A Few Shikantaza Misunderstandings

[charst46]

The interaction of thought and awareness is some dance. I can very easily get caught in a thought and before I know it (a half breathe later) built an entire castle of mental image, emotion and tension. Finding an awareness that each part of the body, mind and universe has during all of this is a challenge.

Gassho for the teaching.

Charlie

[Omoi Otoshi]

Hi Charlie!

The interaction of thought and awareness is some dance.

Yes, I agree, a process, a flow, a dance. Sometimes very still, but still flowing, dancing.

I can very easily get caught in a thought and before I know it (a half breathe later) built an entire castle of mental image, emotion and tension.

That's great!
Some people are tense all the time and never let themselves get caught in a thought. You are also very easily liberated from thought right?

Finding an awareness that each part of the body, mind and universe has during all of this is a challenge.

Realizing that the challenge is an illusion is a challenge!
As Jundo said, stop trying so much.
The awareness that includes body-mind and the universe is always there. But it's not always obvious. We refuse to let go of the castle of mental image. Becoming mindful of this awareness is a matter of practice. Practice IS enlightenment. As soon as you practice whole-heartedly, in a way, you are as enlightened as you will ever be!

Gassho,
Pontus

[Seishin]

I'd like to thank Anneliese for making the above post and as a result bringing this thread to my attention. I found Jundo's explanation of what is and what is not Shikantaza very informative and extremely interesting.

Jundo - I think this now gives me some insight into your comment regarding TPZ in your reply to my registration. Back when I found Zen, as an extension from my interest in Bushido, whilst learning / teaching Wado-Ryu, Muchin-Do and Kobujutsu, I epitomized the snorting/wheezing Zafu Dragon, as my only guide had been TPZ and Sekida's Zen Training both Renzai influenced. Now I've read Suzuki's ZMBM again, I realize how different the two approaches are. My sitting may have helped quieten the Monkey Mind I suffered as a result of work butit never got beyond that and I saw zazen as almost another workout, whilst I exhaled below the horizon (?).

In the last few short weeks of just sitting and allowing the breath to just be what it is and allowing the clouds to just float on by (easier said than done), I am now beginning to slowly experience an inner clam that I have been seeking for so long. Yes it was there all along but hidden by my perspective. But I now feel I can carry this with me throughout the day (most of the time). I am learning to let things go and not get wound up by unimportant things or actions. Its taken 60 years to get here, where I've been all the time but I feel my journey has truly started, step by small step.

Many thanks for all the guidance and support available here at Treeleaf.

Gassho

Toby
Sat Yesterday - soon to sit today

[Meian]

Shikantaza, though, is more centered on encountering the Peace and Stillness right in/amid/behind/as the stuff and noise of the world ... so we tend to look at those other practices as directed toward removing one from here and this ordinary world. Thus, we sit with our eyes open so as not to shut out the world, and we allow thoughts to come and go ... although not getting caught up in the thoughts, and tasting the Peace and Stillness right in/amid/behind/as the thoughts too. This is our definition of "Zen Samadhi" ... neither falling into the traps of the world, nor pushing the world away, but experiencing this messy world with the light of a Buddha's eyes.

The Pure Land is right here, there, in the beautiful and in the ugly of this life, inside you and out when found as such.

Namo Amida Butsu! Jundo

This was me this morning ...... literally sitting right in the middle of a major mess, being the mess, surrounded by the mess, letting the mess flow out of me, not fighting the mess, and all around me, but also the mess subsided after a while and the peace came through also.

How easily I forget these things. The impermanence, the transience of it all. Remembering that it is all ok, as it is, and that it all passes. Thank you.

Gassho
Kim
sat today

[MyoHo]

Thank you Jundo for your words of guidance and encouregment. Its true its easy to think of the Full lotus posture as Major League Zazen, something to aim for and maybe someday accomplish. Shure took me a long time to realise there is a big difference between painting a perfect Zen picture on the outside and following the Way in our harts and minds. Sitting while doing dishes, scrubbing the floors or folding clothes for the sake of the job in itself or chore at hand. Nothing exotic, esotheric or sexy to see when "sitting" peeling potatoes. At the same time a most important and meningfull act. Shure wish I could manage the perfect posture though, maybe someday I will break my own leg to force it into position
Again thank you for once again patiantly and lovingly clarefying this important point.

Gassho

MyoHo

sat today

[Kaisho]

I concur with the person earlier. I feel as though focus on the breath just leads me to be more sleepy (if I don't get enough sleep) and I keep nodding on the zafu. It could be a tool on the belt but it may have it's place in practice and not used for every situation?

