Zazen and the Eight Fold Path

[johns]

In my understanding of Zazen, we are mindful of nothing and concentrate on nothing. How does Zazen fulfil the two part of the Eight Fold path, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration?

Gassho,

John

SatTodayLAH

[Bion]

Hi, John! I’ll start this with the disclaimer that I am not a teacher, just a student novice monk, so please excuse my words if they mislead in any way!

I think when we speak of mindfulness during zazen, we speak about remaining in touch and aware, with this body-mind so that we can actually think non-thinking, as master Dogen puts it, and remain in immovable sitting, keeping whatever posture we take, engaging in shikantaza. It is an active process. In zazen we have that open, spacious awareness, where the eyes see, the body feels, the nose smells, ears hear, but we don’t put the focus on hearing, listening, smelling, thinking or watching. That is not how our awareness usually works, as we tend to focus on more narrow things. That’s why, I think zazen is also the right kind of concentration, as we don’t pick and choose this or that sensation, this or that thought, so as to single them out and focus on them, latching on to them. The object of this concentration is zazen itself, not just one aspect of the experience, but all aspects simultaneously, free of judgments or goals. I dare say, in zazen, one of walks the entirety of the Eightfold Path. Nothing is outside of zazen.

I hope that makes sense. Sorry for running long

Gassho
sat and lah

[Houzan]

Concentration is a translation of samadhi, however, concentration is not really a good translation. Dogen calls our shinkantaza “the king of all samadhis” (zanmai o zanmai), indicating that there are several types of samadhi. In Bendowa he describes our zazen as receiving and using the self. The first maybe corresponding to a passive ingredient or mindfulness/ silence, and the second to an active ingredient or concentration/ illumination. Maybe.

Gassho, Hōzan
Satlah

[Tai Do]

Not a teacher here; but I agree with Bion and Hōzan. The Eightfold Path is contained in zazen:

• Appropriate Wisdom = Prajñāpāramita
• Appropriate Intention is intention of Renunciation, Loving-kindness and Compassion (essential to the Mahayana roots of zazen as we sit for the liberation of all sentient beings from suffering)
• Appropriate Speech, Action and Livelihood are fulfilled while we sit in zazen
• Appropriate Effort in zazen is the effort-non-effort of doing not but precisely sitting (shikantaza)
• Appropriate Mindfulness - I see the Four Foundations of Mindfulness not as a method and it's stages (like in the Theravada tradition), but as a description of the many different places our awareness may go while sitting (breath and body, feelings, states of mind, mental phenomena)
• Appropriate Samādhi - the same, I think, applies to the jhānas as description of different samādhi states we may experience.

I also can be very wrong, but in the very description of the fourth jhāna I can see similarities with Master Dogen's Fukanzazengi:

And furthermore, with the abandoning of pleasure and stress — as with the earlier disappearance of elation and distress — he enters and remains in the fourth jhana: purity of equanimity and mindfulness, neither-pleasure-nor-pain. He sits, permeating the body with a pure, bright awareness, so that there is nothing of his entire body unpervaded by pure, bright awareness.

Samadhanga Sutta
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/a n05/an05.028.than.html

------

So cease the intellectual work of studying sayings and chasing words. Learn the backward step of turning light around and reflecting it. Body and mind naturally drop off, and the original face appears. If we want to attain the matter of the ineffable, we should urgently practice the matter of the ineffable.

Fukanzazengi

https://www.treeleaf.org/fukanzazengi/

I'm sorry for the long post and , of course, take what I say with a whole kilogram of salt. Jundo can probably correct me.

Gassho,
Tai Do
Satlah

[Seiko]

In my understanding of Zazen, we are mindful of nothing and concentrate on nothing. How does Zazen fulfil the two part of the Eight Fold path, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration?

Gassho,

John

SatTodayLAH

Hi John,

I am a just priest in training, so please take a few grains of salt with anything I say, I am no teacher.

I know "mindfulness" is there in those 8 guidelines, but I usually try to avoid using this word "mindfulness" - because it is bandied about so much these days that, unless we include our current definition each time we use it, people will bring their own definitions and ideas along that may not coincide with our meaning at all.

In zazen we may be "mindful of nothing and concentrate on nothing" (extremely difficult to do), but this is only half the pie. Zazen includes both sides of these coins - concentration and none, mindfulness and none. Being fully aware of everything and grasping nothing, in a kind of wholeness where opposites no longer exist but where all opposites exist together without conflict.

Gasshō
Seiko
stlah

[Matt Johnson]

In my understanding of Zazen, we are mindful of nothing and concentrate on nothing. How does Zazen fulfil the two part of the Eight Fold path, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration?

To my mind there is no conflict here. Right concentration and right mindfulness means the right amount... In Shikantaza we don't try to concentrate or be mindful but we also don't try to not concentrate or be mindful. It's like that guitar string: too tight and it snaps too loose and it makes a flappy noise...

_/\_

sat/ah

Matt

[Jundo]

Some nice responses above. I would not say that Zazen is to be "mindful of nothing" or to "concentrate on nothing." I like what Bion and Hozan said, and also Seiko's insight of sitting somehow encompassing everything too. Yes, one sits not too lose, not too tight, light the guitar string.

I very much have always believed that the "4th Jhana" of the Suttas (once considered the highest Jhana before Bhramic influences on early Buddhism, and much unlike the highly concentrated forms that came with the later commentarial traditions) very much resonates with the equanimity and wholeness of Shikantaza, as Tai Do says.

In our Beginner's Series we have a couple of short talks on this ... Mindfulness of the mind is also something to have off the cushion ...

Buddha-Basics (Part X) — Mindfully Right LINK

Buddha-Basics (Part XI) — Zazen-ing Right LINK

Gassho, J
stlah