SIT-A-LONG with Jundo: Why Zen Folks FAIL!! (1) - A New Video & Podcast Series

[Jika]

Yugen, thanks to your son for that beautiful quote, and thank you for sharing this perspective.

Chasing the source, I've found two versions (just for fun):

Ne marche pas devant moi, je ne suivrai peut-être pas.
Ne marche pas derrière moi, je ne te guiderai peut-être pas.
Marche juste à côté de moi et sois mon ami.
»
Citation d'Albert Camus, Les Justes

Don’t walk in front me, I may not follow,
don’t walk behind me, I may not lead.
Just walk beside me and be my friend and
together we will walk in the ways of Hashem.

(from a school camp song book)

Gassho,
Danny
#sattoday

[Kyonin]

Hi guys,

I sat with this for a couple of days because Jundo's talk hit right where it needed for my little experience here in my country.

You see, we have been dominated by the Catholic church for more than 5 centuries and this has molded people's minds into believing that any guy that talks spiritual and who wears funny clothes is an enlightened being. It's a common thing for me to hear stories or personal accounts about how a guy creates a cult and starts living off of people's dreams and money.

It's sad really, because folks put themselves in danger and in a weak position when they suspend critical mind and start believing in a perfect "master".

This year I started a sitting group. It all was going fine and suddenly people stopped coming to sit. And I think that's because they didn't find what they were looking for: great spirituality, rituals, colors, festivals, magical thought and a priest whom might pose as an enlightened being.

And then there's the money thing. First, people simply don't trust someone who never charges a dime. And secondly, when people don't pay for stuff, they get lazy and won't attend because they don't create a material link with what's being given. Crazy.

I guess that's how it's going to be because zen is hard for Mexicans. Super hard actually, because we put effort into seeing life with both eyes.

Again, thanks for this teaching.

Gassho,

Kyonin
#SatToday

[Meishin]

Thanks Jundo, and all. I needed that.

Gassho
Meishin
Sat today

[Memo]

here's another bozo being greatful for this teaching

Gassho, sat today

[Getchi]

Im reminded of a line; "If the lotus arises from the mud, is not the mud good too?"

Thankyou Jundo, I deeply appreciate your honesty, humour and clarity on the two-eyes-one-vision approach to accepting this crazy, scary beautiful world. We are after all, just humans helping humans.

"People dont trust people who dont charge a dime" - So true Kyonin, ive been involved with several community groups that have failed because of this. They never realised the true cost was effort and appreciation for themself and others, sad but keep going!

Eagerly awaiting the next podcast!

Gassho.

#SatToDay

[Daiyo]

Thanks Jundo, I needed something like this, I guess.

I will listen to it carefully and sit with it.


Gassho,
Daiyo

SatToday

[Daiyo]

The link to the video is dead. Any ideas?

"The URL you requested has been blocked. URL = www.youtube.com/embed/hiqIQ-vT5-k?wmode=opaque"

[Jundo]

The link to the video is dead. Any ideas?

"The URL you requested has been blocked. URL = www.youtube.com/embed/hiqIQ-vT5-k?wmode=opaque"

Should be working fine, and seems to be working here. Anyone else having a problem?

Gassho, J

[Sekishi]

The link to the video is dead. Any ideas?

"The URL you requested has been blocked. URL = www.youtube.com/embed/hiqIQ-vT5-k?wmode=opaque"

Hi Daiyo,

It is still working for me. The language used in the error message sounds like it might be something blocking it on your end (e.g. a corporate firewall at work that doesn't allow youtube, or embedded video, etc.).

Gassho,
Sekishi
#sattoday

[Daiyo]

Thanks Sekishi, what is strange is that in the morning I could see it.

I'll try again at home


gassho,
Daiyo

SatToday

Hi Daiyo,

It is still working for me. The language used in the error message sounds like it might be something blocking it on your end (e.g. a corporate firewall at work that doesn't allow youtube, or embedded video, etc.).

Gassho,
Sekishi
#sattoday

[Jundo]

Corporate fire walls ... a major cause of Zen failures!

[Kaishin]

Thank you, Jundo.

-SatToday

[Ernstguitar]

Hi,

sorry, but I am impressed, how easy Judo´s words are eaten (not as a criticism). I wounder, if there is realy no miracle-thing or -capability? Is the real world of science so strong, that we cannot belief in miracles?
I was practicing Shaolin and I saw a few masters who did very strange things.
Isn´t that just the Problem of "you are not allowed to wish satori, enlightenment, etc." becourse it hinders you? Is the one eye not different to the second eye?
Why is it bad to belief, that miracles happen as an effect? When I do a lot of therapy with Clients I get an idea of how this or that Person is structured. No Magic. Just a question of practice.

And how can I say, that without zazen my life would be so or so. I do not have the possibility to compare. How could I say, that zazen lets you just see the light of komyozo. When I could see this light (which isn´t a real light maybe) that is for me a miracle. Not every person in my environment sees that light. I would also develop an ethical life if I would think about the speaches of Jesus for one hour a day. So, somehow I am a little confused about the "You just will be a little bit less attached to ....." Or what do you mean, when you speak about the third eye, Jundo. Is that just a metaphor? What for? Somehow I miss the link.

