BOOK OF EQUANIMITY - Case 11

[Jigetsu]

I think you're right on, actually, and that one of the things we constantly try to do with ourselves, like is Koan, is to figure ourselves out. To get ourselves straight and clean and nicely and thoroughly let-go. And we try to wrap our mind around this, going, "Hey, am I straightened out now? Did this sitting do it? Yep, I'm pretty sure I let go completely this time." And so, our practice is just like this Koan, with us going, "Yes, Now I'm a good almost perfect Buddhist, I think, I'm pretty sure, here, let me check." But that's a sickness. Where, what, how to check? Nothing to see there. So the first sickness is like trying to get a view of the self and make sure we've got it. The second sickness is more about mistaking the Dharma for the self, going, "Yes, got it, found it." Which as Taigu wonderfully pointed out in one video is exactly when we don't have it, when we're sick. But I think there's another one, another sickness, or at least there is for me. when we are lost in thoughts, lost a bit in Samsara, we like to go, "Oh crap, now I'm not being a good Zen person and I need to get figured out again, get back to my Zen self, get in line with the Dharma again, okay, let me sit and let some light penetrate" - and that's another sickness. We're kind of like the guy sitting on the bed in video Jundo posted - our little thoughts arguing and judging and all the while our little ego either confused or pleased or sick or unable to see the little game it's playing. Be sick and in that being sick not so sick. Maybe, who knows.

This was perfect Alan. I'm very grateful for the response, and it's "not just you". I see that third sickness all the time. Anytime I do something and I'm afraid I violated a precept, anytime I don't sit, or when I don't sit long enough, I find myself thinking I have to start back from zero.

Which of course, we're always at anyway, I just make it something it's not.

[Shohei]

Well I have given this time to steep and I must say I can't say which sickness I'm not at various times. It all depends and included in that sickness in the belief that I am okay. I often do not check to see if I am being that good zen buddhist guy, other times I "know" (sometime that's delusion, sometimes truth).
I find more and more though I see my sickness reflected back to me in the things I run into that get my goat or seem so obvious in others - woot there I go again. This is not something to beat out of me or replace with pristine goodness. Just more sweeping, noticing the dust bunnies and picking them up when the roll by (common in my house )

Gassho
Shohei

[Shokai]

Thank you all for your contributions to this thread. I've been "on the road" for over a week Thinking that you were all my surrogates. So, I brought back some Jim Beam just in case I run out of medicine:IMG_4605.jpg Not sure how this fellow fits into the story but, please note; no socks and sandals! As for the mariner; met him in a town called Newburyport.

btw, if you're ever there don't bother going to Plum Island.

[Daisho]

Here's the part I like:

"Thus, says the Preface to this Koan, even the bodyless, mouthless man who is never truly sick and never ultimately hungry better take his medicine and eat healthy ... because the disease is chronic and never ends, requiring daily treatment! "

Thinking about my chronic diseases and all the suffering can be pretty debilitating BUT daily treatment is a way to keep from drowning in the pit of depression! Being aware of how my ego causes me to suffer/be diseased is only half the picture. Strengthening practice, consistently sitting zazen is a way out of suffering/disease isn't it? I've got to find a little hope or I'll just slip into the disease of denial, and change my name to Pollyanna!!!

[AlanLa]

I am one sick surfer dude, and I am ok/not ok with that. To further the disease analogy, it's like something without a cure but it is manageable with medication, like diabetes. I can live a full life, but I need to be careful in what I do and diligent in taking my insulin/zazen. I strive to be as healthy as possible, but even when I achieve what seems like a healthy balance, I am not free of my sickness. When I do feel free of it is when I screw up or things get screwed up, and then I have to go back to the basics of awareness and practice as forms of disease/life management.

Reading that koan was an immediate flashback to the old story of cleaning dust off the mirror and how there is no dust or mirror. Same thing, pretty much.

Brilliant video, both funny and thought provoking.

[BrianW]

In your practice, where do you feel you are in suffering and treating these various diseases?

