6/13 - Vow and Repentence p. 112

[John]

Re: 6/13 - Vow and Repentence p. 112

[
Doesn't atonement have a place in Zen? There is the Verse of Atonement :

From my understanding of ‘atonement’ in Buddhism, it seems more about ‘opening the doors of perception and awareness’, 'at-one-ment'
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Jy0A ... t#PPA37,M1

rather than the repentance, forgiveness and atonement process in Christianity. I think of atonement as what Christ suposedly did for us by dying on the cross so that our sins might be forgiven, but that's my evangelical background. Loori describes it in terms that make it sound more like an awakening process – a ’raising of consciouness’. Maybe the Japanese writers don't fully grasp the implications of these terms for a Western audience?

This is probably getting too long but I thougt this article on the Christian sense of forgiveness was interesting:

In some early Buddhist texts, the emphasis falls not on forgiving, but on the foolishness of taking offense in the first place:
“He abused me, he struck me, he overcame me, he robbed me”—in those who harbor such thoughts hatred will never cease.

“He abused me, he struck me, he overcame me, he robbed me”—in those who do not harbor such thoughts hatred will cease.

-- Dhammapada 1.3–4; trans. Radhakrishnan


......Buddhism queries the reality of the passions that make forgiveness necessary and also queries the reality of the objects of those passions. My anger, resentment, and hatred are delusions, and so is the crime or offense the other is thought to have committed against me. Indeed, my very concept of “myself” and of “other” is pervaded by delusion and fixation. Even if these Buddhist ideas were totally untrue, it would still be very wholesome to meditate on them at a time when national, ethnic, and religious identity has so often shown a murderous face.

http://www.hsuyun.org/Dharma/zbohy/Lite ... dhism.html

Gassho,
John

[Tony-KY]

Re: 6/13 - Vow and Repentence p. 112

CharlesC wrote:

Doesn't atonement have a place in Zen? There is the Verse of Atonement :

All harmful acts, words and thoughts, ever committed by me since of old,
On account of beginningless greed, anger and ignorance,
Born of my body, mouth and mind,
Now I atone for them all.

It's just for me that the words "Repentence" and "Atonement" carry meanings that I associate with my Evangelical Christian upbringing (confessing to and asking Christ for forgiveness) that don't quite carry over to my feelings towards Buddhism. I agree with Uchiyama Roshi that we should approach practice with humility which keeps bringing us back to zazen. And be aware of the consequences of our words and actions with other beings. Which I think is what Uchiyama means by "repentence". I think my quibble is just over my own associations with words; and therefore, should be just dropped .

Gassho, Tony

[Alberto]

Re: 6/13 - Vow and Repentence p. 112

I certainly recognise the experience from Nordic skating when the head only is filled with the sound from the skates cutting the ice, the sound of ice cracking somewhere deep; the sky is reflected in ice so you cannot say where ice starts and where it ends and you get the feeling you are flying...

Yes, I think no thoughts as such then.

Walking (hiking) makes me come into this state but only the kind of walking when I am not going some place to be to do something.

The question is how do I get into this state at work or doing other things that demand thought discrimination.

Irina

I've struggled with that last question and here is my take: we do not need to get into any state. We're not about attaining any particular state but about living whatever the particular moment brings. If an engineer attempts to shun discrimination in order to achieve some state, his bridge will fall. If the engineer uses discrimination in his work, he is "living the life of the self". Discrimination is zazen when the situation requires discrimination. Discrimination is enlightenment when you are taking care of your world in manners that require discrimination. Thought discrimination is Buddha activity just as much as muscle contraction; it is a function of the body. The problem is our habitual overreliance on thought discrimination. Thought is such a strong secretion that we start thinking that it's good for everything.

When you're going someplace, do you really need to be thinking "better hurry, gonna be late" or can you just calculate the speed you need and do the walking (just walking) without torturing yourself the rest of the way? I've been trying to be more mindful while driving, just drive, and if I really concentrate in what I'm doing I have no time to think whether they're gona hate me for being late, whether I'll miss this or that opportunity, etc. Buddha activity is calculating the route I'm taking; any other thought is unnecesary and, while those thoughts that stem from anxiety still arise, I try to stay alert and not let myself be pushed around by them. So my approach is to stay in the reality of the moment, and if the reality includes useless, anxious thought, I just watch it but try to return to the reality of the moment.

Your experience hearing skates on ice is one of enlightenment, and so is you effort at work to discriminate and choose the words for a letter so you can better convey what you mean. If you catch yourself at work wishing you were in some "zen" state, letting go of the imaginary state and returning to the real world is the best strategy, don't you think?

Zen itself is another fiction; but at least it helps you find what really is, right here, right now.

Thanks

Alberto

[Tb]

Re: 6/13 - Vow and Repentence p. 112

I certainly recognise the experience from Nordic skating when the head only is filled with the sound from the skates cutting the ice, the sound of ice cracking somewhere deep; the sky is reflected in ice so you cannot say where ice starts and where it ends and you get the feeling you are flying...

Yes, I think no thoughts as such then.

Walking (hiking) makes me come into this state but only the kind of walking when I am not going some place to be to do something.

The question is how do I get into this state at work or doing other things that demand thought discrimination.