Chelsea
Sat2day

Sent from my LGLS675 using Tapatalk

[Enjaku]

Thanks Jundo,

Gassho,
Enjaku
Sat

[Seido]

Thank you Jundo. I appreciated the clarifications. The dynamite analogy was particularly helpful to me.

Gassho,
Seido
SatToday

[Tai Shi]

I began to sit about four year before joining Treeleaf Sangha, for me it is a Sangha, and I sense those around me, so when I began, there was only me sitting in an easy chair counting breath, and then I began to feel out to Facebook possibilities and an older man Dave told me of two ways I could go. One, practice, always one on one with his teacher via Skype; Two, Treeleaf with a teacher and a body of people. At that time I had only heard the name Sangha, but as I began to read, and to look around, well first I was very, very ill, not once but three times, in the space of 10 months coming close to death three times, well when this happens to a person their life changes. I began to see myself as being responsible and having responsibilities, well my life changed, and I had dropped about 60 lbs. and then another 30. I had gone from 260 lbs. to about 170, and my body showed it, well, I began sitting in the easy chair counting one to four then one to ten, and if I did not make it to ten just to start from one. So I looked into Treeleaf, and really I don't know how it happened, I became a member of Treeleaf, and to this day I don't know how I uploaded my picture, and one of the priests said, yes we have it, and then I relaxed into real membership with the name Elgwyn, my middle name, and a start date, and I began to practice sitting in a more straight back chair, and for longer times without counting, and then came Jukai and the Rakusu, and the ceremony, with deep appreciation, via computer, I stood there in sport coat an tie, nice slacks, dress shoes, and I had a Dharma Name Tai Shi, Calm Poetry, reflecting what my whole life was about. Then I sat longer, by myself, and maybe I could not bend my knees, and then my back and my neck, and horrible pain. Today I practice often with others, and I find the Heart Sutra, all my reading and the verse of atonement, and the robe verse--all this means so much to me, but that's really not the point, the point is to sit, just sit. Ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty, forty-five minutes are meaningless. It is to breath, for me find the posture in a chair, my skeleton is shot, and it does not work anymore, so I do not count, I find my breath, and I sit with a Priest, and he chants The Heart Sutra, early in the morning, sometime late, and Robe Verse the beautiful Robe of liberation, my Rakusu which someone made a gift to me from the Sangha my dim green Rakusu with beautiful calligraphy of my Sangha, and my Dharma name, and this teaching, and when I take it from the bag my beautiful silver wife stitched for me, the black, lined with silver and white satin, all of life is a gift, my robe is the Rakusu AND I always know where it is, and I sit with all these gifts, and the the point is just to sit, yes just sit. Shinkantaza. Each morning a young beginning, in my 60 s.

Tai Shi
std
Gassho

[Tai Shi]

Good story!

Sent from my SM-T113 using Tapatalk

[Kakunen]

A Few Shikantaza Misunderstandings

I think more important things is relax.

And sigh of relax is Hokkaijyoin.

If you do Hokkaijyoin naturally ,you are at relax.

And Full lotus is good to sit but difficult to do,but if you sit every day ,you will sit by full lotus.

But this is also depend on weight.I am 166cm tall and 58 kg.So easy to full lotus.

But most most important things is connecting earth and planet.

If you throw your mind ,and keep straight your back you can connect them.

And finally you accept all happenings .

If you are at such situation,I think that is start position of enlightenment.

But after enlightenment,you need to keep on doing till die.

If you are such state,we can kind of change world ,accept everything.
一切有情同時成道
大地有情同時成道

Jundo please translate in English.

Difficult to say.
impossible to say.

So Buddha's method can not express by so many word .

Just do is only answer for us.

Please try!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Tai Shi]

Because I have bad knees, bad spine, full Lotus, half Lotus, and Burmese are impossible for me. Yet, as many practitioners explain the tripod of chair and two feet firm on ground make a stable platform from which I practice Shikantaza and as Jundo will sometimes point out, even on one’s back in bed might be a place one practices, or sitting in a Dr office waiting room. All provide a place for mindfully seeking something often difficult to find or “just sitting.”


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Eva]

Hello Kakunen,

thank you very much for this .
Very direct, simple and open .