In some ways I think of the sicknesses brought up in by Ummon as being cyclical rather than a hierarchy. The reading seemed to imply, to me anyway, that you pass from the sickness of a "taste of emptyness" to "a white canvas without the painting" and finally one goes beyond both. Nevertheless, I could see repeating these mistakes over and over.....they just seem to be so subtle.....and we seem to be so forgetful.

Gassho,
Jisen/BrianW

[galen]

In your practice, where do you feel you are in suffering and treating these various diseases?

In some ways I think of the sicknesses brought up in by Ummon as being cyclical rather than a hierarchy. The reading seemed to imply, to me anyway, that you pass from the sickness of a "taste of emptyness" to "a white canvas without the painting" and finally one goes beyond both. Nevertheless, I could see repeating these mistakes over and over.....they just seem to be so subtle.....and we seem to be so forgetful.

Gassho,
Jisen/BrianW

Thank you Brian and Jisen,

Thank you for sharing Ummon insight on this.

It seems the ego can be quite subtle, causing the repeat of mistakes over and over, and in one sense forgetful, but then again not so subtle, and remembers every damn thing . And as you seem to point out, at one point moving beyond (both) this cyclical duality of the egos seemingly never ending game. It seems your point is good reasoning for Zen and zazen, knocking this damn ego off its hierarchal position.


_/\_

galen

[BrianW]

Galen,

Good point of "being forgetful, yet remembering every damn thing"! Yes zazen and Zen study both needed!

Gassho,
Jisen/BrianW

[Kyonin]

In your practice, where do you feel you are in suffering and treating these various diseases?

All I know is the more I live and practice, the more I realize there's still a long way to go. I am diluted at so many levels, but at the same time I can see some of life with a clear vision I had never experienced.

This koan reminds me of my first boss, when I was a teenager working at Burger King. Whenever we were low on costumers, the boss said: "You have nothing to do? Clean over the clean".

So even if the kitchen was sparkly clean, we had to clean again. And then I realized that there was always a place I had missed on the first run. Maybe it was a small corner underneath a container, maybe it was a tiny sesame seed forgotten on the work table. There was always something new to clean.

This experience taught me to never think I'm done.

In my practice, I guess I'll die before I'm done learning.

But that's a great thing. Always moving, always learning.

Gassho,

Kyonin

[andyZ]

Good point Kyonin, thank you.

[Koshin]

Good point Kyonin, thank you.

Ditto

Still sick,always sick... Too much to learn, too much to un-learn. I always relied too much on my intellectual side, I now know that I am sick and deluded, but I fail to clearly distinguish the symptoms of my illness. Back to the zafu :P

Gassho

[Jundo]

In your practice, where do you feel you are in suffering and treating these various diseases?

All I know is the more I live and practice, the more I realize there's still a long way to go. I am diluted at so many levels, but at the same time I can see some of life with a clear vision I had never experienced.

This koan reminds me of my first boss, when I was a teenager working at Burger King. Whenever we were low on costumers, the boss said: "You have nothing to do? Clean over the clean".

So even if the kitchen was sparkly clean, we had to clean again. And then I realized that there was always a place I had missed on the first run. Maybe it was a small corner underneath a container, maybe it was a tiny sesame seed forgotten on the work table. There was always something new to clean.

This experience taught me to never think I'm done.

In my practice, I guess I'll die before I'm done learning.

But that's a great thing. Always moving, always learning.

Gassho,

Kyonin

Thank you Kyonin.

Something Pristine and Clear from the First in Buddha's Kitchen, never in need of cleaning, nothing to improve, beyond and holding all appearances of spic and span or of soiled and stained as judged by small human vision.

Yet, we must clean clean clean constantly, for the kitchen is ever dirty anew, a householder's work is never done, and we best keep things tidy or we'll all get poisoned.

All True At Once, As One. Nothing describes Buddhist Practice better.

