance. The entire idea of transcendence from suffering begs the age old question of free will. That is, do we truly have free will? Or is everything already predetermined? But here’s the thing. This is another example of human duality thinking having to choose one thing or another and not at all realizing that it can be both.

And before we go and call that a paradox, let’s think about the common used example for proof of predetermination. Those who claim that everything is predetermined use the example of the pool table as a metaphor of the big bang. Once that first cue ball is struck and the balls scatter in their own individual directions, it is predetermined where they land depending on how that first ball was struck. And this is true. I cannot deny that they feel as if free will would be the equivalent of, say, the eight ball waking up and then making a drastic right angle turn like the Kennedy bullet on its own accord.

Due to the hermetic principle of cause and effect, this can never happen and will never happen, thus hinting at predeterminism and not free will. But we seem to forget that we are not the pool balls. In this metaphor, we are the ones holding the cue. We are the ones holding the stick. And depending on how we strike, that first white ball determines the results of our reality. Once we realize that we are the ones holding the stick, we slowly begin to understand that we have free will. We have free will over this pool table. Once we begin to realize that we are the ones holding the stick, we slowly begin to understand that we have free will over this pool table, or reality, if you will, and you will.

One might argue that striking the first cue ball representing the Big Bang means that we have nothing to do with the results. But that logic only holds up if time exists. And we are all aware of the fact of time being an illusion. We have forgotten that we are the Big Bang, that we caused the Big Bang, and therefore can cause those cue balls to roll in any direction that we so please. We project and control reality. Now it’s just time to realize it. And realizing that gets us back to that primordial first cause. Holding the cue stick and going back to that source, in a way, is a form of shedding all of the preconceived notions that we have accumulated and returning to the source of which is consciousness within timeless space.

This is immortality, and I’m not using a metaphor here. It’s time that we accept that, but we refuse to accept it because we see ourselves as separate from the rest of the cue balls, thus separate from nature. When we look at artwork inspired by Zen, we see that there’s no focal point or character within the images as personified by a separate being. In fact, when there are people in this artwork, they seem to blend in with the rest of the background image, as if there is no distinction between them and the rest of the world. I don’t know if this is on accident or illustrated as a point to be made, but it sure does make me ponder the oceans of separateness that we have built like a wall between us and the rest of reality.

As reality, that is to say, nature curves and wiggles and fractals out into spiraling geometrical beauty. We are busy cubes and right angle corners to shove into with all of our stuff. Getting into an airplane and flying overhead seems to make this almost disturbingly clear. You might just go ahead and look out your window right now and see that humans have altogether denied their source being Gaia. Yes, we are the blooming flowers of this magnificent plant. But we have to ask ourselves, what happens when we cut the flower away from its source? It dies. It might take a Little bit of time, but the flower dies.

As above, so below. If we look at the Fibonacci sequence, that is obvious in things as big as galaxies, all the way down to plants, microscopic beings and, well, us. It is truly a perplexity as to how we have pervaded in ignoring that with our cubes that are based on practically no sacred geometry whatsoever. However, this wasn’t always the case. The Parthenon, which is an ancient Greek temple, is based off of Fibonacci sequence. The great artists like da Vinci painted according to this very same mathematical fingerprint, so to speak. Our modern homes, despite being creative on occasion, are a long flight from our ancient ancestors who built their homes within the rock walls of cliffs and harness the power of nature to create their shelter.

Take for example, the teepees of the Native Americans. But that’s, that’s just thing is, if we have a bunch of stuff to protect, a TP doesn’t work, does it? So in order to keep your slimy hands off of my stuff, I have to build a cube in order to keep from sharing with you. And you can hide your in your cube. So I have my stuff and you have your. You ever notice that your is stuff and other people’s stuff is. That’s weird. Like, hey Jeremy, go get your shit. This is my stuff. We seem to mince language like that and I’ll have to give Carlin that credit, by the way.

Everybody meet Cleo Catra. This is not Dr. Pickles. This is Dr. Pickles brother. He’s gonna step on something to hit a button and this all up, but so be it. She seemed to or he. It’s a cat, so I call it a she. It’s an accident. She didn’t mess up. Lao Tzu. Good going there. She’ll drink my coffee though. Zen master Dogen is often accredited with conjuring the activity of zazen. A million books and videos on how to go about zazen accurately. So we won’t go into it here, but it is important to remember the why of the purpose of zazen.

She fucked up. Lao Tzu. Lao is going to have to move up to the mountains again. You can sit up here with all the other Zen masters. The why of zazen, I suppose, can be kind of summed up as a way to train consciousness, a way of tuning it, so to speak. The states of ecstasy experienced by those avid in meditative practice is no accident. It almost seems as if we are designed to experience this departure from distracted thinking. In the west, we define wisdom as knowledge put into action, whereas in the east, wisdom seems to be the opposite.

