[JUNDO: I hope it is okay, but I gave this its own thread, so we can discuss better. 
]
I have been struggling for a long time with the question - why am I sitting zazen? what am I trying to accomplish? what am I trying to get out of this? I understand that zazen is about goallessness and that it is "good for nothing". But my questions remain - why? After re-reading Jundo's OP. I 'think" I have the glimmer of an answer. My apologies for the length of this post, but I really have a simple question - do I sorta have this correctly understood??
Jundo writes -
Our small self, the body-mind, is always filled with countless desires ... the desire to be somewhere else, be getting somewhere, achieving some prize, some distant goal. Our body-mind is always judging this or that as somehow inadequate to what the body-mind wants, its likes and dislikes, needs, regrets and dreams. -
1. This describes conventional life - always judging, dividing, categorizing, labeling things, Always chasing after something different. Always focusing on going somewhere.
when there is sat an instant of Zazen as wholeness in just sitting, the only place to be and act to do in that instant in all of reality that is required to fulfill life as life ... the Buddha and all the Ancestors just sitting in that instant of sitting, no other thing to attain or which ever can be attained ... no other place to go or in need of going ... all holes filled, whether full or empty or in between ... all lack and excess resolved in that one sitting, with not one thing to add or take away ... judgments dropped away, "likes and dislikes" put aside ... nothing missing from Zazen (even when we might feel that "something is missing", for one can be fully content with the feeling of lack!) ... the sitting of Zazen and all life experienced as complete and whole as just the sitting of Zazen ... the entire universe manifesting itself on the Zafu at that moment ... http://www.zenforuminternational.org...lies/yahoo.gif
2. This describes zazen - sitting with total acceptance of everything as it is, no labeling, no judging, no valuing, no ruminating about the past, no planning the future. Just observing the present.
in other words, when the "little self" is thereby put out of a job by the experience of "just sitting" as whole and complete with nothing more to be desired or needed ... then the hard borders between the "little self" and the "not the self" (which is usually being judged and "bumped into" and divided into pieces) thus naturally soften, fully fade away ... only the wholeness of the dance remaining ...... then "Zazen is in itself body-mind dropped off".
3. This describes what happens when you sit zazen - the subject/object duality, the difference between "me" and "everything else" begins to weaken, to disappear. The inter-connection with everything, the inter-dependence, the unity, the "not two, not one" realization of reality becomes apparent.
Human beings simply do not know how to engage an action pierced as naturally complete just by the engaging of the action itself, how to live life that is whole just by the act of living life.
4. This observes that people do not know how to live without labelling/judging/dividing but rather by just acting each action, by just living in the present
Then, rising up from the Zafu to our day to day lives ... we realize that there is no place to go, even as we have so many places to go ... no holes in need of filling, even as we grab a shovel and get to work to filling holes ... nothing to fix in life, even as we try to fix what can be fixed ... no life or death or disease to cure, even as we take our medicine or head to the gym, all on the road to our own funeral ... aversions and attractions dropped away, even as we lightly hold onto those aversions and attractions necessary to ordinary human life ... nothing to attain, even as we follow the Precepts to keep a healthy and balanced life, manifesting the Teachings in each moment and choice ... fully knowing that each step of life's path is a total arriving, sacred in itself, even as we seek to choose the path to a balanced and loving life (and to avoid the paths which lead off the cliff. It is then seen as --all-- the wholeness of the dance.
5. This presents the purpose/goal of zazen - to take the experience of observing the non-duality, "not two, not one" reality experienced on the cushion OFF the cushion into our daily lives. To label/judge/divide things while simultaneously knowing there is nothing to label/judge/divide.
Going thru Jundo's OP, I really felt like some puzzle pieces were finally correctly falling into place. I hope I am right. Any and all comments, observations, criticisms welcome.
Zenkon
sat/lah
]I have been struggling for a long time with the question - why am I sitting zazen? what am I trying to accomplish? what am I trying to get out of this? I understand that zazen is about goallessness and that it is "good for nothing". But my questions remain - why? After re-reading Jundo's OP. I 'think" I have the glimmer of an answer. My apologies for the length of this post, but I really have a simple question - do I sorta have this correctly understood??
Jundo writes -
Our small self, the body-mind, is always filled with countless desires ... the desire to be somewhere else, be getting somewhere, achieving some prize, some distant goal. Our body-mind is always judging this or that as somehow inadequate to what the body-mind wants, its likes and dislikes, needs, regrets and dreams. -
1. This describes conventional life - always judging, dividing, categorizing, labeling things, Always chasing after something different. Always focusing on going somewhere.
when there is sat an instant of Zazen as wholeness in just sitting, the only place to be and act to do in that instant in all of reality that is required to fulfill life as life ... the Buddha and all the Ancestors just sitting in that instant of sitting, no other thing to attain or which ever can be attained ... no other place to go or in need of going ... all holes filled, whether full or empty or in between ... all lack and excess resolved in that one sitting, with not one thing to add or take away ... judgments dropped away, "likes and dislikes" put aside ... nothing missing from Zazen (even when we might feel that "something is missing", for one can be fully content with the feeling of lack!) ... the sitting of Zazen and all life experienced as complete and whole as just the sitting of Zazen ... the entire universe manifesting itself on the Zafu at that moment ... http://www.zenforuminternational.org...lies/yahoo.gif
2. This describes zazen - sitting with total acceptance of everything as it is, no labeling, no judging, no valuing, no ruminating about the past, no planning the future. Just observing the present.
in other words, when the "little self" is thereby put out of a job by the experience of "just sitting" as whole and complete with nothing more to be desired or needed ... then the hard borders between the "little self" and the "not the self" (which is usually being judged and "bumped into" and divided into pieces) thus naturally soften, fully fade away ... only the wholeness of the dance remaining ...... then "Zazen is in itself body-mind dropped off".
3. This describes what happens when you sit zazen - the subject/object duality, the difference between "me" and "everything else" begins to weaken, to disappear. The inter-connection with everything, the inter-dependence, the unity, the "not two, not one" realization of reality becomes apparent.
Human beings simply do not know how to engage an action pierced as naturally complete just by the engaging of the action itself, how to live life that is whole just by the act of living life.
4. This observes that people do not know how to live without labelling/judging/dividing but rather by just acting each action, by just living in the present
Then, rising up from the Zafu to our day to day lives ... we realize that there is no place to go, even as we have so many places to go ... no holes in need of filling, even as we grab a shovel and get to work to filling holes ... nothing to fix in life, even as we try to fix what can be fixed ... no life or death or disease to cure, even as we take our medicine or head to the gym, all on the road to our own funeral ... aversions and attractions dropped away, even as we lightly hold onto those aversions and attractions necessary to ordinary human life ... nothing to attain, even as we follow the Precepts to keep a healthy and balanced life, manifesting the Teachings in each moment and choice ... fully knowing that each step of life's path is a total arriving, sacred in itself, even as we seek to choose the path to a balanced and loving life (and to avoid the paths which lead off the cliff. It is then seen as --all-- the wholeness of the dance.
5. This presents the purpose/goal of zazen - to take the experience of observing the non-duality, "not two, not one" reality experienced on the cushion OFF the cushion into our daily lives. To label/judge/divide things while simultaneously knowing there is nothing to label/judge/divide.
Going thru Jundo's OP, I really felt like some puzzle pieces were finally correctly falling into place. I hope I am right. Any and all comments, observations, criticisms welcome.
Zenkon
sat/lah
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