Gassho,
Ernst

PS: Please, take it as a statement with a positive intention. I read it and it sounds a little strong, that is not my intention.

[Erik de Heiden]

Hi,

sorry, but I am impressed, how easy Judo´s words are eaten (not as a criticism). I wounder, if there is realy no miracle-thing or -capability? Is the real world of science so strong, that we cannot belief in miracles?
I was practicing Shaolin and I saw a few masters who did very strange things.
Isn´t that just the Problem of "you are not allowed to wish satori, enlightenment, etc." becourse it hinders you? Is the one eye not different to the second eye?
Why is it bad to belief, that miracles happen as an effect? When I do a lot of therapy with Clients I get an idea of how this or that Person is structured. No Magic. Just a question of practice.

And how can I say, that without zazen my life would be so or so. I do not have the possibility to compare. How could I say, that zazen lets you just see the light of komyozo. When I could see this light (which isn´t a real light maybe) that is for me a miracle. Not every person in my environment sees that light. I would also develop an ethical life if I would think about the speaches of Jesus for one hour a day. So, somehow I am a little confused about the "You just will be a little bit less attached to ....." Or what do you mean, when you speak about the third eye, Jundo. Is that just a metaphor? What for? Somehow I miss the link.

Gassho,
Ernst

PS: Please, take it as a statement with a positive intention. I read it and it sounds a little strong, that is not my intention.

Yes there is! Many years ago, I was touched by zen and the feeling that this was my path has evervrealy left. How and why that happens? I don't know, it's a miracle. After many years of focusing on other things, having the idea that there were more important things to take care of, I concluded that this is still for me the one and only path. Returning after so many years feels still like a miracle. Returning every morning to my zafu, what happens during my meditation, being aware of every day life, all miracles that outweigh any supernatural ability or experience. For me, I see many miracles.

SAT2day

[Jundo]

... I wounder, if there is realy no miracle-thing or -capability? Is the real world of science so strong, that we cannot belief in miracles?
I was practicing Shaolin and I saw a few masters who did very strange things.
Isn´t that just the Problem of "you are not allowed to wish satori, enlightenment, etc." becourse it hinders you? Is the one eye not different to the second eye?
Why is it bad to belief, that miracles happen as an effect?

Hi Ernst,

Oh, so many miracles! Being alive, breathing, making toast, feeling the rain on one's tongue ... all miracles! When we truly perceive this so-called "ordinary" world for what it is, it is simply a miracle to exist from start to finish. Zazen allows us to experience this wonder and amazing fact of being alive.

But if you ask me about swamis who claim they can levitate and monks of old who attempted to bring rain in a drought by chanting ... I will say, skeptically, that "maybe so", but I rather doubt the reality absent evidence. Anyway, it is not central to Practice. (I also saw some great feats by Kung Fu monks when I lived in China, but nothing that defied the restrictions of physics and reasonable explanation). I do not believe that science is the final explanation for all things, and there are as yet unimagined and undiscovered wonders in this world. However, most claims of miracles and the supernatural turn out to be rumor. self-deception and ignorance.

I do believe that Zazen allows us to encounter the "miraculous" illumination of seeing this life in a new light. It is wonderful, so special ... yet nothing special.

Please listen to the next talks in this series, and it may clarify some points.

I once wrote this ...

Master Dogen told this story in Shobogenzo-Jinzu (Spiritual Powers) ...

The layman Pang Yun was an extraordinary person of the ancestral seat ... [H]e met and encountered many masters of the school possessed of the way. Once he said, "The spiritual powers and the wondrous functions: bearing water and carrying firewood." We should investigate well the rationale [of this saying].

... Even if we do not know that bearing water is the spiritual powers, that the spiritual powers are bearing water is irreversible. ... This being the case, while [miracles such as] the emitting of water [in great rivers from the body] in the small vehicle may be a spiritual power, we should study the fact that the bearing of water is a great spiritual power. Bearing water and carrying firewood have never been discarded, nor have people neglected them. That they have, therefore, from ancient times to the present, been handed down from this [person] to that, without ever reverting for a moment, is the spiritual powers and wondrous functions. This is the great spiritual powers; they cannot be the same as "the little stuff."

The true "Magic & Miracle" of Zen is to feel the breeze on one's cheek, to scratch the nose, hold a tiny baby, go to work, taste the sweet and bitter, smile or shed a tear, make toast. That true "Miracle & Magic" is to drop all thought of division and separation and know the Wholly Holy Whole flowing everywhere. Not two.

Actually, Zen Masters have wrestled for centuries on trying to explain to their students why they seemed to lack the psychic and magical powers described quite literally in many old stories. The typical response:　that the most ordinary is the most magical when seen with a Buddha Eye.

(a wonderful scholars article on how Dogen and other earlier Masters approached the powers is "Disarming the Superpowers" in a recent Steve Heine book on Dogen, unfortunately ... despite all my powers to make the partial immediately whole ... only available in pieces online, such as from page 195 here: http://books.google.co.jp/books?id=Y...ers%22&f=false )

Gassho, J

SatToday