Unlearning knowledge is the case in the east, but I suppose this would be akin to shedding programming. These states of ecstasy that come with meditation has been called a departure from one’s ordinary state of mind. But I feel as if it is more akin to discovering your original state of mind. Just like what we’ve learned in the prior videos about gnosis, this state of ecstasy cannot be realized from outside stimulation, but must be discovered in one’s own experience. This, of course, will lead people to have a notion of spirituality or mysticism automatically associated with the act of zazen.

But this could not be further from the truth unless you so choose. So I think we should imagine the practice of zazen as a vehicle that we drive like a car. The car has no predetermined destination, therefore has no purpose without the driver. The car can go anywhere that the driver takes it. It is up to the driver to decide and then function this vehicle toward the desired destination, whether that destination is to read clearly the message coded in our DNA, or to shed prior belief systems, or even to have a clear head before a science exam and whatnot.

The destination or results is not picked out for you by Zazen is simply a tool to be better acquainted with oneself in order to explore the desired results with a clearer outlook. I could go on for an entire video alone about how science backs up the results of Zazen. Instead, I would like to talk about some misconceptions about Zazen, as well as a couple cheat codes that can be used to induce these states of ecstasy. Naturally. One misconception right off the bat seems to be the desire for enlightenment, which we have already ascertained is already there within you.

That that was actually Dr. Pickles, don’t worry about it. Leave it. So instead, Zazen should be somewhat of a maturing process in order to purify the fight or flight response that comes with the ox. That is to say, our animal nature. Today’s age has monetized meditation and added its own own completely baseless notions and attachments to it. That’s ironic. For example, this big fuss about Transcendental Meditation or TM is blowing up and everything represented by Bob Roth on the subject of meditation completely goes against what Dogen originally set out to do. And this in many ways is just a money grab.

We are told to count our breaths or repeat a random yet somehow expensive mantra in our heads to to achieve this state of ecstasy. But this is not only missing the point, but defeats the purpose altogether. It should go without saying, but if any presentation of meditation requires a form of money, it’s bullshit. Counting breaths is great for breathing exercises. Repeating a mantra is perfect for spiritual practices. But somehow these get entwined into the practice of Zazen and meditation. Dogen did none of these things. When sitting in zaza and meditation, there is absolutely no way to it up.

You don’t have to keep yourself in check or stick to any particular guideline. That doubt will only pull you further away from the gnosis that Zazen has to offer. Nothing ritualistic or extra has ever been a core component of meditation. And let me clarify what I mean here. In meditation, if there is something to be done, if there is something to be achieved, it too is not Zen. Even the act of trying to clear your mind, as popularized by so many practitioners, is itself a chore and something that has to be tried for. And besides that, clearing your mind is completely futile.

Yes, eventually reaching a state of no thought will occur, but that in no way, shape or form is where a person should start. We should look at meditation like fasting in the way that fasting means to refrain from food. Meditation is a way to fast from external stimulation and distraction. We are constantly taking in information from the outside world 100% of our life. Even when asleep, our brain will present us with dreams that are also a form of stimulation, but from within. When sitting in meditation, feel free to let your thoughts run wild and don’t try to make any attempt to ignore them in some kind of of short sighted goal of clearing the mind.

This is just adding more thoughts onto the thoughts. The key here is to let whatever happens within happen without being influenced by any outside stimulus. We are literally fasting from the intake of information. This will eventually take us far beyond the capability of the five senses where reality is real and not an illusion. In the practice of meditation, there is a proper way to sit and technique techniques to remain still. These techniques are very helpful, not necessarily be concerned with during the act or non action that is of meditation. By all means put your feet on your knees and straighten your back and tilt your head and all that stuff.

But once in position, we need to forget about whether or not we are doing this correctly. Take this opportunity to explore and dig around during the the worlds within yourself. You would be amazed how well you can get to know yourself just by letting thoughts completely run rampant without any sort of inhibitions or suggestibility from the outside. The way that you conduct meditation is going to vary from anyone else as this is not a one size fits all activity. Here is what seems to work for me personally. After getting into the proper position as suggested by Dogen, I allow my thoughts to flow.

I have learned to trick myself up by asking the question, I wonder what my next thought will be. For whatever reason, this causes a delay in my next thought and there is a short space of no thought in which I can rest for a moment. But then, sure as F, a thought occurs to me and I look at it and I acknowledge it. And then I ask myself again, I wonder what my next thought will be. After a brief pause, certainly another thought occurs and I repeat this process. After observing a series of thoughts, I draw a line, so to speak, speak between them and start to recognize a pattern.

I’ll see that you know this thought led to that thought and that thought led to this thought, and so on. By connecting these dots, you slowly start to form a better understanding of how your thoughts flow and why, but most importantly, where those thoughts come from and the source of them. You can literally trace those thoughts through that pattern that will lead you to directly to the primary source of your own contemplative thinking patterns. This takes time and is never actually completed. But simply understanding where your thoughts are coming from and why and how they morph and evolve, you can better understand yourself and the way it dictates, the way you act and speak.

