LIVING by VOW: The Heart Sutra - pp 177-185 (Stopping at No Attainment)

[Doshin]

Hi all

Shohaku Okumura offers such wisdom in his commentary on the Heart Sutra and this passage particularly stuck out for me:

"The lessons of the four noble truths are straightforward. We spend out lives trying to fill the emptiness we feel. When we succeed we are happy and feel as if we are in heaven. When we fail we are miserable as if we are in hell."

This is such a wonderful way to approach the noble truths that we can all understand. Instead of dealing with what reality gives us and opening up to the good and bad feelings of life, we construct a layer on top trying to cover up impermanence and dukkha. When one fun thing ends we look for the next. Finished a Netflix series? Find something else on Sky or Amazon Prime. Ended a relationship? Get straight back onto online dating sites to get the next hit of feeling good.

I once saw a book about stress and anxiety called "Too Tired to Keep Running, Too Scared to Stop." This phrase seems to sum up the experience of a lot of people in the western world. We don't want to stop and feel what is actually going on. Let us instead live vicariously through our favourite film stars and musicians and interactions on social media that give us dopamine hit after dopamine hit.

The Heart Sutra tells us that all of these are (literally) empty experiences. That being the case, so is everything else. However, if we just sit we can see that all of this beauty and magic around us arises and passes, seemingly from nowhere. We don't need to keep grabbing onto experience, just let it rise and fall in its own time.

Stop. Sit. Be.

That is all there is.

All this being said, I am a novice priest who often gets things wrong so take the above with a cellar full of salt.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

Doshin
stlah

[Onkai]

Thank you, everyone on this thread. It is an eye-opener.

In the reading, I especially liked the following paragraph, on p 184

One day something made me sit on a cushion. I had no desire, no reason, no need to sit, but found myself sitting at the apartment by myself. It was very peaceful. I didn't sit because of the Buddha's teaching. I didn't need a reason to sit; I just sat. There was no need to compete with others or with myself. Thereafter I didn't need to sit as often as I had before. I could sit just as much as my physical condition allowed. Finally I felt free of my understanding of the Buddha's teachings and my desire to be a good monk. I felt free to be myself and nothing more. I was still a deluded, ordinary human being with ignorance and desires. But when I just sat and let go of thoughts, I was - or more precisely, my zazen was - free of ignorance and selfish desires.

Gassho,
Onkai
Sat/LAH

[Seishin]

Thank you for you wisdom Kokuu.

[Jundo]

My guess is it is a simple matter of tradition and this-is-the-way-it-is-done-ness.


Tairin
Sat today & LAH

My comment on this from time to time: Many Japanese tend to FETISHIZE the Lotus Posture. Yes, that is what is said .... "FETISHIZE", as Japanese culture often gets caught up in appearance and "form for the sake of form" more than substance sometimes. I have written about this before ...

Sorry that this comment is a bit long, but worth going into in detail I think ...

Posture is vital. But I think we have to keep a couple of things in mind about the history of the Lotus Position itself, its real benefits and purposes, monastery life, the Japanese tendency to fetishize the "correct" way (yarikata) to do things, and the Buddha's and Dogen's central philosophical perspectives on Practice.

Yes, the Lotus Position has been the traditional yogic position for meditation for thousands of years, even before the time of the Buddha. And certainly the Buddha sat that way (as every statue of a sitting Buddha demonstrates). And certainly there are tremendous benefits to the posture in providing balance and stability conducive to 'dropping body and mind' and engaging in balanced, stable Zazen. In that posture, we literally can give no thought to the body. The comfort and balance of the body is directly connected, and conducive to, comfort and balance of mind.

But I would hesitate to go much further in attributing any special power or physical effect to the position itself.

First off, I believe the Buddha himself sat that way because, well, he needed to sit some way for hours on end -- and the "lotus position" was then the custom in India for how people sat on the ground and very good for marathon sitting. It is a good way to sit on a rock or under a tree, which is what folks did back then (in fact, he may have sat with his posterior flat on the ground, by the way, or on a short pile of grass without a cushion or 'Zafu' ... which is very different from how we sit). As I said, it is very balanced and stable. But there is no evidence in the early Sutras and Shastras that he himself ever focused on the position itself as having some special power, always emphasizing the philosophical and psychological aspects of Buddhist philosophy far over the purely physical. Certainly, he did not encourage engaging in any other yoga positions as were common in India at the time (e.g., we do not stand on our heads as a normal part of practice), so I do not think he was a great proponent of the positional type of yoga itself.

