[Buddha-l] Re: buddha-l Digest, Vol 24, Issue 2

[Joy Vriens]

>To me it sounds anachronistic to  
>insist that "face-to-face" transmission excludes dream-transmission,  
>because it sounds like a distinction is being made that would probably  
>not have been made by Dogen or Keizan. In fact, unless one accepts a  
>crudely materialistic view, having Dogen appear to you in a dream and  
>give you Transmission could be seen as rather more impressive than  
>receiving Transmission from someone alive right now. At the same time, I  
>would tend to disbelieve someone who claimed to have received  
>transmission from Dogen in a dream, but couldn't find a single living  
>Master to do likewise. 

I always translate (in my thoughts, not in my translations) transmission by inspiration and I am quite happy with that. It's the only "transmission" that seems to be possible to me. It spares me a lot of precious time figuring out stuff that seems pretty useless to me and that deals more with authority issues than with anything else. 

Joy