BOOK OF EQUANIMITY - Case 8

[Rich]

I believe that practice itself is making good karma. In dealing with past karma practice is all I rely on.
I also believe in past lives but they are my ancestors and everthing else.
so if I have to give an answer to making cause and effect it is yes. But I don't. Know anything except being hungry
tired and smelly.

[Kaishin]

I will have to re-read the koan and commentaries several times, as when I think I've "got it," I lose it... Thank you for your long comments, Jundo.

Is this anything like seeing mountains as mountains, then as not-mountains, then as mountains again (but in a seeing-through-it way)? Trying to apply an analogy here that may not fit.

Signed,
The Fox

[Jundo]

Is this anything like seeing mountains as mountains, then as not-mountains, then as mountains again (but in a seeing-through-it way)? Trying to apply an analogy here that may not fit.

Signed,
The Fox

Hah! I would say so ... although mountains don't choose to move (I assume), and don't say or think or intentionally do things (compared to people anyway) ... so probably no Karma making there by mountains. "Karma" is typically defined as the volitional words, thoughts and actions of sentient beings (like you and me) and their effects.

Dogen included the mountains as "sentient beings", and in Shobogenzo said they "walk" ... but I don't believe he meant that in the normal way of seeing things.

Gassho, J

[Thane]

Thanks Jundo for your comments on this koan. I think i need to read this many times as there is a lot in this one!

I took from this koan that i need to not grasp concepts with my mind like the monk did when he answered his student 'he does not fall into cause and effect'. He was making statements from concepts and not lived experience.

I believe that Zen practice does make me a better painter of my life. By realising there is a blank canvas beneath it all but that the painting and canvas must interact and are one. I can fall into the trap of thinking that the canvas is the real show and forget that the painting on it is just as important. Zen practice helps me maintain this view.

Gassho

Thane

[Gary]

The following quote kind of sums up what I get from this koan.

"I don't knowing anything about Buddhas of the past, present, or future. But I know that cats exist, and I know that cows exist." Eisai to Dogen (via Brad)

Gassho
Gary

[Thane]

Hi Jundo

Thanks for you talk on this koan during Zazenkai, i found it very helpful. I like the phrase that you used about the two sides of the one sided mouth. I find that very useful for understanding this koan and karma in general. Thank you.

Gassho

Thane

[Jinyo]

Hi Jundo - just to say that I've read this - and will be reading it several times over before I write anything.
It's come at a good time for me - providing clarity over some questions that arose following reading the Brazier
text you recommended ( eight types of enlightenment) and his following chapters on Critical Buddhism.

I will listen to the talk now,

Thank you for your teaching

Gassho

Willow

[Kaishin]

Been turning this one over and over. Still don't know. But to answer your questions:

How are you painting your life now, and how would you like to paint it? Is Zen Practice helping to make you a better painter?

- Been painting my life with eight brushes at once. Quite a mess. Zen practice over the past few years has helped me to remove some of them. So now I'm painting with maybe three or four.

Why is it important neither to be "trapped in life's illusions" nor "fall into the blank, pristine canvas, becoming trapped there"? Does our Zen Practice help us learn to jump from one to the other, and to see the interplay of both? Are you getting better at doing so?

You can't run around cluelessly forever. But you can't sit on your ass forever either. Got to get up and live life. I think practice has brought heightened awareness to this interplay. Realizing that both are necessary views, but neither is whole in and of itself. And the combination isn't whole either. There's something else. A dance, as you say.

_/\_

5259796286_3595181f1d_n.jpg

[Kevin]

Jumping in late to the club here. About two years late. Back from the darkness...

I'm almost forty years old now. For literally twenty years I've been searching for the answer to this question: "What should I be doing with my life?" Sometimes I rephrase this as "What career should I choose?"

In the past twenty years, I've considered a dizzying array of career options as diverse as chef and computer programmer, musician and stockbroker, novelist and data analyst, and on and on. I have driven myself into depths of self-hatred, heights of misplaced anger, wastelands of self-isolation, etc. When, after about ten years of this, I was finally able to let someone (now my wife) close enough to observe this madness, I drove her crazy, too, though her countervailing love and support over the last decade has helped dredge my silted soul from the muck of all of this idiocy.

Only in the last month or two have I finally begun to realize these simple facts:

1. I am not what I do for a living
2. The career I have is just fine, thank you
3. I will not find "happiness" outside myself, no matter what career I have
4. My life is incredibly good. I have far more joy than sadness, far more love than hate. What sadness I do have is 95% self-generated. What hate I do experience is 100% self-hate.

In other words (and to tie it into this week's discussion), I've been painting a picture of suffering for twenty years, actively and deliberately painting it, then actively and deliberately hiding my brushes behind my own back so as to make it easier to believe that my painting is my reality, is the only reality, is, what's more, an objective and immutable reality.

For almost as long as I have been studying Zen, I had been one of those who have sought the blank canvas, even as I covered it. Now, with my muck-covered face, I realize that the canvas is never blank, never has been, and never will be. At the same time, without the canvas, the paint would be drops falling through the air, not forms on the canvas. And here's where words fall short, because the canvas is also perfectly blank, the paint also perfectly formed in midair. It all exists separately and together.