Gassho, Jundo

[Jundo]

I am writing while on the ferry back to Honshu from Hokkaido, precisely 20km offshore from the Fukushima Nuclear Reactors visible quite clearly on the beach from here. Teacher Joan Sutherland had a comment in a recent issue of Buddhadharma on environmental and political action and fixing the world, which touches on all this. She said ...

Neither can exist in isolation, and if one part of our practice is about a deepening experience of spaciousness, the other part is about embodying that in the world. It’s the old form and emptiness thing, and if you fall too far on one side or the other, something is missing.

You have to do the difficult work of getting tossed back and forth between the quiet, spacious world and the active, lively world until it doesn’t feel like you’re being tossed anymore, until you find something underneath that contains both the stillness and the activity, no matter what the circumstance. The more we rest in that and emerge from that in our activities, the less there is a sense of losing something because we’re including the other and the more there is a sense that practice is one whole thing we can gladly work with. ...

http://www.thebuddhadharma.com/web-archive/2012/2/10/i-vow-to-be-political-buddhism-social-change-and-skillful-me.html

We must go deeply deeply deeply into the boundless stillness and silence, and then deeply deeply deeply into the spacious active world bringing all to life ... for All is One.

Gassho, J

[Tb]

QUESTION:

In your practice, where do you feel you are in suffering and treating these various diseases?

Hi.

In my everyday practice, everything goes up and down, as do all things in life, and it's all good practice, and that is fine.
Speaking about the various diseases, they come and go, and sometimes mutate, but they are always present, always there with me, whether i want it or not, or acknowledge them or not.
And since they are always with me, i am always with them.
Sometimes in different ways, sometimes, healing, sometimes suffering, sometimes treating, but always here.

Other than that i have nothing to add which has not already been said.

Mtfbwy
Fugen

[Risho]

I am writing while on the ferry back to Honshu from Hokkaido, precisely 20km offshore from the Fukushima Nuclear Reactors visible quite clearly on the beach from here. Teacher Joan Sutherland had a comment in a recent issue of Buddhadharma on environmental and political action and fixing the world, which touches on all this. She said ...

Neither can exist in isolation, and if one part of our practice is about a deepening experience of spaciousness, the other part is about embodying that in the world. It’s the old form and emptiness thing, and if you fall too far on one side or the other, something is missing.

You have to do the difficult work of getting tossed back and forth between the quiet, spacious world and the active, lively world until it doesn’t feel like you’re being tossed anymore, until you find something underneath that contains both the stillness and the activity, no matter what the circumstance. The more we rest in that and emerge from that in our activities, the less there is a sense of losing something because we’re including the other and the more there is a sense that practice is one whole thing we can gladly work with. ...

http://www.thebuddhadharma.com/web-archive/2012/2/10/i-vow-to-be-political-buddhism-social-change-and-skillful-me.html

We must go deeply deeply deeply into the boundless stillness and silence, and then deeply deeply deeply into the spacious active world bringing all to life ... for All is One.

Gassho, J

Thank you! This was a very timely post. I can't explain it, but for some reason I was just thinking about the idea of No-Self. I don't get why this is such a big deal. Of course we are ever changing and interdependent. Our sense of self is rooted in our concept of who we are, which is probably different than who we really are, but I don't know if we can ever know because we are what we think in a way... But this touches on this topic for me... it's not just the intellectualization of this concept... I get the idea, but it's the true realization of no-self which is the kicker. I guess that would be when you aren't tossed back and forth any longer. you aren't tossed back and forth because there isn't anything separate from everything else to be tossed back and forth. There are no short cuts to this. I just sit daily and let what unfold, unfold, and let the practice bloom through me naturally.

In other words, you can talk about reading and you can read... You cannot rush the process, and no amount of intellectualization will bring one to realization. Although I understand it intellectually, I don't have this realization of no-self yet (or maybe I do and don't know. lol), honestly. I'm practicing, practicing. It will happen naturally or it won't but I just have to keep practicing. Thank you again for posting this. Sometimes I get worried that I don't get this, or I don't understand these topics deeply enough, but I forget to just drop all of that and do the practice.

Gassho for this,

Risho