Split Thread: kenosis, ataraxia, and apatheia

[Jundo]

There is a lot of beauty in some of the comparisons here, but I almost want to say "too much philosophy." I am an outsider to Greek Orthodox Christian beliefs, so I do not know.

However, perhaps too much philosophy here. Keep it simple. Just Sit.

Gassho, J

SatTodayLAH

[Shokai]

[Souchi]

So, Rendulic, I challenge you to go the other way, and intentionally break the routine every so often, and be free wheeling. Chant nothing. Light no incense. Just sit, wherever and whenever.

And you, Rakurei, get ye to a monastery and do some routine (if you can arrange it)! The most Japanese and formal place you can find. Throw yourself into every moment and stodgy tradition that you find an obstacle.

Oh yes, try that (going against your routine), that's really way more difficult sometimes than it sounds. I'm doing that from time to time and it sometimes feels like hitting an invisible wall

Gassho,
Souchi

SatToday

[Mitka]

However, perhaps too much philosophy here. Keep it simple. Just Sit.

Gassho, J

SatTodayLAH

This is particularly hard for me to do. I've spent about 80% of my waking life with my head in a book, learning about this that and the other thing, including many of the things discussed here. I feel a need to debate, compare, contrast.

[Kokuu]

This is particularly hard for me to do. I've spent about 80% of my waking life with my head in a book, learning about this that and the other thing, including many of the things discussed here. I feel a need to debate, compare, contrast.

As a recovering academic I feel much the same, Matthew. It is probably people like us who need most to put the thinking down for a time.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

[Rakurei]

I'm a thinker.
I'm an analyzer.
I'm a this, I'm a that.

It all goes away on the zafu. Isn't that great?
Every one of those self imposed titles, comes with a self imposed to-do list so we can play our part well.
Sitting though, no need. Melts 'em all away.

ST,

Rakurei

[Nanrin]

As a recovering academic I feel much the same, Matthew. It is probably people like us who need most to put the thinking down for a time.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

I feel the same way. I'm usually wandering in realms of thinking and analysis. Putting the books down (or these days, the internet) and sitting is especially valuable because it's not my natural tendency.

Zen teachers like to tell students to do the opposite of their natural inclination sometimes

Maitri

SatToday

[Sekiyuu]

From what I've gathered researching other schools of Buddhism, Zen seems to be particularly intellectual, which is perhaps precisely why it seems so anti-intellectual (particularly Soto) when you actually practice it.

It's very interesting to see how people treat ritual ... it is the one thing I have the biggest trouble accepting. Why gassho? Why wear robes? Why chant and burn incense? It all just makes me think of my Christian upbringing, which I gradually rejected completely, and how disavowing all things "religious" was a critical part of me becoming who I am now. Of course Dogen handles these questions in the Shobogenzo in a characteristically self-contradictory way, but like with most things Zen to get the final answer you've just got to figure it out yourself.

More to the core topic of this thread, I thought back to my time at a Quaker college and found this... it's pretty interesting since Quaker worship seems incredibly like group Shikantaza... meeting together to sit silently:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fx90l4jN4-0

Gassho,
Kenny
Sat Today

[Ryudo]

Wow guys, humble bows...

Thank you Jundo, your words are comforting.

Gassho
Ryudo/SatToday/LAH

[Jundo]

...
It's very interesting to see how people treat ritual ... it is the one thing I have the biggest trouble accepting. Why gassho? Why wear robes? Why chant and burn incense?

Then don't.

Master Dogen famously said in Bendowa and elsewhere ...

[There is no] need to burn incense, to do prostrations, to recite Buddha’s name, to practice confession, or to read Sutras. Just cast off body and mind in zazen.

Just sit Zazen, which is the only ritual and action required in life in that moment.

On the other hand, as I said above:

(Zen teachers like to tell students to do the opposite of their natural inclination sometimes)

You should ask yourself why the resistance, why your self has "aversions and attractions" in a Practice which is greatly about seeing through our "aversions and attractions." You should lean into the resistance, and drop the resistance, especially because you resist.

