AboutJoe McSorley Expertise I can answer questions dealing with Taoist philosophy and Zen and not the historicity and religion of Buddhism and its different schools. I studied under Dr. Richard DeMartino and Masao Abe of the Kyoto School of Zen.
Question hello my name is jordan and i have a couple questions i hope you can answer, i am new to zen buddhism and i know that you are not supposed to harm other people but i like to do a sport called paintball wich is bassicaly shooting others with paint and it hurts to get hit. but i am not playing paintball just to hurt people i do it for fun and sprot, is that okay. i also dont have a teacher i am trying to learn it on my own because i have no schools on zen near me, i know that there is a great risk on making mistakes but i still try, do u have any tips for me?
Answer Dear Jordan,
The only mistake you can make is not trying your best so don’t worry about mistakes. There is nothing wrong with your paintball games so long as you all use safety gear and your intentions are to do no harm. Animals like kittens play fighting games, it is part of nature. There are schools of Buddhism that will disagree with this but that is not uncommon for schools to have different views. You will find a lot of contradictory writings out there so it is difficult to find good books to read on the topic. You might try “An Introduction to Zen” or “What is Zen” by D. T. Suzuki. Unfortunately the better books on Zen tend to be a little more difficult to read so please persevere with it.
Take care,
Joe
