Reddit reviews Not Zen: A Zen Revolution

• In a style foreign to the Zen Masters he insists others quote exclusively, ewkpates devotes 99 percent of his time on /r/zen to making personal attacks and otherwise criticizing individuals instead of discussing Zen--a strategy that has never generated knowledge-sharing or meaningful dialogue in a community. In fact, Ewkpates insults others more often than any other user, using terms like illiterate, troll, liar, nutbakers, etc., yet oddly he is the only user on /r/zen who regularly talks about the reddiquette, which clearly states. "Please don't insult others. Insults do not contribute to a rational discussion."
  
• Ewkpates spends far more time on the forum than anyone else and his behavior towards others suggests that the link between internet addiction and personality traits like moodiness, loneliness, and obsession is accurate.
  
• Of his anonymously self-published work, various reviewers have stated respectively that "it's not Zen. He is clearly uneducated on the topic and speaks from a position of absolute arrogance and ignorance.", that it is a "very unhelpful book, full of unsubstantiated arguments and theories," that "the only value this text holds is in demonstrating what a little bit of exposure to the profound teachings of the Buddha can do to someone who does not have a teacher and fails to seek guidance as to how to interpret Buddhist writings," that "the author's many untenable claims clearly stem from his lack of study, as he repeatedly admits that he actually hasn't studied much, and his citations consist only of links to videos on youtube and scant online sources" and that "the author's self-exposure to a small part of the dharma has left him holding to a myopic and utterly wrong understanding of Zen, a wonderful school of Mahayana Buddhism."
  
• They also stated that "the author ewk is more or less an internet troll who has been obsessively posting on the Zen Reddit board. Having observed his behavior and conduct over a year now I'm most certain he suffers from some sort of mental disturbance," that his self-published book "contains bizarre claims such as 'Zen is not Buddhism' that go against every scholar of Buddhism who has ever existed," and finally that "the author demonstrates how a person with no background in Buddhist philosophy or religious studies can loosely interpret select quotes he found off the internet, fail to cite them, call it a revolution..."
  
• This is how ewkpates' claims stand up to the rigor of peer-review in an environment where you can't get away with making things up and bullying people into giving you the benefit of the doubt.
  
• After briefly trying to deny that he wrote it, Ewkpates refuses to discuss his Buddhist epiphany experience he blogged about years ago. Why?
  
• Ewkpates has been accused of possible vandalism by Wikipedia.
  
• Respected Wikipedian Joshua Jonathan said, "The ideas Ewkpates mentions are part of a modern romantic image of Zen. The flaws in this image are described by various studies, most notably McMahan's 'The making of Buddhist modernity'. Many material can also be found on 1...I see no justification for Ewkpates views, only falsifications. It's clear that Zen is part of Mahayana, and that sutras and texts are part of Zen."
  
• Ewkpates, in an apparent effort to play the victim card, seems to believe that the fact that a forum member told him to off himself last year implies that criticisms of his claims are somehow invalid.
  
• Another example of invalid reasoning Ewkpates engages in involves his routine attempts to discount users' claims and personal experiences by stating how old their Reddit account is.
  
• Hilariously, after years of Ewkpates citing Carl Bielefeldt as support for a claim that Dogen was a fraud, Bielefeldt himself was pinged for an opinion and stated "Please don't worry, I don't believe, and never wrote, that Dogen was a fraud. On the contrary, I think he was one of the most brilliant and interesting Zen masters in history." In an almost superhuman display of willful ignorance, Ewkpates has nevertheless continued to try to claim that Bielefeldt stated that Dogen was a fraud and not a Zen master.
  
• A user here who states that he is a professor of neurobiology in Edinburgh and runs a masters program at Plymouth University has opined that Ewkpates has narcissistic personality disorder and exhibits exaggerated feelings of self importance, an excessive need for admiration/notoriety, and being exploitative of others, a view supported by routine statements made by him like, "I've been...serving smackdowns on this forum for five years", "I wanted to fight everybody about everything and so I did. I usually won. I have a gift inherited from my maternal grandfather through my mother for character assassination," "You do however give me lots of opportunities to show how tough and rapier witted I am," etc. These observations should give someone pause before giving him the benefit of the doubt with respect to claims he makes about the study and practice of Zen, which teaches that conceit and arrogance are evil passions.
  
• When asked if he is a troll on Joe Quint's podcast, Ewkpates did not deny that he is but instead opted to merely state that no one has given him a definition of that word before, something that hasn't stopped him from using the word to describe nearly anyone (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,etc.) who disagrees with him.
  
