Enlightenment experience

[Jishin]

Gassho, Jishin, __/stlah\__

[Rich]

Have had many mindblowing experiences in my life.
But always returned to just sitting, just being.
That’s the simple insight attained.

Sat

[Doshin]

I am still waiting...sort of.

Doshin
St

[Risho]

Have had many mindblowing experiences in my life.
But always returned to just sitting, just being.
That’s the simple insight attained.

Sat

Rich - you are a treasure - you always say so much with so few sentences.

Gassho

Risho
-stlah

[Choboku]

I appreciate all of the shared wisdom. I plan to sit and let these things come and go.

Sat today
Adam

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[Seikan]

I was initially drawn to Buddhism and Zen (in particular) decades ago by the romantic notion of obtaining an earth-shattering, mind-blowing enlightenment experience that would forever change me in an instant (all credit for that goes to Philip Kapleau's book "Three Pillars of Zen").

Over the years, the desire for a particular experience has dimmed (although I can't deny that it's still lingering in the shadows of my mind), and I've developed a far greater appreciation for Zazen as both the means and the end.

So, still no mind-blowing experiences to speak of, but if I ever do have one, that would be nice, and if I never have one, that would be nice too.

Gassho,
Rob

-st-


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[Rich]

Rich - you are a treasure - you always say so much with so few sentences.

Gassho

Risho
-stlah

Thanks. Been writing 5-7-5 haiku for a few years so have had lots of practice 😀🙏

[Jundo]

I was initially drawn to Buddhism and Zen (in particular) decades ago by the romantic notion of obtaining an earth-shattering, mind-blowing enlightenment experience that would forever change me in an instant (all credit for that goes to Philip Kapleau's book "Three Pillars of Zen").

One of the few Zen books I specially DO NOT recommend just for that reason, and it has done so much damage over the decades sending people into some pressure cooker practice in a race for big booming Kenshos!

Gassho, J

STLah

[Onkai]

I haven't had any big experiences. When I started just sitting, I became aware of some very practical things. Sitting has changed me since then, but like water changing a rock by its movement.

Gassho,
Onkai
Sat/lah

[Jinyo]

I haven't had any big experiences. When I started just sitting, I became aware of some very practical things. Sitting has changed me since then, but like water changing a rock by its movement.

Gassho,
Onkai
Sat/lah

Lovely - pretty much how I feel too.



Jinyo

sat today

[Shoki]

One of the few Zen books I specially DO NOT recommend just for that reason, and it has done so much damage over the decades sending people into some pressure cooker practice in a race for big booming Kenshos!

Gassho, J

STLah

As soon as The Three Pillars of Zen came up I knew Jundo was going to get fired up! I can't say I ever had any super dramatic enlightenment experiences as they're more like moments of clarity and while sitting, cutting tomatoes or brushing my teeth. I always favored Shunryu Suzuki's approach who said it "nothing special."

Gassho
STlah
Shoki

[Doshin]

I haven't had any big experiences. When I started just sitting, I became aware of some very practical things. Sitting has changed me since then, but like water changing a rock by its movement.

Gassho,
Onkai
Sat/lah

You said what I meant above but so much more beautifully. Decades ago I had great expectations but now....”like water changing a rock by its movement” will become my answer. Thank you.

Doshin
St

[Jundo]

As soon as The Three Pillars of Zen came up I knew Jundo was going to get fired up! I can't say I ever had any super dramatic enlightenment experiences as they're more like moments of clarity and while sitting, cutting tomatoes or brushing my teeth. I always favored Shunryu Suzuki's approach who said it "nothing special."

Gassho
STlah
Shoki

When I say that, people sometimes take me to mean that there is no "Kensho" or "enlightenment" to be attained through Buddhist practice, but that is not my point at all. Of course there is, or this would not be Zen! I only mean that, in our Soto way, it is not something to be run after, pushed hard for as a passing "mind blowing" experience in which we momentarily become "one with the universe" (although that happens too, and in fact, can happen with psychedelic drug experiences maybe more easily than through meditation).

It is rather that, for many people, the hard borders which separate the "self" and the "not self" world may soften more subtly, slowly, less in "one-off" mind blowing experience of the walls tumbling down (although sometimes it happens too Soto folks too, as perhaps some of the stories in this thread show), and more as a much more subtle sense deep in the bones of the whole world flowing through us and all things (the sound of the symphony of the universe that is us too, and which sweeps us in and is vibrating as us, which I wrote about in another post today).

There is a story in Soto Zen that one can get just as wet walking slowly through a foggy mist in one's robes walking a path as one can standing under a waterfall, for wet is wet.

Also, enlightenment for Soto Zen folks (the Rinzai Zen folks) is what happens after such realization, how one lives one's life from that point on incorporating the realizing in one's life ... not just the realization of the wholeness itself.

Gassho, J

(more than three sentences for this)

PS - Doshin, the environmentalist, somehow feels this standing in the desert and mountains with the lizards, I know, and I am sure he sometimes feels the desert and mountains and lizards in him.

[Seikan]

Full disclosure statement: Having listened to all of Jundo and Kirk's podcasts, I knew that mentioning Three Pillars was bound to raise an eyebrow or two, but I still wanted to mention it in context as it was the book that introduced me to Zen back in my college years (early 90s).

That said, I'm very glad to have ultimately found my way to the Soto world as the practice of always striving for some grand enlightenment experience was too stressful.

Instead of blasting a stone with a high-pressure water jet to reshape it, I much prefer Onkai's metaphor of letting the water gently reshape the stone over time.

Gassho,
Rob

-st-


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[Jundo]

Instead of blasting a stone with a high-pressure water jet to reshape it, I much prefer Onkai's metaphor of letting the water gently reshape the stone over time.

Yes, that's another very common metaphor that Soto folks use, that we pass through the mountain like water flowing through the cracks and spaces, being the mountain's flowing itself, rather than blowing a hole through with TNT.

Gassho, J

STLah