Untimely Reflections #11: Kevin Rogers - Zen is Philosophy, Zen is not Philosophy

Kevin Rogers is a musician, one of my old friends from the Zen forum & one of the co-hosts of the Knot Zen Podcast. In this episode, we talk about Zen found in the corpus of literature produced during the middle ages in China, and the dialectical shift that happened when this Chinese movement was brought into Japan by Dogen. Kevin gives an explanation of Zen, which dovetails into discussions on the idea of lingering moments, the direct experience of reality, and the epistemic implications of reality as shaped by our own minds. We touched upon what the Zen realization is, and whether there are metaphysical implications to this, as well as to the practice of meditation, as well the Daoist influence on Zen. The conversation concludes with some of my own misgivings within the Zen tradition and why I no longer consider it a defining feature of my intellectual identity. Kevin and I are both musicians, and we plan to do a second episode talking about music, or possibly even another episode on this same topic, depending on the audience reaction. The Knot Zen Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/5GzOskDnm3IZIpHBHmUKIZ Kevin's musical group, The Friction String Quartet: https://www.frictionquartet.com/