What is Negationism (Zenless Zen)?

Negationism is the practice of contrasting all concepts, ideas, and beliefs against their opposites in order to free the mind of its attachment to thoughts. It is the essential element of Daoism, Zen and Tibetan Buddhism, non-dualism, and other transcendent philosophical traditions.

Thought is always dualistic. As soon as we think of a thing, we set that thing against everything it is not. For example, think of an alligator. The alligator is defined and given meaning by contrasting it against everything that is not an alligator. This occurs in all thought.

However, the alligator is not separate from anything else in the universe. Only thought creates the separation. As long as we are thinking, we are separating, dividing, and distinguishing things from other things. Things are created in the mind, but only nature itself is reality.

In order to experience nature directly without our experience being clouded by the activity of the mind, we must let go of all thoughts, beliefs, and concepts about what is "really real." We must become non-attached to the intellect. Reality cannot be conceptualized.

The practice of negationism invites us to use the mind to go beyond the mind. Its purpose is to liberate us from our ideas and thoughts about the nature of reality so that we can experience our own nature directly. Upcoming videos will explore this subject in depth.

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[jobedied]

Make a very crude analogy here when thoughts become more like farts just a little pressure that one feels that quickly passes through the body and is released in a slight eruption one has arrived. We all know that a fart trapped somewhere in ones digestive tract will cause belly aches and all kinds of abdominal distress. I always THOUGHT the end of the digestive tract and rectum are the most intelligent part of body.

[jobedied]

@marsbarz Kind of like a personality annihilation Robert Pirsig style.

[Operation2]

@NlHILIST are you pondering the Heart Sutra?

[NlHILIST]

nothing is anything

[fntime]

marsbarz, you might find it worth while

to read, a little further about this.

You are confusing yourself with symantic.

Being sceptical, is not a fault, until it becomes an impediment, to new discovery.

Your words, are 'things created in the

mind', if you can break through, you will

experience something very remarkable.

You are partially right about conceptionization, it is a survival tool,

but if you allow the 'intellectual mind' to

take over, you'll miss the bigger picture.

[marsbarz]

But that is itself yet another idea that is yet another abstraction of another thing.

Nature is making assertions.

[MotionFur]

No, 'things' have boundaries, and are limited by what they are not.

Nature has no boundaries, and can not be limited by something that is not itself, because any 'something' one can find, is itself just nature.

[marsbarz]

"Things are created in the mind, but only nature itself is reality"

Is that not itself a thing?

[marsbarz]

I agree wholeheartedly.

[1zenAwhile]

Waking up from the dream of thought (Zen) gives a person the freedom to move back and forth, as required by the situation.

Sometimes you say, "I really need to think about this and get this figured out."

Other times you say, "That's just my mind making up thoughts, and I'd probably be better off right now experiencing life directly."