Posting a lot lately sorry guys one more(Balance)

[will]

Balance. Truly. Sometimes there is too much strain. There's too much focusing on one thing. For example: One might have the idea that one should listen, so they listen to the fan. However, are they really hearing it or are they just hearing a glossed over version.

In balance it seems that sounds come alive. There are sounds happening that you didn't notice before, but they just pop out. So why couldn't you hear them before? Balance. Not really focusing on any particular sound but just open hearing. Letting hearing hear. Perhaps there might be an intellectualizing of a new sound that is heard like "What is that?" "Sounds like a..." etc. But if it is just left alone it actually opens up and becomes clear.

The same goes perhaps for touch, sight, smell, taste, and thinking. Isn't it funny. Thinking about thinking. Thinking about the foot contacting the floor in kinhin, instead of actually opening up to the feeling.

It also seems when there is an opening, ie. of sound, other parts of our experience open as well, for example touch, breath, taste, maybe seeing.

Anyway, In this center of balance is where it's at. Where the world comes alive.

Thanks

Gassho Will

[Jinho]

Re: Posting a lot lately sorry guys one more(Balance)

Hi Will,

Thank you for your post! And, don't apologize, I come here to read everyone else's many thoughts, I think that's why we all do.

gassho,
rowan

[TracyF]

Re: Posting a lot lately sorry guys one more(Balance)

[chessie]

Re: Posting a lot lately sorry guys one more(Balance)

This post has stayed with me, and I deeply appreciate the ideas.

With the idea of openness, it's amazing to me how that comes and goes during sitting. I usually sit in my cubicle at work, facing a wall. After a time, after the mind settles down, it seems that i open up and everything is big again. Suddenly, i hear the roar of the heating/air conditioning--the office building I'm in is breathing, the sentient building I inhabit comes alive. Then, various thoughts come back, and the rush of air disappears. Where did it go? Or, more likely, where did I go?

The idea of balance gets me thinking about the math concepts of 'point' and 'infinity'. When i can, just for a moment (a point in time) let go of thoughts, let go of everything, then there is just me, sitting there, and being a small point in space, connected to nothing. At the same time, those are the moments of 'openness', where I am more in touch with (to use the cliched phrase) and in oneness with everything. So, it seems that when we are thinking about or distracted by anything concrete, we are expanded to include that object of thought (two points in our selves--'us' and the 'object of thought'). Only when we can let go enough to become one small point again, do we have the opportunity to experience the true oneness and infinity (being, as the old joke goes, one with everything). It seems simple in theory--attachment, connecting to anything, cuts us off from the whole of everything.

I don't know if this makes much sense, but this the road I travelled while dwelling in the ideas of the first post. Thank you, Will!

Gassho, Ann

[will]

Re: Posting a lot lately sorry guys one more(Balance)

then there is just me, sitting there, and being a small point in space,

Thanks Ann. I had a pale blue dot realization when I read this.

The only thing I would comment on is that perhaps that point is many points.

Gassho

[lorax]

Re: Posting a lot lately sorry guys one more(Balance)

Nice Will

It is incredible what one becomes aware of when you get settled. When you and Jundo were sitting on Mt. Tsukuba, there was not silence, but a backdrop of bird sounds throughout the sitting. When I started my sitting several years ago I would go out in the forest and once settled became aware of wind and bird sounds, smells of the trees and wet ground, the texture of the rock I sat on and the grass under my feet. All sensations that one is rarely aware of when not sitting quietly. While I become more aware of the natural world around me, I also become aware of "intrusions" such as helicopter and vehicle sounds occurring miles away. I know, one shouldnt discriminate, and accept what comes and passes on.

Anyway, nice thoughts Will.