Gassho,
Jakuden
SatToday
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Gassho,
Jakuden
SatToday -
Thank you for this, Jundo
And thank you to FB page admins for pulling it out of treasury.
Now it's a cushion time.
Gassho
Washin
STKaidō (皆道) Every Way
Washin (和信) Harmony Trust
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I am a novice priest-in-training. Anything that I say must not be considered as teaching
and should be taken with a 'grain of salt'.Comment
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How to attain enlightenment ...
Thank you Jundo, as yet I have some expectations. So Will I drop behind? I think not as Shikantaza seems okay, and I sit wit other forms and teachers on You Tube: Jack Kornfield. And Jon KABOT-Zinn. Yet I just sit often. I seek relief with Kabot-Zinn,and Loving Kindness with Dr. Kornfield. Thus, much metta seems important, so as I continue with Zanzenkai videos and Treeleaf Coffee Shinkantaza is very important to me. Instruction is helpful.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Elgwyn Tai Shi sat today- Shikantaza, GashoLast edited by Tai Shi; 05-29-2016, 10:36 AM.Peaceful, Tai Shi. Ubasoku; calm, supportive,
for positive poetry 優婆塞 台 婆Comment
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Thanks, Jundo.
Would the paragraph below be in the ballpark of concisely stating in a short paragraph roughly what you have said above?
Life isn’t perfect. It never will be, but you can always try to make it better. It’s like an asymptote in algebraic geometry. Your can always get closer to it but never reach it. Trying to reach it can take you further away since your calculator will start giving errors. Knowing this makes life a lot less frustrating. Sometimes getting closer will happen naturally as we practice Zazen, other times it will take much effort and perhaps therapy and other things.
Sat today and went through a lot of threads in this Zendo._/\_
PaulComment
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Wonderful teaching. Thank you, Jundo.
Gassho
Lucy
Sat todayComment
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Ahhh, hmmmm ... this is when the Zen guy would tell you to drop all that and just sit.
Life is never perfect, yet just sit and drop all thought of "perfect" and "imperfect", algebra and asymptotes, getting closer and getting farther way. Then, you might finally be arrive at getting some place perfectly, so far that it is always as close as close can be!
That being said, we try to do the best we can.
This week's Koan is about just that ...
Attention! A monk asked Master Seirin, "How about when a student proceeds on the trail?" Seirin replied, "The dead snake hits the great road. I advise you not to bump into it." The monk said, "When it's bumped into, then what?" Seirin answered, "You lose your life!" The monk continued, "When it's not bumped into, then what?" And Seirin said, "There's no place to dodge to." The monk said, "At that very moment, then what?" Seirin replied, "It has been lost." The monk then said, "I wonder where it's gone." And Seirin responded, "The grass is so deep there's nowhere to seek." The monk replied, "Shield yourself, Osho! Then you'll be alright!" Finally Seirin clapped his hands and exclaimed, "Your poison is equal to mine!"
Gassho, J
SatTodayLast edited by Jundo; 07-11-2016, 10:40 AM.ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLEComment
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Thank you all for this wonderful thread.
Jundo, you really need to write a book about Zen practice so we don't have to keep sifting through reams of posts to find such gems.
Gassho
Sat Today
IshinGrateful for your practiceComment
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Thanks Jundo and everyone.
I’ve just sat today and now returned.
How about this below?
An intellectual understanding is not enough, experience is needed. Even so, there’s time to forget your experience and intellectual understanding, instead looking at things from the perspective of someone beginning. There’s a time to drop all thought of intellectual understanding and experience.
Even an enlightened master must at times pick up distinguishing between perfect and imperfect or at least better and worse. How else could they choose who among their students is worthy of becoming a teacher? Where should they build their Zendo (or which domain name to choose for it)? Yet there a there’s a time to drop such thoughts of better and worse, perfect and imperfect. There’s a time to drop all thought of there being a time and a time to drop all thought of dropping and picking up.
I’ll look at the book club stuff too. I do enjoy a good book.
Sat today.
Gassho,
Paul_/\_
PaulComment
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How to attain enlightenment ...
Hi Paul,
What is enlightenment and what would you do with it if you got enlightenment?
Gasho, Jishin, _/st\_Last edited by Jishin; 07-12-2016, 05:10 AM.Comment
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This question to me seems to almost be the answer in a way. Hard to explain so I won't. Regarding what I'd do with enlightenment if I got it? I'd probably throw it away (Though just like the snake in Koan 59, I probably can't avoid not throwing it away at the same time).
Gassho,
Tyler
SatTodayComment
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Hi Paul,
It is not so easy to express music in words, is it? Or the experience of being swept up in a Mahler symphony. If one tried to express such in words and ordinary language, one might miss the mark entirely. Even poetic descriptions and metaphor can only point the way.
Imagine that the universe as the great Symphony, and Zazen allows us to experience ... to lose and find ourself again as ... this wondrous Orchestral Harmony that dances all small harmonies and disharmonies, a Sound that is all silence as a Silence which sings all sounds, Timeless fast and slow and in between ... For sentient beings, this Symphony is birth and death, sickness and health, war and peace and the whole world too. Zazen allows this.
So, your words kinda miss the beat.
That being said, you speak one truth: Although this Harmony sweeps in and away all choices and differences, this Symphony is simultaneously all choices and differences. We must live in a world of choices and differences, although simultaneously there are no choices and differences. Like a good maestro, the Master should have an ear for who knows and can play this Music or not.
Anyway, that's how my tin ear hears things.
Gassho, J
SatToday
PS - Perhaps some have known this Music and Balance in a kind of spinning Zazen ... Their music sounds like cacophony to me, but my ear is untrained. They don't go anywhere in their spin, or do they go everywhere?
Last edited by Jundo; 07-12-2016, 08:08 AM.ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLEComment
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How do they do that without falling down??
Gassho,
Jakuden
SatTodayComment
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Thanks, Jundo. I feel now the need to sit on your words and study your aforementioned koans to let everything you’ve said sink in.
Jakuden, I wonder the same.
Jishin, that’s a deep and interesting question. In regard to what it is, there’s this old thread Jundo posted about eight different types of enlightenment. Leaving aside the paradoxical/metaphorical/allegorical speech for a moment, I’m honestly not sure which of these are correct, or if all, none, or somewhere in between are correct. At some point people have somewhere labelled them all as “Enlightenment” and perhaps even labelled them all as “not Enlightenment”.
Furthermore, in the Pali Canon, people were getting enlightened left and right. These days, I think it’s hard to say for sure if anyone is fully enlightened. Perhaps some people are or are at least close. It can be hard to tell for sure.
In regard to what I’d do with enlightenment, I’d have to decide what to do with enlightenment once I understand what it is. Until that time comes, if it comes, words are just words, but perhaps one way it could be said is I follow the Kalama Sutta until then:
Buddha: Does absence of [greed, hatred, and delusion] appear in a man for his benefit or harm?"
Kalamas: "For his benefit, venerable sir."
Buddha: "Undertaken and observed, do these things lead to benefit and happiness, or not? Or how does it strike you?"
Kalamas: “Undertaken and observed, these things lead to benefit and happiness. Thus it strikes us here."
I know that’s not the most Zen way to phrase it but all my Zenergy ran out in the last few posts and needs to re-charge.
Gassho, Paul.
Sat today._/\_
PaulComment
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