It is now well known that Dogen, in his monastery, daily burned incense, did prostrations, recited the names of Buddhas, practiced confession of Precepts, studied Sutras. What he likely meant in the above quote is that Zazen is the only ritual and action required in life in that moment of sitting, and that there is no "before or after" in the timeless moment of sitting, but getting up from sitting we do other actions in life which are also "the action to do in that moment" without its own before or after.

I am not insisting that everyone do all such things, but they will resonate with different people in various ways. Incense reminds us of the specialness of this place and space through the olfactory sense; prostrating is a practice of gratitude and humility, not to a wooden statue, but to life which lifts us up and we raise it upon our uplifted hands; reciting the names of Buddhas is also an expression of gratitude to symbols of the wholeness of reality; atoning for our excess desire, anger and divided thinking in ignorance is a healthy step in freeing the heart. Funky Chinese robes are not so important, and just a dress of Tradition, although the Kesa is our special symbol of Enlightenment, the Teachings, Humility and Tradition. Chanting is an action in which the philosophical point of the text is usually vital, such as the Heart Sutra and Sandokai Teachings on Emptiness, but then we drop the words to pour our self, and find our self again, in the sound and action of Emptiness.

Try perhaps, and open the heart and mind ... specifically because the "little self" is judgmental and does not want to do so. There is great power in so many of these Traditions (even though, at Treeleaf, we are minimalists on ritual, and I tend to skip the more magical and fantastic "hocus-pocus" elements of rituals and keep things down to earth.)

Thank you also for the film on Quaker sitting. As was said by several people there, same in some ways, but different. In Shikantaza, we are not really sitting for divine revelation, healing energy, turning to feel God's presence and be inspired (to use the descriptions in the video) or the like. On the other hand, there is a great commonality in just being open to all that is. (At one point, about 6:30, one of the speakers also highlights Vipassana Buddhist meditation, which is different from Shikantaza in that we don't intentionally pay attention and notice or label feelings and sensations which are happening).

I like to say that, at heart, all these Paths and Practices are just precisely the same even when sometimes very different; often very different, although just the same.

Gassho, J

SatTodayLAH

[Sekiyuu]

Thanks for the guidance! For whatever reason, the books I read don't seem to cover the topic quite enough, including Shobogenzo! I'm familiar with that part of Bendowa, but I'm also familiar with the chapter where Dogen tells us how awesome and magical robes are.

Gassho,
Kenny
Sat Today

[Jundo]

Thanks for the guidance! For whatever reason, the books I read don't seem to cover the topic quite enough, including Shobogenzo! I'm familiar with that part of Bendowa, but I'm also familiar with the chapter where Dogen tells us how awesome and magical robes are.

Gassho,
Kenny
Sat Today

Your racoon (?) hat, Kenny, looks not unlike the one that Nishijima Roshi used to wear for more formal events, complete with sacred Fly Whisk.



But most of the time he would dress in modern clothes, and joke about how the under robes (the Koromo and Kimono) are like dressing up as ancient Chinese people for Halloween! He did so to respect tradition, but did not feel it necessary. However, the Kesa, the upper robe, is a symbol and more, best summarized by our Robe Chant in placing it on:

Robe of liberation boundless
Field beyond both form and formless
Wearing the Tathagatha's teachings
Vowing to free all sentient beings

That said, most of the time, Nishijima Roshi used to dress like this:



Sometimes for our Zazenkai, on a lovely day, I wear shorts and a t-shirt, although with Rakusu (the small Kesa)

Gassho, J

SatTodayLAH

[Tom]

Is it just me or has there been an internet surge in posts comparing Stoicism to Buddhism lately?

I've been perusing the Stoic classics and the paralells are shocking, (even if they do the Metta meditation backwards.)

Tom
SAT
LAH

Hi Michael,

Would you mind to post an Avatar photo so we can look you in the eye a bit? Thank you.

I had to look these up ...



Kenosis, from the Greek word for emptiness κένωσις (kénōsis), is the "self-emptying" of one's personal will to become entirely receptive to divine will

Do you mean just yielding to conditions and letting things be?

Ataraxia (ἀταραξία, literally, "not perturbed", generally translated as "imperturbability", "equanimity", or "tranquillity"

We don't chase after, need or expect this. Sometimes it happens, sometimes not, which is the greatest Calm (Big C) that does not even need to feel calm all the time.

