Zazen question

[Bob-Midwest]

I am now able to experience the difference between being aware and being aware of awareness.
Question is, can there be awareness with no objects - thoughts, feelings, perceptions, etc.
When we sit in open awareness, obviously we can notice passing phenomena. Is there always some sort of object or when not, do we just not register anything?
Thanks ahead of time.

[Jundo]

I am now able to experience the difference between being aware and being aware of awareness.
Question is, can there be awareness with no objects - thoughts, feelings, perceptions, etc.
When we sit in open awareness, obviously we can notice passing phenomena. Is there always some sort of object or when not, do we just not register anything?
Thanks ahead of time.

Hi Bob,

Our practice of Shikantaza may be a little otherwise than that. There is no need to "experience the difference between being aware and being aware of awareness." We just sit in radical equanimity, in the wholeness and complete nature of sitting just to sit, no other place to go or be during the timeless time of sitting, sitting just a Buddha sitting, with eyes open a bit ... seeing, but neither running toward the world nor running away ... thoughts and emotions passing without our latching on or stirring them up.

can there be awareness with no objects - thoughts, feelings, perceptions, etc.

There are very pure forms of consciousness or awareness without particular thoughts, feelings or objects of perception ... and it might even be experienced in Shikantaza. However, Shikantaza is not a matter of "thoughts, feelings, perceptions" or no "thoughts, feelings, perception." It is, rather, being unencumbered and untangled from "thoughts, feelings, perceptions" whether they are happening or not. One might even then realize that the "pure" and "thoughts, feelings, perceptions" are just two sides of a no sided coin, not one not two.

May I ask where you were taught meditation that distinguishes "being aware and being aware of awareness?" There are such types of meditation, but our approach to the "approachless" is a bit otherwise.

Gassho, Jundo
stlah

[Bob-Midwest]

Interesting in a confusing kind of way.
I have been told at least two times along the way to avoid referring to being aware of being aware in favor of just being aware. One, I believe, was with a Zen group tied to Robert Kennedy (but not directly from him) and the other was in a Christian/Ramana Maharishi setting.
So just sit to sit, not focused on anything particular, but also not trying to be free of that or any other experience?
bob

[Jundo]

Interesting in a confusing kind of way.
I have been told at least two times along the way to avoid referring to being aware of being aware in favor of just being aware. One, I believe, was with a Zen group tied to Robert Kennedy (but not directly from him) and the other was in a Christian/Ramana Maharishi setting.
So just sit to sit, not focused on anything particular, but also not trying to be free of that or any other experience?
bob

Ah, well, Fr. Robert Kennedy would be from the Rinzai Zen influenced "White Plum," and there approaches to Koan Introspection Zazen and what they practice as Shikantaza can be a little their own. Ramana Maharshi, of course, was a wonderful teacher of Vedanta in India. So, our approach of radical goallessness and allowing, sitting in the completeness of sitting itself, can be a little otherwise.

Now "to just to sit" is not "just sitting around." It is truly sitting as the one place to be in space and time, the alpha and the omega! We do not "try to be free," nor do we clutch at the world, and thus one is truly Free in that moment.

Maybe these will help explain ...

https://forum.treeleaf.org/forum/teacher-talks-tips/teacher-talks-tips-aa/540462-nothing-to-attain-a-doorless-doorway-to-great-enlightenment

https://forum.treeleaf.org/forum/teacher-talks-tips/teacher-talks-tips-aa/540856-nothing-to-do-is-not-wallowing-in-thoughts

https://forum.treeleaf.org/forum/teacher-talks-tips/teacher-talks-tips-aa/vital-points-of-shikantaza-zazen/9866-what-s-often-missing-in-shikantaza-explanations

Gassho, J
stlah

[Bob-Midwest]

Thank you. Will sit with this and pursue the links.

[Bob-Midwest]

Am I wasting my time sitting each day so unclear of the practice or worse, feeding delusion?
What if I don’t understand what you’re saying and just continue down the wrong road?
Confusion. Doubt.

[Jundo]

Am I wasting my time sitting each day so unclear of the practice or worse, feeding delusion?
What if I don’t understand what you’re saying and just continue down the wrong road?
Confusion. Doubt.

