Whats the difference...?

[Jundo]

Big Self ....sounds like a 'soul' <tongue firmly in cheek> ��

A soul would be an individualized spirit of Tony that flies out of one body when you die, into another. Buddhism usually avoids such a concept, even the Buddhists who believe in literal post-mortem rebirth.

No, this Big Self is the whole universe, the kitchen sink and more.

You know Dustin Hoffman and the blanket from some movie? ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZFehJdMGtU

But, again, these names like "Big Self" are just a big pain in the butt when they turn this into some fixed object in the mind. Best to sit and taste.

Gassho, J

STLAH

[Tairin]

Wonderful discussion. As usual I learn so much from these exchanges. Thank you for asking the question Tony.

Shinshi, I wouldn’t worry too much about “over stepping”. A big part of learning is trying to repeat back your understanding in your own words. I admire your bravery in trying. I know Jundo won’t let us stray off the path. . While I feel my understanding is deepening I definitely don’t feel I am at the point where I can do much more than regurgitate someone else’s words.



Tairin
Sat today & LAH

[Jundo]

Wonderful discussion. As usual I learn so much from these exchanges. Thank you for asking the question Tony.

Shinshi, I wouldn’t worry too much about “over stepping”. A big part of learning is trying to repeat back your understanding in your own words. I admire your bravery in trying. I know Jundo won’t let us stray off the path. . While I feel my understanding is deepening I definitely don’t feel I am at the point where I can do much more than regurgitate someone else’s words.



Tairin
Sat today & LAH

I have a bad habit as a Zen teacher.

It is said that one is not supposed to explain too much. I am a comedian who gives away the punch line, a magician who shows how the trick is done.

However, you still have to get on the cushion, and off the cushion into life, to figure out how the trick is done.

(I think this rumor started that "Zen guys should not explain too much" with the Koan introspection folks, who need to pierce the mysterious Koan phrase on the cushion. Right now, I am reading the new Uchiyama Roshi book ... review soon ... and he explains just what I said, lays it all out just as much, just as matter of factly. He also says, however, that you need to figure this all out, and get it in one's bones, oneself ... and one-Self ;-) )

Gassho, J

STLah

[Jakuden]

I have a bad habit as a Zen teacher.

It is said that one is not supposed to explain too much. I am a comedian who gives away the punch line, a magician who shows how the trick is done.

However, you still have to get on the cushion, and off the cushion into life, to figure out how the trick is done.

(I think this rumor started that "Zen guys should not explain too much" with the Koan introspection folks, who need to pierce the mysterious Koan phrase on the cushion. Right now, I am reading the new Uchiyama Roshi book ... review soon ... and he explains just what I said, lays it all out just as much, just as matter of factly. He also says, however, that you need to figure this all out, and get it in one's bones, oneself ... and one-Self ;-) )

Gassho, J

STLah

Boundless gratitude for you, Jundo Roshi. What are they all afraid of? That we might all get enlightened too easily thanks to your generous sharing of the Dharma? As you said, it doesn’t take the place of the tough practice we each need to do on our own. But it’s almost impossible not to learn and grow if one sticks around here for awhile. [emoji120][emoji120][emoji120]
Gassho
Jakuden
SatToday/LAH


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Jundo]

I mean, Soto folks explain this stuff all the time. Shunryu Suzuki in "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind" (p 93) ...

I went to Yosemite National Park, and I saw some huge waterfalls. The highest one there is 1,340 feet high, and from it the water comes down like a curtain thrown from the top of the mountain. It does not seem to come down swiftly, as you might expect; it seems to come down very slowly because of the distance. And the water does not come down as one stream, but is separated into many tiny streams. From a distance it looks like a curtain. And I thought it must be a very difficult experience for each drop of water to come down from the top of such a high mountain. It takes time, you know, a long time, for the water finally to reach the bottom of the waterfall. And it seems to me that our human life may be like this. We have many difficult experiences in our life. But at the same time, I thought, the water was not originally separated, but was one whole river. Only when it is separated does it have some difficulty in falling. It is as if the water does not have any feeling when it is one whole river. Only when separated into many drops can it begin to have or to express some feeling. ...

Before we were bom we had no feeling; we were one with the universe. This is called "mind-only," or "essence of mind," or "big mind," After we are separated by birth from this oneness, as the water falling from the waterfall is separated by the wind and rocks, then we have feeling. You have difficulty because you have feeling. You attach to the feeling you have without knowing just how this kind of feeling is created. When you do not realize that you are one with the river, or one with the universe, you have fear. Whether it is separated into drops or not, water is water. Our life and death are the same thing. When we realize this fact we have no fear of death anymore, and we have no actual difficulty in our life. When the water returns to its original oneness with the river, it no longer has any individual feeling to it; it resumes its own nature, and finds composure. How very glad the water must be to come back to the original river!

