Opening the Hand of Thought - Chapter 2

[Jundo]

We continue to Chapter 2, The Meaning of Zazen ...

Some suggested themes (please ignore or bring up anything else you might wish):

By what comparisons do you define yourself (literally, define your "self")?

What would life be like if you dropped the comparisons?

Granted, we cannot drop all the comparisons and function in this daily world (the Social Services would certainly be at my door if I suddenly forgot the category "parent" to my "child" ), so can we perhaps learn to drop the comparisons even with and amid the comparisons? Perhaps keep the comparisons for functional purposes, but not be so tightly bound and tied by them?

Gassho, J

SatToday

[Jishin]

1- By what comparisons do you tend to define yourself (literally, define your "self")?

2 - What would life be like if you dropped the comparisons?

1- Form vs form. Jishin vs Jundo. Jishin taller, better looking, etc. Or maybe the other way around, depends who you ask.

2 - Jishin = Jundo. Form = emptiness, emptiness = form. Jundo sleeps with Jishin's wife, empties Jishin's bank accounts and goes to Disney World. No problem. Big happy family singing kumbaya around the campfire. But really, no-self to compare, thus no-thing. No-thought, just...

Not 1. Not 2. Perhaps things are just as they are. Jundo is just Jundo. Jishin is just Jishin. Jundo is a teacher and teaches. Jishin is a student and studies. Jundo and Jishin practice. Save sentient beings. Decrease suffering in others and thereby Self. This is Zazen.

I don't know.

Gasho, Jishin, _/st\_

[Getchi]

Still waiting for my physical copy, but one way ive been defining myself is "sucks to be them".

I think it's almost a sort of elitism, that I am content with my ways and feel bad for those deluded and ignorant fools I have to work with. Its a bit harsh, but I suspect many here can relate. For example; the idea of getting drunk every weekend with a group of friends who do exactly the same thing seems to me a complete waste of life an one of the most horrible things I could imagine. As does waking people up because they've slpet too long, criticising there use of butter or getting into those fights where things are said that cause heartache in our loved ones and take a long time to get over.

All of those are examples from teh past week ive had to live through. Again, my language says it all - I didnt actually live through it, it was just in front of me and repulsed me.

Loosening up those boundaries has let me see these people are perfect "just-as-they-are". I still think they coul dbe happier and more content living differently (more in line with my ideals and mores, of course ) and I think it would be unskillful to drop that desire, but in general I was creating extra suffering for myself that I (not-I) didnt need.

Without that comparison, im gaining a deeper insight into Anicca and Anatta and can start to see that because all things are change, and conditional, that teh "future" (what ever that really is) does not need to necessarily be our past actions. Old habits can be dropped, new ones taken up. Anyone can follow there "buddha-nature" and find peace.

And for that im deeply grateful to Treeleaf's many lovely people and teachers!



Gassho,
Geoff.
A student.


SatToday, and was thankful.

[ForestDweller]

Start With Self

Even people who have studied and practiced Buddhism for a long time continue to search for a “cure” to the loneliness spoken of in Chapter 2, and often, that search is conducted “outside yourself.” Paradoxically, if the search is not turned inward (“shine the light inside the hut”), the external will never come right. Defining ourselves by other people and things is never going to work; we know this. Before we can successfully move outward, we need to build that “foundation of the self.” Sometimes I think the brahmaviharas are a two-part business, with joy (empathetic or not) and tranquility needing to be established first, internally, before we can move out into the world with loving kindness and compassion. I know it’s not linear, but to me, this makes sense. It would seem also, to take off on a topic of this week’s chapter, that unless we really get to know “the naked self,” we will never really know anything at all. Perhaps a place to start is the self, the life, that continues when we are asleep or comatose. Who is this? Has this self become the “universal self,” and if so, how can we retain awareness of this “true self” when we awake(n)?
^^ForestSatToday^^ _ CatherineS

[Onkai]

Uchiyama seemed to me to be saying that to live with raw reality is to be aware of our relations to other people, which may be comparisons, but not identifying fully with these externals. The life force is coursing through us regardless of our comparisons, yet the comparisons are also a part of life.

Gassho,
Laurie/On Kai
SatToday

[Jundo]

... Jundo sleeps with Jishin's wife, empties Jishin's bank accounts and goes to Disney World.

How did you find you!? It was just that one time, I swear.

[Jishin]

How did you find you!?

Stopped looking.

