the No-God, the Logos, and Zen Koans

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Wic

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« on: February 08, 2016, 07:39:49 pm »
So I was reading about zen koans and came across these quotes through wiki:
Quote
Huà-tόu is literally translated as “word head” but is also translated as “critical phrase”.  Before the term was appropriated by Zen teachers it was used to refer to the main idea of a literary passage.  In Zen, it refers to the nature of the origin or source of a thought, word, or phrase that arises in one’s mind, or, more poetically, to “the mind before it is stirred”.

All hua-tous have one thing in common.  See if you can figure out what it is from these six common ones:
Now tell me some of this don't strike you as familiar:
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Who is it who now repeats the Buddha's name? TELL ME
Who is dragging this corpse about? WHAT DO YOU SEE
What is this?
What is it?
What was my original face before my father and mother were born? WHO AM I
and further:
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Hua-tou practice is about looking deeply into the nature of being by asking ourselves an open-ended question which we lock into our brains and return to again and again.  The objective is not to answer it, but to play with it, letting it taunt, tease, and torment us.
I looked up koans because I heard about this idea that in some styles of zen buddhism, the whole point of a koan is to present such an absurdist notion, that by meditating deeply enough on it causes the conscious mind to itself enter a state of absurdism.  From the wiki:
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A koan is a story, dialogue, question, or statement, which is used in Zen practice to provoke the "great doubt" and test a student's progress in Zen practice.
Not just a destruction of meaning, but an embracing, or maybe even a becoming, of that destruction. An especially significant act in a world that is, by the author's words, the story of someone bringing meaninglessness to a meaningful world.

So all that is just what I wanted to put out there for everyone to consider, because I believe the parallels are too close to ignore.

It made me think of the Dunyain 'The logos is without beginning or end'. A significant declaration. A statement. And in that - whelming cycle? - we see Kellhus go through, it ends with 'The' repeated, which is declarative in itself (I think - some of you guys are so into linguistics, I don't want to look like an asshole).

If we treat each progressive cycle of the 'logos' mantra like a statement or an answer, or an understanding, and everything said by the No-God as a question, or a blindness...

Are the Dunyain (or just Kellhus) the answer to the No-God?

And what's the self-certainty that the No-God denies when it exists, to the point that souls can't be brought into this world?

OK OK OK I gotta stop just to put this out to you guys.

H

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« Reply #1 on: February 09, 2016, 11:19:53 am »
That's a good find, there is little chance, in my mind, that the parallel is coincidental.

So, by this, the No-Gos is the self-annihilating soul and the Dunyain are the self-moving souls?
I am a warrior of ages, Anasurimbor. . . ages. I have dipped my nimil in a thousand hearts. I have ridden both against and for the No-God in the great wars that authored this wilderness. I have scaled the ramparts of great Golgotterath, watched the hearts of High Kings break for fury. -Cet'ingira

locke

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« Reply #2 on: February 10, 2016, 01:25:01 am »
Zen thought of the day.

Kellhus silly training repeating the mantra ad infinitum and dropping one word per day  is no different from the childrens rhyming spell song B-I-N-G-O which drops one letter each cycle.

Thus one may achieve enlightenment and Dunyain super powers via the use of children's songs.

Wilshire

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« Reply #3 on: February 10, 2016, 01:33:12 pm »
Locke, I think you're 100% correct. The phrase itself is irrelevant, whether its bingo or something seemingly more profound. Its the result itself that matters.


Wic, thats a cool find. Bakker is something of a philosopher, so I'd be surprised in such instances as this were coincidental, but I think its incidental. By this, I mean that even if there is a connection, real world analogues make poor ciphers for Earwa. It may have been written with Zen Koans in mind, but only by the nature of drawing from ones own experience to write, not as a purposeful or intentional between the two.

Bakker has said he did a lot of cherry picking philosophies when writing TSA. Grabbing bits and pieces that sounded cool and incorporating them into the books. This is a great connections, and might give you/us some insight into his mindset when writing, but I'm not sure there will be many secrets we can divine.
One of the other conditions of possibility.

mrganondorf

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« Reply #4 on: February 10, 2016, 05:45:22 pm »
Locke, I think you're 100% correct. The phrase itself is irrelevant, whether its bingo or something seemingly more profound. Its the result itself that matters.


Wic, thats a cool find. Bakker is something of a philosopher, so I'd be surprised in such instances as this were coincidental, but I think its incidental. By this, I mean that even if there is a connection, real world analogues make poor ciphers for Earwa. It may have been written with Zen Koans in mind, but only by the nature of drawing from ones own experience to write, not as a purposeful or intentional between the two.

Bakker has said he did a lot of cherry picking philosophies when writing TSA. Grabbing bits and pieces that sounded cool and incorporating them into the books. This is a great connections, and might give you/us some insight into his mindset when writing, but I'm not sure there will be many secrets we can divine.

i would lean towards saying it doesn't matter what Kellhus repeats, but it is Earwa!  maybe the Dunyain, because they have been working on it for 2000 years, have somehow used a virhimsata to actually catapult the logos up the scale of power.  maybe back in Seswatha's day, intellect did not matter as much (relative to courage or other human qualities).  then the Dunyain focus and brood on intellect until the world bends and because more malleable to that human quality.

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« Reply #5 on: February 15, 2016, 01:20:33 pm »
Well, I didn't mean to imply that the No-God is a Zen construction or something, just that the phrase was no doubt inspired by the Koan.
I am a warrior of ages, Anasurimbor. . . ages. I have dipped my nimil in a thousand hearts. I have ridden both against and for the No-God in the great wars that authored this wilderness. I have scaled the ramparts of great Golgotterath, watched the hearts of High Kings break for fury. -Cet'ingira