I'd like to share my zazen experience that I thought may be helpful for some, so I apologise it will be longer than 3 sentences.
For a while I've been struggling with dull sleepy zazens. There's so much info already on the net how to deal with it but I've asked Jundo for help.
My initial thought was "Say what? Just be dull? But everywhere else it says something else! Nahh". But I've listened. And it turned out that, what I thought I was accepting in zazen was simple observation and noting, the type of noting so often thaught in various mindfulness practices. That however, has duality of observer and observed. So when the dullness appeared I would note its presence, wrongly believing I was accepting it, but on a very subtle level there was still resistance to it and the need to fight it off, to do something with it. Then I finally gave up : let it be, if I fall asleep on the cushion let it be, if it's a bad zazen, let it be. I've merged with the heaviness of dullness and sleepiness letting the eyelids drop. And then something strange happened : instead of falling asleep my breath naturally became very short and rhythmic. After some time it calmed down into stillness and I found myself with eyes open in blissfully focused and energised clarity.
This clarity is not important in itself, just another state of mind, just like the dullness was. Who knows, maybe next time I'll fall asleep on my zafu. What I found important though, is to truly accept whatever state I'm finding myself in, merging with whatever condition presents itself, dropping all the resistance and attachment freely being in the flow of impermanence. A glimpse of Shikantaza. So much more sitting to sit.
Now I understand why Shikantaza is not a meditation that dualisticly uses various techniques and conscious manipulation of body energy (sorry Jundo, I'm a slow learner, you keep talking about it all the time).
Deep bows.
Gassho
Sat
For a while I've been struggling with dull sleepy zazens. There's so much info already on the net how to deal with it but I've asked Jundo for help.
Accept the dullness when dullness comes, but hold a profound, abiding
faith and trust deep in the bones, unvoiced, that sitting itself is a
sacred doing, all the Buddhas and Ancestors sitting now in the place
where one is sitting, this Zafu on Vulture Peak, all the universe in the
10 direction held within this spot, shining like a jewel.
Then, just be dull.
faith and trust deep in the bones, unvoiced, that sitting itself is a
sacred doing, all the Buddhas and Ancestors sitting now in the place
where one is sitting, this Zafu on Vulture Peak, all the universe in the
10 direction held within this spot, shining like a jewel.
Then, just be dull.
This clarity is not important in itself, just another state of mind, just like the dullness was. Who knows, maybe next time I'll fall asleep on my zafu. What I found important though, is to truly accept whatever state I'm finding myself in, merging with whatever condition presents itself, dropping all the resistance and attachment freely being in the flow of impermanence. A glimpse of Shikantaza. So much more sitting to sit.
Now I understand why Shikantaza is not a meditation that dualisticly uses various techniques and conscious manipulation of body energy (sorry Jundo, I'm a slow learner, you keep talking about it all the time).
Deep bows.
Gassho
Sat
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