Foyan said that without the right view, Zen practice will seem bitter.
Because Zen is quite bare in some respects, I think there’s a tendency to equate Zen with asceticism. Certainly Sesshin can seem that way (I’ve never made it more than a day, though perhaps less. Maybe if I could have endured, I’d have worn away the bitter.)
I think with one mind, zazen can be seen as asceticism. With another, it might be seen as athleticism. Agony? Boredom? Fatalism?
Right view isn’t just one long, uncaring, grey day—except when it is.
Something that’s helped me because I’m mentally ill, is to try to examine the movements of mind and not thoroughly rely on them. But the ground in which the mind moves—what’s that? Is it even possible for that to be inconsistent? The painting might be a riot of color, but what about the wall, just outside the frame, against which the painting has been hung?
Fatalism seems too dead, too settled and certain of itself to be Zen.
Chet
Sat Today (don’t know what the other thing means. Ihn? Something like that? IAH?)
Because Zen is quite bare in some respects, I think there’s a tendency to equate Zen with asceticism. Certainly Sesshin can seem that way (I’ve never made it more than a day, though perhaps less. Maybe if I could have endured, I’d have worn away the bitter.)
I think with one mind, zazen can be seen as asceticism. With another, it might be seen as athleticism. Agony? Boredom? Fatalism?
Right view isn’t just one long, uncaring, grey day—except when it is.
Something that’s helped me because I’m mentally ill, is to try to examine the movements of mind and not thoroughly rely on them. But the ground in which the mind moves—what’s that? Is it even possible for that to be inconsistent? The painting might be a riot of color, but what about the wall, just outside the frame, against which the painting has been hung?
Fatalism seems too dead, too settled and certain of itself to be Zen.
Chet
Sat Today (don’t know what the other thing means. Ihn? Something like that? IAH?)
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