• In a strange turn of events, Ewkpates recently admitted that he has only been reading books for 5 years.

Ewk mixes legitimate Zen content with his own personal opinions without seeming to do so. He gives his opinion left and right while criticizing everyone else as if he were the ultimate authority on "what is zen and what is not, what you ought and ought not to do".

Ewk, in that sense, is nothing more than a wannabe cult leader stealing the voice of dead guys to pass off his opinions to the rubes coming here for Zen and seeking a figure of authority. To him, everybody that disagrees does so in bad faith, knowing they're lying.

Furthermore, ewk cannot make the distinction between religious worship, prayer and meditation.

Most of Ewk's comments go this way:

• You are dishonest
  
  
• You are a liar
  
  
• Stop lying on the internet
  
  
• You are a religious troll
  
  
• You are an alt_troll
  
  
• Your account was created x months ago, therefore you cannot be genuine
  
  
• You once said this bad thing, therefore all that you say is bullshit
  
  
• Do an AMA or else you're worthless
  
  
• Something something book report
  
  
• This is unrelated (Because he gets to decide what is and isn't?)
  
  
• Dogen is basically rape
  
  
• You should read the reddiquette, you're a liar and a troll (as if the reddiquette vindicated him at all, most of the time he just says that for effect)
  
  

  His attitude in his own words
  

  > It is also interesting to note that [Alan Watts'] understanding evolves over the course of his life which is another tribute to his honesty. Not many people revisit their old conclusions, let alone their old works of nonfiction, and publicly declare their error. It is unlikely that I will, for example.
  
  (From his book)
  
  > I've been...serving smackdowns on this forum for five years", "I wanted to fight everybody about everything and so I did. I usually won. I have a gift inherited from my maternal grandfather through my mother for character assassination," "You do however give me lots of opportunities to show how tough and rapier witted I am
  
  

  Some quotes
  

  
  > Alt_troll claims he has a point... can't make the claim in an AMA though.
  
  > Next up: Religious troll quotes single line from Huckleberry Finn, insists Twain supported slavery.
  
  > You aren't a "Zen practitioner". You are a Dogen Buddhist. You've been a Dogen Buddhist since day one. You just haven't been honest about it.
  
  > Pwning religious trolls in this forum for the last six years.
  
  > Religious troll still super upset that ewk pwnd him out of business.
  
  > Try /r/stoners. I think your observations might sound more accurate over there.
  
  > The OP uses alt accounts because he doesn't have the courage to AMA. The OP doesn't have the courage to AMA because he knows his beliefs aren't anything to do with Zen.
  
  > Temicco frequently lies, omits facts, and refuses to address Zen teachings that contradict his claims about Zen teachings.
  
  (All from last week)
  
  Ewk is just a glorified internet troll and a bully, that somehow managed to seem mystical to newcomers on this forum.
  
  

  Top review of his book on amazon
  

  
  > The author's flawed premise is that Bodhidharma, the Buddhist monk who is considered the father of Zen, was NOT actually a Buddhist. This astounding claim is not based on some newly discovered biography of Bodhidharma or diligent, exhaustive, original scholarship; rather, the author just decided it himself. Of course, even the most cursory examination of Bodhidharma's teachings would reveal that Bodhidharma (the First Patriarch of Zen) instructed Huike (his successor and the Second Patriarch of Zen) that he could rely solely upon the Lankavatara Sutra to gain enlightenment. This seems like an odd thing to do for someone who - the author claims - was not spreading the dharma (the instructions of the Buddha) since the Lankavatara is a major text of Mahayana Buddhism, which summarizes all the major points of Mahayana doctrine, and which, as a direct result of Bodhidharma's teaching is a seminal text of Zen Buddhism. The author fails to explain how this could have come to be, or address the matter at all, since he is obviously completely unaware of Bodhidharma's actual teachings or writings. Such writings include Bodhidharma's most famous work, his treatise on the "Two Entrances and Four Practices", which is largely a collection of advice on meditation techniques. The depth of the author's ignorance is further revealed by his remarkable assertion that Bodhidharma did not meditate. What Bodhidharma was doing silently gazing at a cave wall for nine years, the author does not tell us. He does tell us that meditation is not Zen, deliberately oblivious to the etymology of the term itself. The author's many untenable claims clearly stem from his lack of study, as he repeatedly admits that he actually hasn't studied much, and his citations consist only of links to videos on youtube and scant online sources. Notably, the author lambastes the inconvenience of "authority".
  His main criticism of Buddhism generally, and Zen Buddhism in particular, is his belief that they are "dogmatic". By dogmatic the author must mean that Buddhists take it seriously when people try to mold the Buddha's profound and exhaustive teachings into their own pet views, as this author has done with his "zen" revolution. He is ignorant of even the most fundamental tenants of Buddhism, including the FIRST Noble Truth (Right View), which not only prohibits dogma, but even attachment to "correct" views, in favor of a detached form of cognition. The profound nature of this teaching is hopelessly lost on the author, who is too caught up in expounding his own dogma of nonsense in order to inflate his own sense of self -- an effort completely at odds with everything Buddhism teaches.
  