If you are honest with yourself enough to admit your failures and shortcomings and even the portions of your psyche that you are ashamed of that will arise during this observation or watching of thought patterns, so to speak, it will cause you to completely reevaluate your knee jerk reaction to the outside world around you. Meditation seems to make it clear that we do in fact have an immediate response system to outside stimuli. This is completely unnecessary though, except for in the case of survival, like not being eaten by a predator, this quick twitch response system is no longer necessary.

Considering that being eaten by predators is no longer an issue for our species teaches us gnostically how to insert a pause between a happening and your response to the happening. This pause is quite literally the biggest game changer to your entire life. Pause is what takes us from autopilot and moves us into self awareness. This self awareness and acceptance of our wholeness is what causes us to radiate certainty in our daily lives. I don’t need science to confirm to me what the ancient Zen masters have mastered. I mean this is kind of the same thing as what’s going on nowadays with the government acknowledging the existence of off world Vehicles and non human biologics.

I appreciate that they are are acknowledging these facts, but if you ask me, they are really behind on the subjects that we have already come to understand. So in a way, they are not confirming anything for us. When science tells us that meditation works and the government tells us that UFOs are real, my reaction is a simple yeah, we know. Welcome to the party face. You’re late. The archetype of the ox. It’s a powerful creature, but he does not have our best interest in mind. If the ox is not tamed, it will run wild and cast our character astray.

However, through meditation, self contemplation and zazen, that ox begins to calm down. Thus goes the parable of riding the ox home. Instead of getting rid of the ox or denying it, we can use the power that it has in the direction that properly meets our personal destinies. So instead of walking away from the ox and becoming free yet incomplete, it is best to be a shepherd to the ox. Therefore, in a metaphorical sense, riding the ox home, all of a sudden, we don’t have to put the effort into walking, as the ox will now use its powerful legs to our benefit.

The problem is not that this process is complex. In fact, it’s very simple. The problem is that it requires extreme discipline. It requires abstinence from everything that your ego finds to be desirable. This is also a form of fasting, to go without. Hence, fasting in many different forms is a way of emptying our cup, so to speak. Once the cup is empty, we are then able to receive fresh and new insight. When it comes to Zen, emptiness is a perfect metaphor. Having a strict belief system can only inhibit our behavior and thus cornering us to a specific destiny.

When the mind becomes empty and free of ideals and stark beliefs, we are free to roam without being tied to any preconceived inhibitions. The original Buddha we mentioned earlier called Siddhartha. He said, don’t believe anything that I say if it doesn’t line up with your own truth, or something like that. The, the translations vary, but he is basically admitting that the ideas that he is putting forward should not be confused with a specific belief system that is to be adhered to. This inner flame that we are born with can be used to burn off all of the extra baggage that we carry on our backs.

Just like the flame once upon a time would ward off any predatory creatures that crave blood, the flame within can also be utilized to ward off any kind of threat to our well being from outside. Predatory and Parasitical people and events. But this flame has to be kindled. The same as the primordial man. Having to utilize friction between sticks and stone to painstakingly create fire. We can very well utilize friction within ourselves to kindle that inner flame. However, instead of sticks and stones causing that friction, what we have at our disposal is discipline and sacrifice. Things that hurt now, but save our lives later.

It is a pain in the ass to create literal fire from nothing. So it should be no surprise that it will be an equal pain in the ass to kindle the inner flame that we are born with. The pain in the ass that I speak of is basically to abstain from the things that bring you pleasure day to day, and in cases, do the opposite of those activities, which is to do something hard and difficult. Paradoxically, though, the activity of zaza and meditation is one of the easiest things a person can do. Yet it is the quickest way to find out how to kindle that flame and cause it to become ablaze.

Once this fire is ablaze, it will be noticed by outside components parallel to predators and parasites in the form of those who wish to better themselves through our misfortune. Once this fire is on, it does not go unnoticed. Just like the big cats hoping to eat the primordial man, but don’t dare come near them due to the fire. Those who are selfish and ignorant, who wish to harm us in the world, will not dare to feed on your shortcomings once they catch the vibe of that flame within you, that flame that you radiate with, utilize the friction of shortcomings, failures with sacrifice.

And that friction, just like the sticks and the stones of primordial man, will ignite that fire within you that causes you to be able to choose your own destiny at your own will. Just like our example of the pool table. Instead of being a cue ball that is sent in a direction and is unable to wake up to make its own destination, you therefore become the one holding the cue. You don’t need a 400 page book to change your life. Sometimes when something clicks and you recognize it as truth, it becomes who you are. And when it becomes who you are, all of a sudden you don’t have to talk about your philosophy.

You don’t have to talk about being righteous. You simply embody that philosophy. You become it, therefore walking the way walk, instead of talking a whole bunch of it.
[tr:tra].