Gasho, Jishin, _/st\_

[Ongen]

Like Getchi, I'm also still waiting for the hardcopy. In that line alone is already a mound of comparison and selfication
For normal functioning indeed comparison is a nescessity.
But dropping comparison makes every thing so clear and simple! I try to continuously be aware of rising comparisons and always see through them while using them for normal funcitoning at the same time.
Many comparions that at first seem nescessary, are not at all if you look at them closely.

Hope to add more when I've read the chapter, hopefully by the end of this week.

Gassho
Ongen
sat today

[Myosha]

Hello,

As living is ever-changing and unpredictable, the least odious comparison to a (small 's')self is the cherry blossom:

Picture a gorgeous cherry tree in full bloom. When it's time the flowers start to be blown away with the wind.
Some of the cherry blossoms are quick to go. Yet others stay in bloom longer.
But, depending on conditions, even the very last cherry flower on the tree is blown away by the wind.
- from a Japanese saying

As the wind blows, so does it go.

Dropping the comparison leaves (leafs?) the living tree.


Gassho
Myosha sat today

[Kaishin]

Still waiting for my physical copy, but one way ive been defining myself is "sucks to be them".

I think it's almost a sort of elitism, that I am content with my ways and feel bad for those deluded and ignorant fools I have to work with. Its a bit harsh, but I suspect many here can relate. For example; the idea of getting drunk every weekend with a group of friends who do exactly the same thing seems to me a complete waste of life an one of the most horrible things I could imagine. As does waking people up because they've slpet too long, criticising there use of butter or getting into those fights where things are said that cause heartache in our loved ones and take a long time to get over.

All of those are examples from teh past week ive had to live through. Again, my language says it all - I didnt actually live through it, it was just in front of me and repulsed me.

Just came across this today while reading from Shobogenzo:

Do not be concerned with the faults of others. Do not see others’ faults with a hateful mind. There is an old saying that if you stop seeing others’ faults, then naturally seniors are venerated and juniors are revered. Do not imitate others’ faults; just cultivate virtue. The Buddha prohibited unwholesome actions but did not tell us to despise those who practice unwholesome actions.

Dogen, Zen Master (2013-02-05). Treasury of the True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dogen's <i>Shobo Genzo</i> (Kindle Locations 2550-2552). Shambhala. Kindle Edition.

-satToday

[Jwroberts27]

Thank you for this quote, Kaishin. Indeed, this is one of the hardest parts of the practice, IMHO, to regard people without judgement. To be honest, I have become better at this, but those moments do sometimes hit hard. Then I catch myself and ask myself why the judgmental attitude.

Thanks again!
Gassho,
John
SatToday

[Getchi]

Yes, thankyou Kaishin - "Just cultivate virute" - perhaps this is one of the great gifts ive encounterd through Treeleaf. Not to know, not to attain as we read in the Grass Hut

Uchiyama seemed to me to be saying that to live with raw reality is to be aware of our relations to other people

- absolutely, anything more then that starts to feel like just another division, and like we seem to hinting here - regardless of whether we approve or disprove of another's actions still we have to face the fact that "just this is it".

Learning to be more accepting of my own prejudice is another thing that has helped me greatly. Instead of critiicising myself, I can accept that it is a natural part of the human psychology that we all inherit at birth, and that all of us here are trying to understand/accept/transcend through our deepening practice.

Just knowing Im not alone feels like half the struggle!


Geoff,
SatToday.

[Frank]

Perhaps in grasping to comparisons we are not being free, like water, to flow.
Not just a father, but a husband also.
Not just a husband, but a friend also.
Not just a friend, but a human also...just like all of us...individual, but many.
Letting go, not grasping to title.

You know the story of the monkey who reached into the gord to get the banana out. Once he held on so tightly, he could not get his hand out to get free....all he had to do was relax his grasp, and he was free.

im thinking not to hold on so tightly, flow like water, release your grasp of comparison, and be free.

just my two cents

Gassho
Frank

Sat today....needs to sit some more

[Kyotai]

"To depend on others is unstable" and "living only in relation to other people and things"

This chapter is wonderful and puts into words how I felt through much of my adolescents and early adult years.

Gassho, Kyotai
Sat today

[Mp]

"To depend on others is unstable" and "living only in relation to other people and things"

This chapter is wonderful and puts into words how I felt through much of my adolescents and early adult years.

Gassho, Kyotai
Sat today

You too eh Kyotai ... same here. This has been a wonderful chapter ... a little walk down memory lane. =)

Gassho
Shingen

#sattoday