Irina

I've struggled with that last question and here is my take: we do not need to get into any state. We're not about attaining any particular state but about living whatever the particular moment brings. If an engineer attempts to shun discrimination in order to achieve some state, his bridge will fall. If the engineer uses discrimination in his work, he is "living the life of the self". Discrimination is zazen when the situation requires discrimination. Discrimination is enlightenment when you are taking care of your world in manners that require discrimination. Thought discrimination is Buddha activity just as much as muscle contraction; it is a function of the body. The problem is our habitual overreliance on thought discrimination. Thought is such a strong secretion that we start thinking that it's good for everything.

When you're going someplace, do you really need to be thinking "better hurry, gonna be late" or can you just calculate the speed you need and do the walking (just walking) without torturing yourself the rest of the way? I've been trying to be more mindful while driving, just drive, and if I really concentrate in what I'm doing I have no time to think whether they're gona hate me for being late, whether I'll miss this or that opportunity, etc. Buddha activity is calculating the route I'm taking; any other thought is unnecesary and, while those thoughts that stem from anxiety still arise, I try to stay alert and not let myself be pushed around by them. So my approach is to stay in the reality of the moment, and if the reality includes useless, anxious thought, I just watch it but try to return to the reality of the moment.

Your experience hearing skates on ice is one of enlightenment, and so is you effort at work to discriminate and choose the words for a letter so you can better convey what you mean. If you catch yourself at work wishing you were in some "zen" state, letting go of the imaginary state and returning to the real world is the best strategy, don't you think?

Zen itself is another fiction; but at least it helps you find what really is, right here, right now.

Thanks

Alberto

Quite so.
Dont struggle to get "there" only to find it is "here"...
May the force be with you
Tb

[Jundo]

Re: 6/13 - Vow and Repentence p. 112

Hi Guys,

I missed this thread and question while in Vietnam. Sorry to be a month late!

Irina wrote:
The question is how do I get into this state at work or doing other things that demand thought discrimination.

Hi all,

I've seen other questions like this and have always had conflicting thoughts about my understanding of this. Here's my best shot at it today: We sit on the zafu and accept everything (as best we can) that happens when we do that with correct posture. Off the zafu, we live our lives and use the precepts to assist with regulation of actions, but we do not attempt to alter our thoughts or reach a particular state of mind. By sitting often, our thought patterns change of their own accord, we don't have to try to be anything other than ourselves.
Put another way, trying to reach the state that Charles mentioned probably wouldn't work. The way he gets to that state is to hike and let whatever happens happen (I'm guessing). Irina mentioned skating, same thing, immersing herself in the act is enough, but an attempt to create a particular state of mind is most often self-defeating. The way to play a great jazz solo is to execute the methods one has spent hours practicing without judgement. In other words, trust the practice.

Maybe Jundo could help us out with this.

Gassho,
Bill

No doubt, in daily life, we need discriminating mind, thoughts, emotions, likes and dislikes, past memories and future dreams to function. Otherwise, we could not even choose to get out of bed, plan how to make breakfast, learn not to walk into closed doors, not put our hand on hot stoves, etc. etc.

But our Zazen Practice helps us in a couple of ways in day to day life. One way is just to simplify all the clutter in our minds. Although we cannot do away with all or even most of it in order to function, we can learn to recognize and drop excess emotions (like excess longing for things that will "finally make us happy"), negative emotions like anger, greed, excessive fixation and guilt about the past (versus repentance and learning from the past), excessive worry about the future (versus planning for the future). In other words, like a "Zen" room, the thought furniture we need can be minimized to the essentials, and a lot of mental clutter and trash done without.

But our Zen Practice also lets us develop the skill called "thinking not thinking" or, as I put it, dropping not dropping thought. I described this today on another thread ...

In our Zen Practice, we drop judgments and preferences. We also learn how to drop without dropping. We do both at once. In "Just Sitting" Zazen, we drop all judgments and learn to live from such perspective, but people often misunderstand what this really means. Of course, if we are to live as human beings, we must have preferences and make choices. Otherwise, we can't function. We could not choose to stand up or sit down, wait for the green light to "go" instead of running red lights, we could not even choose to get out of bed in the morning.

So, how to do both at once? Ah, this is one of the great discoveries of Zen Buddhism, namely, that folks can live on a couple or more "channels" (for want of a better term) at once, seemingly conflicting viewpoints without conflict.

How?

Well, for example, we drop all "likes" and "dislikes" on one channel, even as we must have "likes" and "dislikes" on another. The result is
like choosing what you like, and avoiding what you dislike, but fully accepting either one ... all at the same time. For example, you go into
life's ice cream store and ask for vanilla. But all they have is strawberry, which you hate. You embrace the fact that life sometimes
gives strawberry. When vanilla, eat vanilla, when strawberry ... savor the strawberry.

Do you see a bit how that works? Most folks think that you must only live on one channel or the other.

HOWEVER, during Zazen itself, we practice dropping all preferences PERIOD. In life, we can live having both preferences and no preferences, but in Shikantaza, we just practice having no preferences. This is very important.

We stop thinking of early or late ... but sorry for the late response. Gassho, J

[Eika]

Re: 6/13 - Vow and Repentence p. 112

Thanks, Jundo.

Bill