Where do your thoughts go during Zazen

[Jundo]

I guess this speaks to the point that in sitting zazen we are not looking to eliminate thoughts but to witness while not engaging them?

Gassho,

Neil

SatToday

Yes, not stir up the dust nor let it pile up. Just find the space and light that shines through. Dust drifts in, dust drifts out the window of the mind. The clear air and space is just as present too. Something like that.

Gassho, J

STLah

[Shinshou]

My thoughts are most often music-based - reworking piano fingerings, thinking of how to phrase something differently, a different voicing, etc. I think my mind knows these things are important to me and so uses them to as an attempt to engage me in them.

I would imagine they go to the same place as letters do when you type on your keyboard but you cursor isn’t at a place to type and they don’t appear anywhere. Where do those letters go, running off into nothingness? Transient. And of little consequence, if any at all.

Shinshou (Dan)
Sat today


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[Rich]

Where do your thoughts go during zazen?

Sounds like a koan.


Sat/lah




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[Shokai]

I'm starting the Koan collection for the 93 generation of our lineage

gassho, Shokai
stlah

[Rich]

Great. Thanks
[emoji120][emoji171]


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[Washin]

I'm starting the Koan collection for the 93 generation of our lineage

Thank you, Shokai

My thoughts are usually chaotic words and phrases popping up in mind. Sometimes they transform into
ruminations and dialogues where I may start planning things, try to prove something to someone or even defend myself.
Once I catch myself in doing this I gently let the stuff go and come back to my posture and breath.
In earlier days I used the Hua-tou (from the Chan tradition) to return and concentrate on the now
but I dropped this tenchique later.

Where do my thoughts come from and where do they go? -- I don't know

Gassho
Washin
ST

[Alfaiate]

During Zazen my thoughts are mostly words, stuff from work, what food to cook etc.

Sometimes i make an effort to be super attentive and catch every thought as soon as they become conscious,
but after 10 mins it gets tiring.
Also i can see that the effort and the noticing of thoughts are just another movement of mind similar to the thoughts themselves.

Kind of confusing. lol


sat today

[Jundo]

During Zazen my thoughts are mostly words, stuff from work, what food to cook etc.

Sometimes i make an effort to be super attentive and catch every thought as soon as they become conscious,
but after 10 mins it gets tiring.
Also i can see that the effort and the noticing of thoughts are just another movement of mind similar to the thoughts themselves.

Kind of confusing. lol


sat today

Don't catch the thoughts, neither grab and hold on. Don't wallow in and play with thoughts of work and food, neither worry that they come and go.

Middle Way.

The result is not confusion, only clarity.

Gassho, J

STLah

[Gero]

"Open the Hand of Thought" is a concept I first stumbled upon here at Treeleaf - a great help for me, so once again I bow in gratitude to Treeleaf!

It helps me to open the hand of thought when I (internally) smile to the thought. For example when I (typically) catch myself thinking about how a possible conversation at work might turn out, I do not berate myself for entertaining a thought. Instead I treat myself like I treat my cat, when she jumps from the floor up onto the table and right on my journal while I am writing in it: no use in getting angry about the agile feline, just giving her a short loving stroke while setting her back down and smiling. To have that loving acceptance of things not going as desired is much harder for me than I would wish for ... but my wandering thoughts while sitting give me lots of oppotunity to practice "loving acceptance".


Gero (sat today and lah)

[Jundo]

"Open the Hand of Thought" is a concept I first stumbled upon here at Treeleaf - a great help for me, so once again I bow in gratitude to Treeleaf!

It helps me to open the hand of thought when I (internally) smile to the thought. For example when I (typically) catch myself thinking about how a possible conversation at work might turn out, I do not berate myself for entertaining a thought. Instead I treat myself like I treat my cat, when she jumps from the floor up onto the table and right on my journal while I am writing in it: no use in getting angry about the agile feline, just giving her a short loving stroke while setting her back down and smiling. To have that loving acceptance of things not going as desired is much harder for me than I would wish for ... but my wandering thoughts while sitting give me lots of oppotunity to practice "loving acceptance".


Gero (sat today and lah)

Now, if we can only learn to treat all the problems of life, big and small, like cats on tables ... ... ...

Gassho, J

STLah

[Sittingalone]

It would be nice, indeed, to have such a forthright thought. Mine tend to be sneaky: I'll be sailing along, open blue sky all around, and suddenly I'll "hear" a whisper, like a wisp of cloud in my blue sky. I've often heard that the surest way to get someone to listen to you is to speak quietly so that they have to make an effort to hear you. I've found it is true; those whispers are almost irresistible and I'm off chasing one before I've fully realized that it is a thought.

Sara
Sat today

[robdymondpittman]

Hello everyone! I’m a newcomer here

I tend to have verbal, narrative thoughts. The topics vary, but there’s one experience I’ve been having frequently lately: my vision will blur and I will the feel the need to refocus my eyes. Every time, I think to myself “your vision is blurring, refocus your eyes”. I’m trying to build a habit of simply doing it without the narrative element, but it’s very difficult to break that pattern of thinking.

Gassho
Rob

[Mp]

Hello everyone! I’m a newcomer here

I tend to have verbal, narrative thoughts. The topics vary, but there’s one experience I’ve been having frequently lately: my vision will blur and I will the feel the need to refocus my eyes. Every time, I think to myself “your vision is blurring, refocus your eyes”. I’m trying to build a habit of simply doing it without the narrative element, but it’s very difficult to break that pattern of thinking.

Gassho
Rob

Hey Rob,

Awareness is the key to change, without it change cannot happen. So it sounds like you already know what you are doing ... so when you see that pattern arise, acknownledge it and then let it be.

You cam do this by focusing on the breathe or say to yourself, "bring the kind home and letting it go" - and "home" is right here, right now in this very moment with whatever you are doing.

Practice and time are your best friends ... =)

Gassho
Shingen

Sat/LAH