Reddit reviews Dropping Ashes on the Buddha: The Teachings of Zen Master Seung Sahn

The Korean master Seung Sahn apparently used to ask his students to consider something like this, as kind of a koan question:

You're in the zendo meditating, and somebody comes in with a lit cigarette, blows smoke on the Buddha statue on the altar, and then drops ashes on its lap. He's a really strong fellow; you can't stop him. The abbot asks: "Are you crazy? Why are you dropping ashes on the Buddha?" He answers: "Buddha is everything. Why not?"

There are three questions for you:

> 1. "Buddha is everything." What does that mean?
>
> 2. Why did the man drop ashes on the Buddha?
>
> 3. If you had been the abbot, how could you have fixed this man's mind?

Maybe this is a crude way of putting it, but I think if you say the man is wrong and try to stop him, you're attached to form; if you say he's right and let him go ahead, that's clinging to emptiness. So what on Earth can you do?

This one maybe?

https://www.amazon.com/Dropping-Ashes-Buddha-Teachings-Master/dp/0802130526

Thanks for the call. Watson is fine for ZZ but reads a little stiff to me; Brook Ziporyn has a newer version, as does Victor Mair ("Wandering on the Way") and Livia Kohn. Thomas Merton was not a translator but he has a contemplative (a Trappist monk with a strong interest in Eastern religion); I like his "The Way of Chuang Tzu" a lot. Also, his abridgement does not just cling to the Inner Chapters but finds gems throughout the more rambly parts of the book.

Mitchell? Yeesh. Doesn't speak Chinese for one thing - he just read a few translations and -- based on his training in Zen Buddhism -- used what he calls his "umbilical connection to Lao Tzu" -- a figure most scholars consider mythical -- to figure out what was really meant. He actually told the LA Times that

>"Not knowing Chinese allowed me to cut through the text"

Here's one thing Mitchell said on PBS NewsHour (Nov. 11, 2011):

>"I once got some flak from orthodox Taoists who became very irate that my version of the "Tao Te Ching" was not a translation, that I would take off at certain points and throw the original out the window and do variations on the original theme. It wasn't a translation, so I had that privilege, I felt. But this did not make them happy."

Award-winning translator David Hinton did an careful analysis for The Nation in 2009. Here's what he found:

>"by my rough estimation, in the course of translating the (TTC)...(approximately 985 lines) Mitchell has rewritten about 150 lines so radically that they bear virtually no relation to the original, has ELIMINATED about 250 lines, and about 170 lines HAVE BEEN INVENTED OUT OF THIN AIR (emphasis added)...Sometimes the inventions replace lines Mitchell has deleted, sometimes they are simply added to what was already there. In either case they correspond to nothing whatsoever in the text...I suppose Mitchell's crowning moment comes in Chapter 50, where lines of his own invention are crowned with commentary by Zen master Sahn Seung."

In other words, he put stuff that his own personal Zen master wrote into his "Daodejing" and passed it off as his "translation" of Laozi. That's not just bad, that's unethical. Especially since Mitchell wrote a book with Sahn (who later died) called "Dropping Ashes on the Buddha: The Teachings of Zen Master Seung Sahn."

Dropping Ashes on the Buddha: The Teachings of Zen Master Seung Sahn https://www.amazon.com/dp/0802130526/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_I8vADbNPASY4J

Try that book sometime

I too am an atheist Buddhist. I congratulate you on wanting to learn more about Buddhism, as it may help you become mindful by looking inward. I would not look at it as a way to give you a moral guide which to follow, but as a path to expanding your critical thinking and focus. I think you will find as you grow in your understanding of who you are and your relationship with the world around you, you will derive your own answers.

I'd give you a list of books I have found helpful, but they might not be helpful to you. If you come across something that makes sense to you and seems like you could incorporate it to better yourself, good. Question everything. If something comes across as wrong to you, feel free to reject it.

You know how to live. Just BE.

Best answers I read here are "You want principles to live by? Go do your dishes." and "OP would stand to gain a lot by completely ignoring my post and vacuuming the carpet." Those are true Kōans if I ever heard them!

Edit: If you really want a couple book suggestions though, I found Alan Watt's The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are and Zen Master Seun Sahn's Dropping Ashes on the Buddha to be quite good.