What is Zen what will be your answer?

[doogie]

Re: What is Zen what will be your answer?

Just a word.

And words are empty.

[Kent]

Re: What is Zen what will be your answer?

Ahhhh, Zen........

[Taigu]

Re: What is Zen what will be your answer?

Dear Sho Nin,

Thank you for making this very nice exchange possible. I really like your voice and and feel your sincerety and will to the truth. Am I humble or not? Don't know. Ask the people around me ( i have got my fair share of stupidity and pride). Am I a mess? For sure. The point I wanted to make, and not the lesson, is that the more you sit, the more you are invited to drop square answers and the will to ease the universal suffering. The sweeping and cleaning is done at home, and questions are left for what they are: amazing ways to keep alive and not sleep awake.

As you write :

While you hesitate, waiting for certainty to arise, the beginner walks away or lives out their life and dies. The opportunity to be released from suffering is gone. A provisional response will suffice to help this person, no need to wait for a perfect one.I would like to suggest that seing a Boddhisatva as a person that tries to release people from suffering is a beautiful yet very naive perception of the Boddhisatava path. A Boddhistava has a huge broken heart, is not a Buddhist super hero, doesn't always help others with answers. A Boddhistava is often doing nothing, allowing people to be in their suffering, no preaching, no big or eloquent teaching... a Boddhistava is just breathing and living gently among others. The wish to help is a vow, as a reality it translates into many forms. Tonight I just listened to a woman talking to me about her husband's death 10 months ago, and the pain she was going through; I did not suggest anything. I was there for her, aware of my both our lifes. Years ago, I would have gone into sermon land. That' s is now my understanding. Am I a Boddhistava? Don't know and don't care. I do what I can do.

Remember the good old story of Ryokan weeping in front of that young relative who was naughty and difficult. Not a word. Just tears and a smile. After Ryokan left, the young guy changed his behaviour. And as Maezumi told the young Glassman one day as he was asking how to help a friend in pain, the master said: Don't steal people's pain!Let them go through what they go! It is what they need to wake up!

Just a suggestion really.
Thank you for your patience and understanding...


gassho

Taigu

[AlanLa]

Re: What is Zen what will be your answer?

Yes, my first answer ("nothing much") was glib and pretentious, and I felt a little guilty about it later. So please let me try again. Assuming the person asking needs a sincere and informative answer I would say something like this:
Zen is a Buddhist way of life where we practice zazen, a form of meditation.
Zen is living life fully, moment to moment, being as present and aware as we can in each of those moments, which is something we practice in zazen.
Zen is living the precepts, which is practicing our Buddhist way of life out in the world.
Zen is everything and nothing, all at the same time, and recognizing the beauty in this non-discrepancy.

And then I expect there would be a longer conversation.

[Dojin]

Re: What is Zen what will be your answer?

thank you taigu and sho nin.

i read what you write and i must say something.
i agree with taigu, life is just life and as you drop things it becomes different.

i am also a beginner i practice for about 6 years, in this time i have been practicing by myself as best i could and as best i understood.
when i first stared on this path ( yet it is not a path but a walk for the sake of walking ) i had my own ideas and preconceptions about zen
with time they changed, and i wanted to take away the pain and save all beings... i still want to do so, as a nurse i get my chance to try and help people, yet some people are beyond help. so i just try to help them as best i can.
if it means doing nothing, or listening to them, or just talking to them, or drinking with them, or anything that needs to be done... i just do it as long as it is within my ability as a human being.

i always say i am a human being first and a Buddhist after, yet the truth is there is no difference between the 2.
with time understanding changes, if people ask me how does zen affect my life, i tell them it is in everything i do and it effects all aspects of my life yet i cant tell them what it is that is effected. i cant tell when it happened or even why, maybe it is because of my practice and maybe it is because my life has taken a certain course, or than again i got older... i dont know but i change, everything changes.

it is just life i dont care much for why it happens, i just know it happens and that is enough for me.


thank you both for another point of view on everything.

a deep and humble Gassho
Daniel, the beginner.

[undeceivable]

Re: What is Zen what will be your answer?

"And as Maezumi told the young Glassman one day as he was asking how to help a friend in pain, the master said: Don't steal people's pain!Let them go through what they go! It is what they need to wake up!"

When I went on a silent retreat recently, there was a question time with the monks. One girl felt it was really annoying that we couldn't speak to each other. And I said, yeah, we can't speak, but we can smile at each other - acknowledge each other. Then one of the senior monks said, "Why would you want to rob other people of their experience of this silent retreat?" And I thought he was right.

To what extent do you reckon we should let others suffer their own mistakes or pain? There was another moment at the retreat where a lady with crutches was having trouble propping her crutches up against the wall to sit down to dinner. A senior monk just looked on without helping at all. I thought that was wrong.

It's in these moments that I find Zen quite extreme - it's the opposite of conventional thinking.

Just now, it seems to me that there's a difference between someone who has come to a retreat to practice and would benefit from being able to face difficult issues, and someome who is completely lost in the midst of suffering and is not practicing Zen or any other form of 'getting to know yourself'. Someone who is not working on understanding themselves, probably won't benefit that much from pain, will they? Most of the time when I'm in pain, I'll find a way to lessen the pain, block it out, or run away from it. That's not helping is it? I think most could benefit from advice during pain.

Hmm...Just thinking out aloud with regards to that Maezumi quote.

PA

[jamieguinn]

Re: What is Zen what will be your answer?

I haven't been to a retreat yet, so maybe I shouldn't chime in, but it would seem that the retreats serve a specific purpose and are meant to be more intense, especially of the zen flavor. It may be that for some people who are experiencing some forms of suffering shouldn't go to such retreats, yet.

I think maybe some people read too much into the retreats. As far as I know the authentic teachers of zen retreats aren't promising anything, so maybe there is some misunderstanding in the participant to expect to be fixed... or expect anything at all. I would suggest that the participant research what they are getting themselves into so they can be somewhat aware of what's coming, so that disappoint would be minimal. Too many people have a new-ager eastern mysticism type feel good expectation and so they think that going to a zen retreat will somehow give them instant enlightenment. When they go and get offended they throw the whole thing away not realizing that the fact that they went with certain expectations is what killed it for them. I'd say don't expect anything then everything is a bonus.

I think this is part of why guys like Brad Warner are so pissed off at guys like Ken Wilber and his Big Mind instant enlightenment "for only $1,999".