It's a bit like writing a too-long post, then looking up and blinking to realize there is a whole universe outside the grey lines on the glowing white screen, but that the universe contains those lines and that screen, wouldn't be what it is without them.

It's hard to keep them both in mind, separate. But, we don't have to. We don't have to keep them in mind at all, for they are mind. If you're at the bottom of the pool with a glass in your hand, are you holding a glass of water or simply holding a glass? Do you really have to find an answer to that question?

Gassho,
Kevin
aka. Joko

[Heisoku]

Thanks for your post Kevin...it rings!

[Risho]

Ugh, I know those questions. Sometimes they are relevant, but obsessing over them drives me nuts. lol

Gassho,

Risho

[Kaishin]

Thanks for your post Kevin...it rings!

I'll second that! I think you just saved me 10 future years of the same tail-chasing... been contemplating the same things recently.

_/\_

[Kyonin]

I know I have a very limited vision of this koan and I really need to study it a lot more, but it moved something inside me.

Causation. That's a word I seldom had studied.

We are here because of the work and effort of countless people in history. Right now we are sowing the seeds for someone in the future.

I am not sure about karma, all I know is that our actions today have consequences no matter what. This translates as responsibility.

How are you painting your life now, and how would you like to paint it? Is Zen Practice helping to make you a better painter?

I am painting my life as I want and as I never imagined I could. I can't think of anything better than this. To the eyes of a lot of people I am poor, don't own a car, don't have anything at all... but to me I have everything.

Yes, Zen helps a lot. I can see and understand my past, all I did and everything that happened and come to terms with it all. I can see my present and every single day as the greatest gift ever and I live for that.

And the dharma is always there.


Why is it important neither to be "trapped in life's illusions" nor "fall into the blank, pristine canvas, becoming trapped there"? Does our Zen Practice help us learn to jump from one to the other, and to see the interplay of both? Are you getting better at doing so?

To me, one of the main points of my non-practice and the vows I take every morning is to perceive reality, though reality is boundless. Attachments and aversions are powerful illusions that haunt us every moment. When I simply see life for what it is, even for a little moment, my relationship with things becomes so simple... Yet I have so many attachments and aversions. So yes, I keep jumping on both sides, but slowly turning towards the middle.

Yes, I think I'm getting better at doing so.

Wonderful teaching. Thank you, Jundo.

Gassho,

Kyoinin

[Shugen]

How are you painting your life now, and how would you like to paint it? Is Zen Practice helping to make you a better painter?

I'm painting my life now the best that I am able. I would like to paint it a little better. Zen practice gives me a little space from which to work.

I'm enjoying the koans especially the various commentary.

Ron




Shugen

[Ekai]

Jumping in late to the club here. About two years late. Back from the darkness...

I'm almost forty years old now. For literally twenty years I've been searching for the answer to this question: "What should I be doing with my life?" Sometimes I rephrase this as "What career should I choose?"

In the past twenty years, I've considered a dizzying array of career options as diverse as chef and computer programmer, musician and stockbroker, novelist and data analyst, and on and on. I have driven myself into depths of self-hatred, heights of misplaced anger, wastelands of self-isolation, etc. When, after about ten years of this, I was finally able to let someone (now my wife) close enough to observe this madness, I drove her crazy, too, though her countervailing love and support over the last decade has helped dredge my silted soul from the muck of all of this idiocy.

Only in the last month or two have I finally begun to realize these simple facts:

1. I am not what I do for a living
2. The career I have is just fine, thank you
3. I will not find "happiness" outside myself, no matter what career I have
4. My life is incredibly good. I have far more joy than sadness, far more love than hate. What sadness I do have is 95% self-generated. What hate I do experience is 100% self-hate.

In other words (and to tie it into this week's discussion), I've been painting a picture of suffering for twenty years, actively and deliberately painting it, then actively and deliberately hiding my brushes behind my own back so as to make it easier to believe that my painting is my reality, is the only reality, is, what's more, an objective and immutable reality.

For almost as long as I have been studying Zen, I had been one of those who have sought the blank canvas, even as I covered it. Now, with my muck-covered face, I realize that the canvas is never blank, never has been, and never will be. At the same time, without the canvas, the paint would be drops falling through the air, not forms on the canvas. And here's where words fall short, because the canvas is also perfectly blank, the paint also perfectly formed in midair. It all exists separately and together.

It's a bit like writing a too-long post, then looking up and blinking to realize there is a whole universe outside the grey lines on the glowing white screen, but that the universe contains those lines and that screen, wouldn't be what it is without them.

It's hard to keep them both in mind, separate. But, we don't have to. We don't have to keep them in mind at all, for they are mind. If you're at the bottom of the pool with a glass in your hand, are you holding a glass of water or simply holding a glass? Do you really have to find an answer to that question?

Gassho,
Kevin
aka. Joko

Thanks for your post. It does ring so true!

Gassho,
Ekai