Guy Eugène Dubois: Just Sitting

[Jundo]

A translator name Guy Eugène Dubois posted these reflections elsewhere. Just lovely ...

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Just Sitting


What do we actually mean by just sitting? At first glance it seems simple: sitting down, becoming still, doing nothing. Yet sitting is not merely a posture. It is an inner tone, a way of being present.

Sitting does not only mean sitting. It also includes walking, working, eating, speaking, and being silent. Not because everything is literally “sitting,” but because everything—when it is no longer taken up by desire, resistance, or confusion—can rest in the same simple clarity.

And what about “just”? It does not point to a technique. It points to the liberating absence of adding anything. “Just” means not wanting to become anything, not wanting to achieve anything, not wanting to fix this moment. It is a return to a fundamental simplicity in which life is no longer divided into “meditation” and “non-meditation,” into “sacred” and “ordinary,” into “path” and “goal.”

Here this simplicity touches Udāna 1.10. When the Buddha says:

❛ In the seen, only the seen. In the heard, only the heard. In the thought, only the thought. In the known, only the known.❜, he is not presenting a method, but opening a door.

For as soon as there is only seeing, without a seer, only hearing without a hearer, only knowing without a knower, the whole of existence becomes just sitting. Not because everything is still, but because nothing remains outside this moment.

Then the thought falls away that there is someone who meditates. No “I” that wants to move forward. No “I” that wants to go back. Only this. Simple. Immediate.

And then something arises by itself that cannot be forced: silence as non-grasping, simplicity as not adding anything, service as a gentle presence without claim. Not as an ideal, but as the natural expression of clear seeing.

Everything “sits.” Even the walking. Even the speaking. Even the silence. And when nothing is held onto, what remains is what has always been simple: in the seen only the seen—and in that “only,” a peace that is not made. Nibbāna.

ORIGINAL LINK

[Bion]

It popped up on my feed yesterday, too. Very nice description of it, and his additional comment to one of the readers was also quite good:
"In this text, the word "service" does not refer to a task, a duty, or a moral obligation. It is not something one decides to practice. When grasping softens and the sense of a separate “someone” recedes, life begins to move in a different way. Actions still occur—speaking, helping, listening, responding—but they are no longer driven by self-interest or by the need to become something.
In that sense, service simply means that life expresses itself without claim. A response arises where it is needed, without the thought: I am serving.
It is similar to what we see in nature: a tree gives shade, a river gives water, the sun gives light. None of these acts from intention or identity. They simply function according to their nature.
In the same way, when there is “in the seen only the seen,” action can unfold without a center that appropriates it. What remains is a quiet responsiveness to the situation. That natural responsiveness is what I refer to here as service."

Gassho
sat lah

[Tairin]

Lovely. That’s pretty much how I have come to understand Just Sitting.


Tairin
sat today and lah