SIT-A-LONG with Jundo: Why Zen Folks FAIL!! (2) - FAIL-NO-FAIL

[StephenB]

Thank you Jundo,

I found this thread from the past. I have struggled lately feeling as though I am a failure. I understand the lesson here is more about the ways we can and cannot fail at our zazen practice. This evening however, the fail-no-fail title, popped out out me. I particularly liked your nuanced expression of falling off of the lotus, when we fail to do our zazen practices. Tonight I needed to hear, and read that failing and not failing are one and the same. It's difficult to see at the moment, like in the Daoist story of the farmer and the lost horse, to see that what one day is a failure may the next day be advantageous. While at the moment things feel particularly heavy and a sense of futility feels to be creeping in, that sitting zazen may help me see the true nature of my current circumstances. To have hope that failing and not failing can be the same.

Gassho,
StephenB
stlah

[Jundo]

Thank you Jundo,

I found this thread from the past. I have struggled lately feeling as though I am a failure. I understand the lesson here is more about the ways we can and cannot fail at our zazen practice. This evening however, the fail-no-fail title, popped out out me. I particularly liked your nuanced expression of falling off of the lotus, when we fail to do our zazen practices. Tonight I needed to hear, and read that failing and not failing are one and the same. It's difficult to see at the moment, like in the Daoist story of the farmer and the lost horse, to see that what one day is a failure may the next day be advantageous. While at the moment things feel particularly heavy and a sense of futility feels to be creeping in, that sitting zazen may help me see the true nature of my current circumstances. To have hope that failing and not failing can be the same.

Gassho,
StephenB
stlah

Unlike the Daoist story, we Zen folks feel that the farmer, his son, the horse he fell off of, the army he was to join, the war and the broken leg are all Buddha.

There is no place to fall ... no leg to break ...

That said, stop the war, feed the horse, see a doctor about the leg.

Gassho, J
stlah