Apatheia (Greek: ἀπάθεια; from a- "without" and pathos "suffering" or "passion"), in Stoicism, refers to a state of mind in which one is not disturbed by the passions.

Just yield to conditions and let things be.

No fancy words or effort needed.

Gassho, J

SatTodayLAH

[Jundo]

Is it just me or has there been an internet surge in posts comparing Stoicism to Buddhism lately?

I've been perusing the Stoic classics and the paralells are shocking, (even if they do the Metta meditation backwards.)

Tom
SAT
LAH

Hi Tom,

I was just checking a part of my new book which I am just finishing, and it had this. So, maybe it is a bit different from "stoicism." Perhaps it is "Stoic-Non-Stoicism"


==============

I have told you before of my other friend, a long time Zen practitioner, who developed cancer that was very advanced, eventually terminal. It was very hard for her, and for her family, which included young children too. However, because she had developed great wisdom from her Zen Practice, she was able to feel many things at once. First, she resisted, was scared and frustrated, and fought the good fight for a cure through her radiation treatments and chemotherapy, but at the same time (as if in another part of herself) she totally dropped all resistance—even welcomed—this part of her life. She described it as “resistance-without-resistance,” as if seeing life one way out of one eye, experiencing life another way out of her other eye, while both eyes open together brought Clarity and Wisdom to it all.

I also went through the loss of my mother to cancer, and it was so sad. I cried many times. I don’t want you to think that what I am talking about is a practice of stoicism, something so numbing that it removes us from all ordinary human emotions and caring. In fact, I would not want any practice that turned me into some machine without feelings, leaving me unable to know ordinary sadness, grief and loss in the face of a mother’s death. I want to cry, because to cry is to be human.

However, as strange as it sounds, this practice allows one to encounter a peace and wholeness beyond all sense of loss, even as the tears roll down one’s cheeks. Loss, yet no loss, as all just flows back to and as the sea. It is, again, much like that “seeing life two ways at once, with two eyes” that I speak about. Both eyes open together bring a Buddha’s Clarity to this world.

Through our Buddha way, we encounter a peace and wholeness, transcending birth and death, a joy that holds both the happy days and sad, yet at the same time, there is birth and there is death, there are happy days and sad. I hope a little of that Light can shine through your moments of darkness and grief.



Gassho, J

SatTodayLAH

[Hoseki]

Hi Tom,

I was just checking a part of my new book which I am just finishing, and it had this. So, maybe it is a bit different from "stoicism." Perhaps it is "Stoic-Non-Stoicism"


==============

I have told you before of my other friend, a long time Zen practitioner, who developed cancer that was very advanced, eventually terminal. It was very hard for her, and for her family, which included young children too. However, because she had developed great wisdom from her Zen Practice, she was able to feel many things at once. First, she resisted, was scared and frustrated, and fought the good fight for a cure through her radiation treatments and chemotherapy, but at the same time (as if in another part of herself) she totally dropped all resistance—even welcomed—this part of her life. She described it as “resistance-without-resistance,” as if seeing life one way out of one eye, experiencing life another way out of her other eye, while both eyes open together brought Clarity and Wisdom to it all.

I also went through the loss of my mother to cancer, and it was so sad. I cried many times. I don’t want you to think that what I am talking about is a practice of stoicism, something so numbing that it removes us from all ordinary human emotions and caring. In fact, I would not want any practice that turned me into some machine without feelings, leaving me unable to know ordinary sadness, grief and loss in the face of a mother’s death. I want to cry, because to cry is to be human.

However, as strange as it sounds, this practice allows one to encounter a peace and wholeness beyond all sense of loss, even as the tears roll down one’s cheeks. Loss, yet no loss, as all just flows back to and as the sea. It is, again, much like that “seeing life two ways at once, with two eyes” that I speak about. Both eyes open together bring a Buddha’s Clarity to this world.

Through our Buddha way, we encounter a peace and wholeness, transcending birth and death, a joy that holds both the happy days and sad, yet at the same time, there is birth and there is death, there are happy days and sad. I hope a little of that Light can shine through your moments of darkness and grief.



Gassho, J

SatTodayLAH

Gassho


Thank you Jundo. While this comment wasn't directed at me. This is one of those lesson that I need to keep being reminded of.

Gassho,

Hoseki
Sattoday/lah