Probably you have  tried occasionally to find something on the other side of the dream-boats. Getting started usually is a disaster - remember the “Getting Started”-chapters you ploughed through and you know what I mean. Leaving a dream-boat and clearing your mind takes much more time, some say several lifes. My own experience has taught me one thing: the original is better than the dummies they want to sell to you. The crucial criterion is clarity. That is true both in IT and in ZEN or equivalent disciplines. There is nothing wrapped in mystery in basic texts of mystical traditions like ZEN, Tibetan Tantric Buddhism (Dzogchen) or some parts of Christian Mystics - odd thing, isn’t it? Since I am not an expert for other traditions such as Sufi or Kabbala, I cannot judge these.

Some IT friends asked me to arrange a small bibliography with less well-known clear texts here and I hope that my limited time will allow me to complete it.

Let us start with my favorite in the Japanese tradition Master Takuan Soho (1537-1645)

To demonstrate his intellectual clarity I quote a string of examples from “The Unfettered Mind”, Kodansha International, Tokyo Japan, 1986. German readers can obtain some good translation in “Meister Takuan - ZEN in der Kunst des kampflosen Kampfes”, Fischer 1993 / 2008.

One can explain water but of this it does not get wet in the mouth. One can explain the nature of fire exhaustingly but of this it does not get hot in the mouth. Without touching actual water, actual fire one cannot learn to know these things. Even a book cannot be made understandable by explanation. One may describe a dish exactly but this does not satisfy the hunger.

The know-all diffuses widely pure brain-knowledge and that is ridiculous. One can well view the whole eloquence of today's priests in this way. It is shameful.

There is something like the training in the fundamental and also something like the training in the technique. The fundamental is as I already explained: if one reaches it, then there is nothing to be seen. It is simply so as if one had filed away all directional attention. I have written in detail about this.

If do you not train yourself in the technique but fill the chest with fundamentals, then the body and the hands cannot do their  work effectively. The training in the technique, if we look at it from the point of view of martial arts,  consists in practicing continually until the five postures have become one.

So even if you know the fundamental, you must gain perfect freedom in applying the technique. And if you know to handle well the sword which you carry with you, you will surely not achieve true perfection, if you are not clear in your mind about the most subtle aspects of the fundamental.

The technique and the fundamental are like the two wheels of a cart.

(To be continued. For further information I’d like to refer to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takuan_Soho which offers some special links.)