Now I don't want anyone trying to be clever and saying it's a bit of both.....
Let's try to keep it simple. The idea of this thread came from a spin off from the Flaming Swords thread over on Christianity. Here we can have a bit of topic drift. Tell me of your love of Chuck Berry if you choose. The Sugarbabes?
Anyway, I see "both/and" as being more in keeping with the Dharma, the "eastern" ways of being (or non-being). Either/or tends to drift towards Inquisitions, wars, persecution......this as those who are most definitely
Right in an absolute sense ("one way" and all the rest of it) go for the jugular, no holds barred.
"Both/and" hopefully drifts towards the beauty of difference, where the "absolute" is found in the moment, in that moment only, at "one" with radical freedom, where every moment is "something new under the sun". Yun-men's "appropriate statement", the teachings of a whole lifetime.
I feel another quote coming on, this from Joshu (as far as I know Joshu was not in fact Jim Smith from Hackney but I can't be sure):-
"Remake what has gone by and work with what comes. If you don’t remake, you are stuck deeply somewhere."
A wonderful quote, pregnant with insight. Joshu or Jim Smith, I thank you.
Now over to Sky who can perhaps give a precise, short sharp word or two as an alternative to my own often pompous verbosity.
(It gives me something to do while sipping my cappuccino and while I do appreciate the ardent and ernest exhortations of the zafu sitters who say "when drinking, just drink" the Pure Land way just tends to let it all hang out and Amida takes the strain)