When Buddhism spread to China, Japan and other countries, I believe that people continued to follow the custom. However, even then there have been a tremendous degree of small variations in the details of the Lotus Posture, e.g., hand position, back angle and such.

Now, when Zazen came to Dogen, well, it came to a fellow who also left us with detailed instructions about how to carry our towels in the washroom, clean our nose, bow, place incense, use a pillow while sleeping and wipe ourselves in the toilet (really, he did ... pages and pages on each). Dogen, like many Japanese of ancient and modern times, was something of a control freak who emphasized that there is "one right way" to do things (the aforementioned (yarikata). I have seen Japanese get the same way about the proper way to wear socks and enter an elevator. Here is that wonderful short film that makes fun of it (I know that you have seen it 100 times):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b75cl4-qRE

and here is another

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3vBqX1NTBc

Now, that is not a bad thing, mind you, for Zen Practice. Don't get me wrong. It is the same mentality exactly as in "Oryoki" meal taking in a Zen monastery by which the simple act of eating requires dozens and dozens of set gestures that must be mastered in the body memory. It is conducive to many aspects of Practice, including focused mindfulness. Sitting in a set way such as the Lotus Posture has the same benefits of allowing the action itself to be forgotten as it is mastered by the body memory.

Also, of course, in a monastery ... like in army boot camp ... you don't want folks just running around and flopping down any which way they feel, eating and sleeping whenever they wish. Quite the contrary. Discipline is required, so naturally, is the demand that everyone march around the monastery and sit in exactly the same way.

If you look at Shobogenzo and other writings by Dogen, he actually spends very little time explaining the details of how to sit. In Fukanzazengi, for example, he explains the barebones act of sitting on a cushion, crossing the legs and such ... but for sentence after sentence after sentence he is focused on the "cosmic significance" of Zazen and the mental game. It is much the same when he describes how to carry a towel in the bath, wear our robes, bow or go to the toilet. He describes the procedure, but then is much more focused on the philosophical view of the act.

Gassho, J

SatTodayLAH

[Jundo]

PS - When I sat at a monastery in China a couple of years back, I found the monks sitting in all manner of positions ... please watch here from the 6:30 mark (also, you can catch my big cameos at about the 00:20 and 02:50 marks, in the inside "slow lane" during the very fast Kinhin) ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIsQ91b0xUg

[Jakuden]

Hi all

Shohaku Okumura offers such wisdom in his commentary on the Heart Sutra and this passage particularly stuck out for me:

"The lessons of the four noble truths are straightforward. We spend out lives trying to fill the emptiness we feel. When we succeed we are happy and feel as if we are in heaven. When we fail we are miserable as if we are in hell."

This is such a wonderful way to approach the noble truths that we can all understand. Instead of dealing with what reality gives us and opening up to the good and bad feelings of life, we construct a layer on top trying to cover up impermanence and dukkha. When one fun thing ends we look for the next. Finished a Netflix series? Find something else on Sky or Amazon Prime. Ended a relationship? Get straight back onto online dating sites to get the next hit of feeling good.

I once saw a book about stress and anxiety called "Too Tired to Keep Running, Too Scared to Stop." This phrase seems to sum up the experience of a lot of people in the western world. We don't want to stop and feel what is actually going on. Let us instead live vicariously through our favourite film stars and musicians and interactions on social media that give us dopamine hit after dopamine hit.

The Heart Sutra tells us that all of these are (literally) empty experiences. That being the case, so is everything else. However, if we just sit we can see that all of this beauty and magic around us arises and passes, seemingly from nowhere. We don't need to keep grabbing onto experience, just let it rise and fall in its own time.

Stop. Sit. Be.

That is all there is.

All this being said, I am a novice priest who often gets things wrong so take the above with a cellar full of salt.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

[emoji120][emoji120][emoji120]
Gassho
Jakuden
SatToday/LAH

PS what a great thread!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[pthwaites]

Thank you all for this discussion - so much wisdom.

Gassho

Sat today

Peter

Sent from my SM-G935L using Tapatalk

[AlanLa]

I have no desire to eliminate desire. That's just silly. Living with desire is Zen, and so I practice the dropping of not dropping it as well as the not dropping of dropping it

[Shugen]

I have no desire to eliminate desire. That's just silly. Living with desire is Zen, and so I practice the dropping of not dropping it as well as the not dropping of dropping it