Without context we don’t know what to make of what we read or watch in movies (if you lateralize to the right hemisphere of the brain you really like context — if to the left hemisphere you’re basically a clueless idiot).
In Buddhism, without context who is this guy many today call the Buddha? Maybe he was some guy in ancient India doing a lot of virtue signaling, or India’s version of a Stoic basically saying, “Take the pain!” Who knows!
Without context Buddhism and especially Zen can be anything you want it to be and that ain’t good. The West’s fifty or more years of de-contextualizing Buddhism and Zen has pretty much destroyed our understanding of Buddhism and Zen.
Remember, that when Siddhartha had his epiphany, he awakened to something very profound. Let me give you a hint dear Zennist, it was nirvana he awakened to, which is unconditioned (P., asaṅkhata); not made by anything. And what does it mean to be unconditioned?
“Mendicants, there are these three characteristics that define the unconditioned. What three? No arising is seen, no vanishing is seen, and no alteration while it persists is seen” (AN I.152).
Speculating, one could also say that the conditioned world (i.e., the world of appearances that we live in) is empty, in the sense of being empty of the unconditioned. E.g., our thoughts are empty; this includes all mental activity. We might conclude from this that nirvana cannot be attained by taking up thought which is never other than conditioned and not nirvana. We can’t think our way to the yonder shore of the unconditioned (i.e., nirvana).
We have entered the proper context of Buddhism and its scion, Zen. Most of you who follow this blog are not shocked. But for those who don’t understand the place of context and its iron rule as regards the Dharma, you’re in real trouble. You’re going to have to crash and burn, figuratively speaking, before you get your head around Buddhism's proper context.
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