8/17 - The Price of Practice p.39

[wills]

Re: the price of practice

So the price for this priceless, free life is to give up everything we 'think' is life and give all of ourself to the living of it--just like all the rest of life does!

This is much like what I came away with by reading this chapter. To get to the point of a free and priceless life, Joko points to the hard work needed. We have to drop our ordinary thinking and this takes commitment and practice. I personally was not caught by her analogy and metaphor of a "price to pay".

She would have done better to use Jundo's learning to sail analogy where sure life is already complete yet it is good to spend the effort to learn about navigation, weather patterns and how to steer the boat into the harbor. These aspects of sailing knowledge are sort of the "price to pay" for the "already perfect sailing". In this example of sailing this all seems like fun and interesting stuff. As we start to look at dropping our ordinary thinking and our usual modes of behaving in the world, we become challenged and the atmosphere becomes less than fun. We are more invested in how we think the world is as apposed to how it is.

Sure the admonition in Soto Zen is to simply drop all that ordinary thinking and be the world as it is. Cool, easy and done! Yet as soon as I get off the cushion, go to work and some doctor confronts me in an angry way, I'm right back in the ordinary world of this and that. I have to remember to practice and use the techniques of returning to the breath and my precept training in order to get back to clouds floating in a clear sky.

Sorry of all the crappy psychotherapy language. Dogen says the same thing when he says "All the worlds in the Ten Directions are One Bright Pearl" and it sure fells better and more comfortable this way.

From the ordinary point of view, the price we must pay is enormous - though seen clearly, it is no price at all, but a privilege. As our practice grows we comprehend this privilege more and more.

Clearly there is no price at all. Practice is indeed a privilege. In the end Joko, throws away the whole "price to pay" thing.

[wills]

Indeed, to be born in a human form, to find a teacher, to hear the Dharma, to have the opportunity to practice with others, is for sure a privilege not to be wasted. This is my time and I have to use it well.

[Jundo]

Hey Guys,

In case you are wondering, I am staying out of this one for now, letting the soup boil and thicken. I am just wondering where the discussion will go.

It is interesting (and something I never doubted) that people can find different things in the same words. Even the same words on different days have different impact.

Gassho, Jundo

[wills]

And yet there are other people who don't see it so. If only they could know that it can require no effort, that it is simple, that it costs nothing, that it is nothing separate from our life as-it-is just as-it-is.

If we swallow this "require no effort, that it is simple, that it costs nothing, that it is nothing separate from our life as-it-is just as-it-is" with our ordinary mind we are lost for sure! In the ordinary sense of things, which is where we live our social lives, we are required to expend the effort to get to zazen, study the teachings, go to retreats, Zen is not at all simple to understand, to follow the forms and protocols, the costs can be high in terms of what we have to give up to practice, both personally and monetarily, and the lay practitioner will have to carve out time and separate themselves from their busy life's for formal Zazen.

“If there were even though a bit of the smallest gap, then the gap would become bigger and bigger as if it were like distance between the heaven and the earth.”

This "gap" refers to our ordinary mind. If we try to understand or intellectualize Zen we introduce the ordinary mind and create a gap. This gap becomes bigger and bigger till our understand is so distorted it is like the distance between heaven and the earth.

[wills]

I am a simple Zen student. I can not deny the existence of ordinary mind. I see it it everywhere. When I remember to slow down and wake up a little bit, I use the precepts to guide me. I feel lost and confused. I feel the desire to reflect on my motives.

Next week should be real fun when we get to the "Reward of Practice"! 8)

[cdshrack]

Wow. That was quite interesting! Thank you and gassho!

I'm not sure how this is related, but it seems that if there are many paths to climb the same mountain, then in Zen or any other school of thought there must be countless approaches which slowly bring us closer and closer to the same point, yes? At best, it's all just fingers pointed at the moon, i think.

When i practiced many years ago it was different than when i practice now, and every day it seems i draw closer to when practice is practice. And although practice is practice now, and skiing is skiing and baking bread is baking bread, it seems that when i look back it never is just so, so i should keep practicing, keep skiing, keep baking, etc. just doing.

And as long as that is the case, perhaps that is the "price" which has been alluded to? I really can't be bothered to figure it out, I have some doing to do.

Gassho,
cd

[Gregor]

Let me chime in here,

I think it's a bit of mixed bag One the most pure and fundamental level yes, no effort is needed, it is easy, and there is nothing to attain or work towards.


But on the level of our day-to-day lives, the situation is a bit different. We all have not fufilled our potential. We do not see the true nature of reality, we have delusions, conditioning and live lives permeated by suffering. There is effort needed to live a life in accord with our pure nature. This comes down with to a topic oft discussed by Nishijima Roshi, the need to establish the will for the truth or Bodichitta. We need to put in some effort and direction into our practice in order to see the truth and live skillfull lives.

Sitting Zazen daily, studying the dharma, and working diligently to sow the seeds of good are not something that comes naturally and without effort for anybody.

To paraphrase Dogen Zenji, "It is present everywhere, but only those that have previously sowed the seeds of wisdom will be able to see it constantly" So in other words we need to do some work (pay a price) in order to find what has always been there. But, of course it may come down to a the simple action of subtracting effort rather than expending it, which is not the same thing as being lazy and not practicing (my downfall).

Take care,

Greg