  Bullshit asymetry principle

https://www.amazon.com/Not-Zen-Revolution-ewk-ebook/dp/B00D3UQ7II Free but on sale now for less than normal.

literally has your name in the title you liar.

Book blurb from the Amazon listing:

>Buddhism is not Zen.
>Mindfulness is not Zen.
>Zazen meditation is not Zen.
>
>Zen is a name that began with Bodhidharma and includes the Zen Patriarchs of China and the Masters that followed him, such as Huang Po and Joshu and the others in the Mumonkan, and even Tung Shan. They taught no practices, no means and no attainment. As Joshu said, “We are all Patriarchs now that Bodhidharma has come.”
>
>The Zen conversation is characterized by several memes, one of which is the Four Statements of Zen. These memes have largely been abandoned by those who claim to be Zen Buddhists today. Other memes include Negation (no teaching, no attainment, no wisdom), Zen Dialogue or Dharma Combat, Conceptual Thought, and of course Sudden Enlightenment. The Sudden Enlightenment meme is one of the most ignored memes in Zen.
>
>The majority of those claiming to teach Zen Buddhism are preaching the Buddhist religion. They preach a path to inner peace, they preach mindfulness, and they put their faith in a practice called zazen sitting meditation. They claim this is Zen. What Zen Masters taught any of this?
>
>In contrast, even a brief review of the Zen Masters that we all agree are the beginning of the lineage, Huang Po, Joshu, Mumon, these old men teach no sitting meditation, no inner peace, and only a sudden enlightenment that does not rely on any means and cannot be attained through any effort.
>
>This book contrasts the writings of the old Zen Masters with those today who claim to be Zen Buddhists, but are not Zen.

I can't help but love you

I finally read "Not Zen" btw ... let me say that it is brilliant.

It's not often that I find a tether but some part of the book caused me to realize that I hadn't fully let go of a certain conceptualization of "the thing." I can't remember what part of the book it was (or even, actually, what the particular conception was), but it made it clear that I was still holding on to this one little nugget and then it was like this clearing sensation as I let it go.

It was something along the lines of accepting that one literally cannot (figuratively) see it or perceive it. It's a sort of "negative space" in perception. I mean, I "understood" that before, and I "saw" it ... but that was the problem.

Sure enough, listening to Hunagbo, reading the Mumonkan, and even thinking back about that convo we had about the hurricane (if you remember) ... things make so much more sense.

Sort of like wiping a film off the glass.

So anyway, thanks again.

And this post is hilarious lmao, even if I specifically call it out here, there are still going to be tons of trolls who bite. They just can't help it!

As for Ronin, I'm still optimistic. I view it like a horse race: I've given my money to the bookie, now all that's left to do is to watch the ponies run :P

Yes it was, as a matter of fact they were chanting lines from Not Zen. Also it wouldn't even matter to you, because Zazen meditation is not Zen according to you anyway.

EDIT: You also didn't answer the question.

Start by studying Zen Revolution : http://www.amazon.com/Not-Zen-A-Revolution-ebook/dp/B00D3UQ7II

It's a good work for beginners. Mumonkan is another one. Between the two, if you only have to read one, I recommend Zen Revolution.

Do you consider yourself as someone who studies Zen?

https://www.amazon.ca/Not-Zen-Revolution-ewk-ebook/dp/B00D3UQ7II

Why are you selling a book?

Or just trying to sell your own religion. https://www.amazon.com/Not-Zen-Revolution-ewk-ebook/dp/B00D3UQ7II

> Master ewk wrote a book for us: http://www.amazon.com/Not-Zen-A-Revolution-ebook/dp/B00D3UQ7II - I recommend you to study it before you make further comments on /r/zen ... to be one of the ewks, study Not Zen and what Zen Masters didn't teach.

Zen Masters didn't teach this. There are no "ewks" How to study a green sound sleeping?