Profound Experience

[Mushin]

Hello Treeleaf,

This may sound like I'm making it up, but I'm not...

Tonight I had a very profound and emotional realization of "now." I had a vision of my wife and I in old age looking back on our lives and I just thought "man, all of this is going to be gone one day, everything is fleeting," my eyes teared up at the thought, I was overcome by sadness, but also by the need to make the most out of the rest of my life and cut all the "trivial crap" out. Suddenly, everything seems more "real."

This was a very intesnse experience, and I suppose my question is this: Has anyone else experienced this? How do you deal with the emotional effects of this "realization" or whatever you want to call it?

Gassho,

Mushin

P.S., although I do practice zazen frequently, this particular experience happened during prolonged Aikiken (sword) practice, which is basically an excercise in mindfullness.

[Jundo]

Re: Profound Experience

Hi Mushin,

Let it be a few days, let it sit and sit with that.

It is just an experience of impermanence.

And while vowing to make the most of the rest of your life and to not waste an instant, also know that it is not possible to waste a moment of life, not a thing to make. Each and all true in their true way.

PM me if you feel you want to discuss this more.

Gassho, Jundo

[anodyne777]

Re: Profound Experience

The realization you've had is actually one that I have often, sometimes a couple of times a week. I'm not trying to dilute the importance of this to you in my saying this, but rather... I think it's good that this was unusual for you, when it happens all the time it's very depressing :P

I often feel like I'm wasting my life. There is nothing that I can't somehow categorize as trivial if I try hard enough. Or rather, if I don't prevent my mind from doing it automatically. So it was nice to read what Jundo said about it being impossible to waste a moment of life...

...but how can that be?

[Jundo]

Re: Profound Experience

So it was nice to read what Jundo said about it being impossible to waste a moment of life...

...but how can that be?

Ah, good question!

Mostly, by just dropping all thought that we can waste a moment of life. By dropping all thought of "loss" or "gain".

In our practice, we drop all thought of any place to go ... even as we move ahead. We drop all choices and preferences, even as we choose.

I tell people that the heart of our Zazen practice is to "just be present with, and to accept, things as they are ... without judgments of right or wrong, and without resistance to events or some desire to change circumstances as we would wish". I find this an accurate description of Zazen Practice which is "to-the-marrow just sitting", radically dropping all goals and demands.

And for those folks who have never heard me speak of it before, I actually advocate something like simultaneous "acceptance without acceptance" or "dropping like & dislikes while simultaneously having likes & dislikes" ... So, our Buddhist Practice is just not some simple minded passivity or blind acceptance of life. We move forward, and make choices ... even as we know there is no place to go, and nothing in need of selection. Both seemingly incongruous views at once. Thus, it is a very unusual way to life.

Gassho, J

[disastermouse]

Re: Profound Experience

Waste?

"What at this very moment is missing?" Lin Chi

The circumstances of your life as filtered by your intellect are NOT 'you'. I've met people who are of modest means who are quite content and I've met high-status, accomplished people who are direly discontented. One's life situation does not entirely dictate your feeling of contentment.

If you think that your thoughts are 'you', you will be chasing those carrots to the end of your life - ragged, exhausted, and disappointed. You can't take your thoughts that seriously.

IMHO, YMMV.

Chet

[Dojin]

Re: Profound Experience

Hi Mushin.
I for one never had such visions but i did happen to have profound experience, each one different than the other.

i once actually had a very profound experience during zazen which i consider the most profound for many reasons, and i will try to explain them.

as i was sitting i felt everything drop away, the room, the time, the air, the cushions, me, the world itself. yet they were all there. it felt as it all merged in to one thing and there were no boundaries anymore. i must admit i was very afraid at first as it began to happen, i even tried to resist it and hold some control of everything. but as i continued to sit i realized that i should just let it be and so i relinquished control and just let go, nothing bad happened nor anything good either... it just happened. i noticed i had no desires no nothing, it felt totally empty. as the bell rang i got up with this feeling still presiding over me, i sat on the computer and i started talking to a friend of mine online and tried to describe the sensation i had just experienced, it felt wonderfully terrifying, i felt something changed within me.
within an hour or so it was pretty much gone and i felt myself again... and an hour after that there was no trace. so i must admit that as much as i learned from the experience itself the fact it passed possibly taught me even more, everything in life is transient and nothing lasts... and everything but absolutely everything is life

Gashho
Daniel, who is just part of life.