Ah, our sitting is based, not on "Great Doubt" (that is more of a Rinzai thing), but Great Trust ... it is a kind of Faith and Trust that "Just This Sitting" is Whole and Complete with nothing lacking, nothing to add or take away, no other place to be, and so for all this world. That is so, even with all life's imperfections that we must work on and muddle through. That Faith and Trust becomes a kind of "Non-Self Fulfilling Prophesy," in which sitting while dropping other desires realizes the Peace that is free of desires.

Then, getting up from the cushion, we hope to keep that "Just This" burning in our bones even as we get back to this world of things to do, people to see, problems to deal with. We seek to live as best we can in gentleness, free of excess desires, anger, and the like, with "nothing in need of doing, no place in need of going" even as we need to do and go.

So, please give it a try and hopefully what I am saying will become clear.

Gassho, J
stlah

[Jundo]

PS - If you doubt now, replace it with "fake it till you make it trust." I explain it like my acting friend who played his theatre character until he became the character ...

https://forum.treeleaf.org/forum/teacher-talks-tips/teacher-talks-tips-aa/vital-points-of-shikantaza-zazen/11032-shikantaza-as-non-method-non-acting

[michaelw]

I am now able to experience the difference between being aware and being aware of awareness.

There was a young man who said though
it seems I know that I know
what I am longing to see
Is the I that knows me
When I know that I know that I know.

Alan Watts - maybe

As others have said 'just sit'.

Gassho
MichaelW

satlah

[Houzan]

Am I wasting my time sitting each day so unclear of the practice or worse, feeding delusion?
What if I don’t understand what you’re saying and just continue down the wrong road?
Confusion. Doubt.

Hi Bob,

This was helpful to me as a reminder in times of doubt: the only really big mistake you can make with regards to sitting is to not sit

Gassho, Hōzan
satlah

[Shui_Di]

Am I wasting my time sitting each day so unclear of the practice or worse, feeding delusion?
What if I don’t understand what you’re saying and just continue down the wrong road?
Confusion. Doubt.

Hi Bob,

You said : What if I don't understand what you're saying?

My answer:
That's good not to inderstand. Because in Zazen we try not to understand thing. We just be with the things. We just sit. Sometimes too much words make you confuse.

You said:
..... continue down the wrong road?

My answer:
Zazen is dropping about right and wrong.

Some psychologist once told me that our behavior mind is also like creature. When its existence is threatened, it will fight to defense itself.

Sometimes we have behavior to "chase" something good or right, and "chase away" something wrong. Well yes it is necessary, otherwise humand kind have extinct from Dinosaur era.

But, however, sometimes we are overwhelmed with this kind of behavior, that makes us full of anxiety. So here we practice Zazen，Shikantaza drop the body and mind.

So your worries obout "continue down the wrong road" is very natural. Your old behavior is just being "disturbed" by a new behavior of Zazen.

You wrote: " ....Confusion. Doubt."

My response:
It is fine, no problem. Just sit when you confuse, just sit when you feel clear. Confusion also part of the coming and going phenomena. If you keep sitting you realize that doubt is impermanent, confusion is also impermanent. Feeling clear also impermanent.

So with what kind of mind you want to sit?

None of them but with all of them. We Just Sit like a rock, beyond doubt and clear.


Gassho, Mujo

[Seiko]

I am now able to experience the difference between being aware and being aware of awareness.
Question is, can there be awareness with no objects - thoughts, feelings, perceptions, etc.
When we sit in open awareness, obviously we can notice passing phenomena. Is there always some sort of object or when not, do we just not register anything?
Thanks ahead of time.

Jundo has already answered you beautifully. So I can't give a better reply, but I can give you my own perspective. As you read my words please take a pinch of salt too - I am a novice priest in training, so I am not a teacher and certainly not an expert.

I see it this way, noticing your awareness is thinking about your awareness, that is to say, by registering that you are noticing awareness, you are chasing that thought. As I understand it (someone will correct me if I am wrong), in shikantaza we let those boats (thoughts) sail past, without jumping on them.

Gasshō, Seiko, stlah

[Jundo]

All lovely responses. I would especially second (beyond one or two) the way Shui Di expressed this.

Gassho, J
stlah