Uchiyama Roshi in "Opening the Hand of Thought" . Pages 14 and 15,'the section beginning (near top of the page), "Whether we realize it or not we are always living out life that is connected to everything in the universe", and ending with, "I can't stress enough how essential it is to look very, very carefully at this universal self that runs through everything in the universe. You live together with your world. Only when you thoroughly understand this will everything in the world settle as the self pervading all things."

https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=vNSRQkSACb4C&pg=PA14&lpg=PA14&dq=%22Whether+we+realize+it+or+not+we+are+always+living+out+life+that+is+connected+to+everything+in+the+universe%22&source=bl&ots=vhBBdwCxmt&sig=e4FKy2fAiNke6zCtzj-0QCv52Xg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiW1aSN7ejbAhUJgbwKHWJxDJUQ6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=%22Whether%20we%20realize%20it%20or%20not%20we%20are%20always%20living%20out%20life%20that%20is%20connected%20to%20everything%20in%20the%20universe%22&f=false

Or our Chant of the "Identity of Relative and Absolute" (Sandokai) ...

The subtle Source shines clear in the light;

The branching streams flow in the dark.

To be attached to things is primordial illusion;

To encounter the absolute is not yet enlightenment.

All spheres, every sense and field

intermingle even as they shine alone,

Interacting even as they merge,

Yet keeping their places in expressions of their own.

All the same song.

Gassho, J

SatTodayLAH

[Jundo]

I gave a little talk today during our Zazenkai on why Zen teachers and teachings, Koans and such, are often a bit obscure. If you care to listen, from the 57:00 mark.

(At the end, I am joking that a few minutes before, I had called for our ending chants of Verse of Atonement/Four Vows by accident instead of "Kinhin." That is what I am referring to):

The online 3-D image I mention in encountering the "absolute" and "relative" is something like this optical illusion: Can you see the old lady? The young woman? Are the both? Is it the blank paper or the ink? (If you can't see either the old or young lady, write and I will give you some clues here too).





Gassho, J

SatTodayLAH

[Jika]

Thanks for the discussion.

Tony, your question reminds me of something I have experienced lately:
After 8 nights of very bad sleep, sleep and how we recover became very important to me.

I started to question if and how I sleep "correct".

And, how can I be refreshed by sleep anyway - isn't it another task, another doing?
All this lying down, tossing and turning, moving my pillow, closing my eyes...

Now (I am so grateful!) I am back to my normal sleep pattern again.
Hitting the pillow, experiencing thoughts and tension fall away, and falling asleep, waking up refreshed.

It is a miracle that - these 8 sleepless nights taught me - I can't "do" actively.
It just happens, it is a gift, and still the most natural thing in the world.

In my limited zazen experience (no peak experiences here) this felt like a good metaphor.
There is a zazen that comes with the ease of sleep, just a falling back into a mode that is always within reach, but cannot be forced.

Is it a doing?
In sleep and zazen, we breathe, our brains are active, our guts make sounds...
They are parts of our activity as living beings.
Parts of life, but still, very different in the ways we approach them and we experience.

(If this is stupid, call it sleep deficite! )
Gassho,
Jika
#slepttodaybutnotduringzazen

[Troy]

I think we just sit with whatever we are at the moment. Sometimes we only experience ourselves sometimes our consciousness resonates with a great wholeness. No need for labels or analysis.

I love this poem by Li Po.

“The birds have vanished down the sky.
Now the last cloud drains away.

We sit together, the mountain and me,
until only the mountain remains.”


Sat2day

[Jundo]

I think we just sit with whatever we are at the moment. Sometimes we only experience ourselves sometimes our consciousness resonates with a great wholeness. No need for labels or analysis.

Yes, this is important to say too.

Gassho, J

SatTodayLAH

[Shinshou]

Jundo said about all our "selves": "In Zazen, we exude all these facets of who we are."

This is how I understand, and experience, sitting. It is not a getting rid of a "small" self and substituting a big, more whole self in its place. It is the experience of both, and more - of all. How could my separate self not be real, not be true? Here it is, writing, eating, shitting, feeling...when I pinch myself, you don't feel it. I'm not an illusion, I'm really here. I really am separate. But that is not a whole truth. The "whole" self also exists. How could it not? I experience it in sitting. It flows into, and from, and with, everything else. But it is not a whole truth, because I am also separate. These two selves, in my experience, are not two, but rather experiences of one existence. When sitting, I am perfectly Daniel, a separate being, and I am perfectly Shinshou, a drop in the ocean, and there is a totality of experience. There's no need to choose, diminish, or exclude one, the other, or anything else. Otherwise, carrying my practice into my "real" life would mean being unable to manage my affairs - after all, why check my mail if there's no "my" for that mail to belong to? Why remember my address if the world is my home?