Gassho
eva
sattoday and also Lah

[Tai Shi]

So, now, it's five years since I walked through the door of spacious 12,000 miles (19,312.13 km) away in spacious Japan, or was it? I'm in the now or am I? I'm looking at a keyboard and a screen, I am grateful to Miss Anderson who 63 years ago taught me my ABC s, and I am grateful to Mr Nash, both teachers in public schools, Mr Nash who 57 years ago, who kept me after school and taught me how to multiply and divide, and how he taught me to learn, the most important things teachers ever teach, reading and numbers. Now how does that relate to Shikantaza? Five years ago I years ago I began to read the basic rules of Treeleaf Zendo. The door is imaginary. Treeleaf if you like, is reading and counting, sometimes reading deeply, sometimes reading a joke, sometimes reading stories, poems, Koans, etc. The Zendo is imaginary based on a set of written instructions. I can type with one finger, but when I look at the keyboard of my box of wires and electrons on a screen, I accept that I can read. I accept that I can write threads, I accept I can read irony which leads to Miss Arnold in my final year, 12th grade, of public free education, of learning I didn't have to pay for, I was made ready for Shikantaza in all its Irony, indivisible nature, nowhere even remotely understood except through reading and ciphering, and listening inside my brain. My brain, I've been given the building blocks for advanced non-thinking with breath and letting go with language. I read the basic instruction for Zazen. I accept I can stop, sit quietly, let go of all that thinking about that language of my country and the given language at Treeleaf Sangha, English, for now it has become more than a Zendo, it's a greater group of people who all read the same sets of instructions we all read, and we all together make the bonds of folks who break all those rules to form something much more important, Silence of mind, letting go, being in nothings now that's not it. And we follow the instructions of our teacher which cuts across the pain, frustration, fear, anger, loudness, exclamations into just sitting, all because of language and ciphering and simple higher thinking, which becomes non-thinking, the paradox of Treeleaf Zendo, the Zendo limited only by learning numbers language and modern technology. So we accept instruction, and with Jundo, and a whole host of helpers through the ages, we sit just sit, nothing more, we let it all go, all the learning stops, and we sit just sit, nothing more, sit quietly, sit with language that lets language go, we just sit, do nothing more....

Tai Shi
5 yrs student this October
sat/lah
Gassho

[Onka]

So, now, it's five years since I walked through the door of spacious 12,000 miles (19,312.13 km) away in spacious Japan, or was it? I'm in the now or am I? I'm looking at a keyboard and a screen, I am grateful to Miss Anderson who 63 years ago taught me my ABC s, and I am grateful to Mr Nash, both teachers in public schools, Mr Nash who 57 years ago, who kept me after school and taught me how to multiply and divide, and how he taught me to learn, the most important things teachers ever teach, reading and numbers. Now how does that relate to Shikantaza? Five years ago I years ago I began to read the basic rules of Treeleaf Zendo. The door is imaginary. Treeleaf if you like, is reading and counting, sometimes reading deeply, sometimes reading a joke, sometimes reading stories, poems, Koans, etc. The Zendo is imaginary based on a set of written instructions. I can type with one finger, but when I look at the keyboard of my box of wires and electrons on a screen, I accept that I can read. I accept that I can write threads, I accept I can read irony which leads to Miss Arnold in my final year, 12th grade, of public free education, of learning I didn't have to pay for, I was made ready for Shikantaza in all its Irony, indivisible nature, nowhere even remotely understood except through reading and ciphering, and listening inside my brain. My brain, I've been given the building blocks for advanced non-thinking with breath and letting go with language. I read the basic instruction for Zazen. I accept I can stop, sit quietly, let go of all that thinking about that language of my country and the given language at Treeleaf Sangha, English, for now it has become more than a Zendo, it's a greater group of people who all read the same sets of instructions we all read, and we all together make the bonds of folks who break all those rules to form something much more important, Silence of mind, letting go, being in nothings now that's not it. And we follow the instructions of our teacher which cuts across the pain, frustration, fear, anger, loudness, exclamations into just sitting, all because of language and ciphering and simple higher thinking, which becomes non-thinking, the paradox of Treeleaf Zendo, the Zendo limited only by learning numbers language and modern technology. So we accept instruction, and with Jundo, and a whole host of helpers through the ages, we sit just sit, nothing more, we let it all go, all the learning stops, and we sit just sit, nothing more, sit quietly, sit with language that lets language go, we just sit, do nothing more....

Tai Shi
5 yrs student this October
sat/lah
Gassho

Happy 5 year anniversary Tai Shi!
This is a lovely piece you've written here and possibly one of your more concise and cohesive. It was a pleasure to read.
Gassho
Anna
stlah

Sent from my Lenovo TB-8304F1 using Tapatalk