These are just my experiences. For me, it's important to not just have an intellectual understanding, but a direct experience which is gained through sitting.

Shohaku Okumura: "Even when we are deluded, we live in reality as deluded human beings. Ultimately, there is no separation between reality and delusion. In other words, reality includes delusions. Even though we live in the reality that is beyond discrimination, we have to discriminate in our day-to-day lives..Without discrimination we can do nothing...This is the unavoidable reality of our concrete lives. Zazen is the only exception...whenever thoughts come up, we just let them go. In our daily activities, however, we have to make choices based on discrimination even though we practice the reality that is beyond discrimination."

Shinshou (Dan)
Sat today

[Jundo]

Jundo said about all our "selves": "In Zazen, we exude all these facets of who we are."

This is how I understand, and experience, sitting. It is not a getting rid of a "small" self and substituting a big, more whole self in its place. It is the experience of both, and more - of all. How could my separate self not be real, not be true? Here it is, writing, eating, shitting, feeling...when I pinch myself, you don't feel it. I'm not an illusion, I'm really here. I really am separate. But that is not a whole truth. The "whole" self also exists. How could it not? I experience it in sitting. It flows into, and from, and with, everything else. But it is not a whole truth, because I am also separate. These two selves, in my experience, are not two, but rather experiences of one existence. When sitting, I am perfectly Daniel, a separate being, and I am perfectly Shinshou, a drop in the ocean, and there is a totality of experience. There's no need to choose, diminish, or exclude one, the other, or anything else. Otherwise, carrying my practice into my "real" life would mean being unable to manage my affairs - after all, why check my mail if there's no "my" for that mail to belong to? Why remember my address if the world is my home?

These are just my experiences. For me, it's important to not just have an intellectual understanding, but a direct experience which is gained through sitting.

Shohaku Okumura: "Even when we are deluded, we live in reality as deluded human beings. Ultimately, there is no separation between reality and delusion. In other words, reality includes delusions. Even though we live in the reality that is beyond discrimination, we have to discriminate in our day-to-day lives..Without discrimination we can do nothing...This is the unavoidable reality of our concrete lives. Zazen is the only exception...whenever thoughts come up, we just let them go. In our daily activities, however, we have to make choices based on discrimination even though we practice the reality that is beyond discrimination."

Shinshou (Dan)
Sat today

Oh, you are starting to sound like me. Yes, that(s about how I describe things too.

Gassho, J

SatTodayLAH

[dharmasponge]

Thanks everyone.

Its a need for authenticity that drove me to ask. Same old same old.........

Having a very analytical mind its a hard nut to crack for me. Sitting doing nothing and the absence of using the discriminative facility i am blessed with as a human feels like a waste <of time>.

As ever, I am grateful.

_/|\_

[Jundo]

Having a very analytical mind its a hard nut to crack for me. Sitting doing nothing and the absence of using the discriminative facility i am blessed with as a human feels like a waste <of time>.

It is hard for thinking feeling chasing people to just rest and put that down for a time.

It is not a waste of time, however, for we believe that in the absolute, nothing is every lacking and time does not quite exist.

Gassho, J

SatTodayLAH

[dharmasponge]

It is hard for thinking feeling chasing people to just rest and put that down for a time.

It is not a waste of time, however, for we believe that in the absolute, nothing is every lacking and time does not quite exist.

Gassho, J

SatTodayLAH

Its interesting Jundo, that is the one part of the whole thing that does poke and prod a part of me that understands this. It still feels hidden though. Like the proverbial needle in a haystack (does that simile translate over the pond from here in the UK?)

I know there is a needle in there somewhere but that doesn't mean I experience it.

[Hoseki]

Whats the difference...?

Thanks everyone.

Its a need for authenticity that drove me to ask. Same old same old.........

Having a very analytical mind its a hard nut to crack for me. Sitting doing nothing and the absence of using the discriminative facility i am blessed with as a human feels like a waste .

As ever, I am grateful.

_/|\_

Hey man,

For what it's worth. Zazen is a waste of time! Its utterly worthlessness but that's where its pricelessness comes from. As far as I can tell it hasn't made me smarter, more attractive, wealthy nor can I levitate (though I have my hopes set on this one) and yet at times when I'm sitting I'm freed from those fetters. I get a taste of freedom. But then I get a cramp or an itch or my cat keeps licking the same spot on my leg and I get up and return to my "projects." I think with enough time I will be able to taste the freedom or peace amongst the chaos of this life. But even if I don't I will die eventually [emoji4] Which as far as I can tell is rather quiet like a good nap.

Gassho,
Hoseki
Sattoday

Edit: at least that's what it seems like to me. I edited the post because I thought I might have worded it too strongly.