Has single-pointed concetration i.e. object-based concentration a place in Soto-ZEN?

[Jundo]

Not any sensations coming from it, or any mental state, inner peace or anything like that. No progress to be made, no being good or bad at it..

And thus the Greatest State ... Peace both in and out ... and everything like that.

No progress to be made is truly getting somewhere! And that's GOOD!

[Zrebna]

After all these years, I find the Zen path even more 'fantastic', 'glamarous', 'spectacular' than I first believed.

This sounds good and encouraging to me

Gassho
Chris
Sat today

[Zrebna]

A good thing Zazen is the goal in itself.. Not any sensations coming from it, or any mental state, inner peace or anything like that. No progress to be made, no being good or bad at it..

[emoji1374] Sat Today

Yeah, and that's why practicing Zazen feels to me in itself already quite liberating and freeing.

Gassho
Chris
Sat today

[Hokin]

Hi Jundo,

Dependent origination is mentioned in the video. Is this something we study in Zen as well? I looked it up and came up with the attachment below. I am wondering if it complements the eightfold path or it's an extension of Dukkha.

Gassho,
Sat today,
Guish.


Sent from my M2101K7BNY using Tapatalk

Hello Guish!
For whatever maymatter my opinion, 'dependent origination' is the Buddha’s way to analyze and explain how the ego-centered identification in the world comes about. It shows how cause and effect is at the root of everything especially in one’s mind. Every second we literally ‘make-up’ our sense of self, our sense of ‘I, me, mine’, and that is being brought to life and dying and been born again and dying the following instant once more, again and again, all the time...forever...until we can see through that whole process thoroughly and realize that it all is but, as I personally like to call it, a ‘convenient construct’. Here we can fathom how the continuous chain of birth and death (samsara) is perpetrated, and once we can really clarify the three seals of existence (dukkha-dissatisfatoriness, anatta-impersonality, anicca-impermanence) that are underlying the whole dependent origination process, we can be free of birth and death (nibbana) by seeing that nothing of that which we call ‘I’ is some real, consitently fundamental essence in any case, but a process, a construct that is born and dies all the time thousands of times per second, and also we can see that it is all marked by the three seals of existence.
Anyways.
The Buddha taught in the suttas that we can’t, as practitioners, work in any really easy, direct way with the first 7 links up to ‘feeling’, because we can’t help but ‘let it be’ for now, because they are factors already, pardon me the oxymoron, temporarily permanent and, psychologically speaking, they are subconscious. They are like the 'built-in apps' in the new cell-phone we just bought, take them away at once and it dies out! Hehehehe…Take the 6th, for instance: feeling. In traditional buddhism, and we see it in chain of dependent origination, feeling is caused by 'contact' which is of 6 kinds: eye-contact, ear-contact, nose-contact, tongue-contact, body-contact and mind-contact). So, all we see, hear, smell, taste, touch and think causes a feeling, which in turn is of 3 kinds: pleasant, unpleasant and neutral. 'Contact' we can't manage really, because most of the time we can't control what we see, hear, smell, etc...Maybe there is something we can do with feeling, and that is to take it all with equanimity, whether it be pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. But the eighth, ‘craving’ (in pali is ‘trishnaa’ which literally means ‘thirst’-for more!), well, with craving we really can work with!
Vimalaramsi and Buddha, long before him in the suttas, teach that craving manifests as some sort of a tension in the practitioner’s body-mind (the two are really one!). So we recognize the tension and we let go that same tension and also we physically and mentally relax that tension so that there can be no attachment or grasping (upadana, literally: ‘fire’) which is the result, the effect of craving. Vimalaramsi teaches that craving is the ‘I-like-it, I-don’t-like-it’ mind we apply on 'feeling' and that attachment or grasping is all the thoughts and opinions that we 'attach' to that very same craving to justify why we like or not something...Thus perpetrating the whole'I'-dentification system.
Then, after 'attachment', comes ‘becoming’ which in reality is simply the habitual reactions we apply at things, persons and situations.
And finally 'becoming' causes 'birth' and this in turn causes aging, sickness, death and all suffering (dukkha).
This whole process takes infinitesimally small fractions of a second and it is not to be simply viewed as, for example, the process of ‘birth and death’ of a whole ‘incarnated’ entity, but as the ‘birth and death’ of the 'sense of self' itself (the thought of identity, the ‘I, me, mine’ thing) which, as I said, happens numberless times in each second.
Actually, I find, the only thing that in reality seems to ever come to birth and subsequently die, is only the thought of 'I, me, mine'.
So...what really matters in this is the practice we can actively do on craving (in general the cause of dukkha) to calm down the whole process and see through these fabrications and attain liberation from that.
I hope this reflection may help elucidate somewhat the whole matter.

Gassho.
Hokin.
SAT&LAH.

[Hokin]

And thus the Greatest State ... Peace both in and out ... and everything like that.

No progress to be made is truly getting somewhere! And that's GOOD!

Exactly so! I totally agree! That's why we are all here!


Gassho.
Hokin.
SAT&LAH.

[Hokin]

Sometimes less is more ... and nothing is everything.

Exactly so!
We could say that, correct me if I am wrong, like in many other spheres of life, it is not at all a matter of quantity but of quality!
Moreover, if we keep on practicing shikantaza even off the cushion, well, then every moment is zazen and everywhere is zendo!

Gassho.
Hokin.
SAT&LAH.

[Jundo]

Hello Guish!
For whatever maymatter my opinion, 'dependent origination' is the Buddha’s way to analyze and explain how the ego-centered identification in the world comes about. ...

Hi Hokin,

We Zen folks really have to avoid getting into intellectual wheel spinning and debates, but I did enjoy your long presentation. There is one statement I disagreed (or, more specifically, disagreed-not-disagreed) with:

The Buddha taught in the suttas that we can’t, as practitioners, work in any really easy, direct way with the first 7 links up to ‘feeling’, because we can’t help but ‘let it be’ for now, because they are factors already, pardon me the oxymoron, temporarily permanent and, psychologically speaking, they are subconscious. They are like the 'built-in apps' in the new cell-phone we just bought, take them away at once and it dies out! Hehehehe…

There is some Wholeness embodied in Zazen that leaps right through all 12 links and then some. Hard to express, but a flowing right through action, consciousness, name/form and all the rest ... including ignorance.

The reason I say "disagree-no-disagree" is because, you are right, this also does not, and we cannot escape these while alive (except perhaps in a coma or such.

They are yet are not, just as you and I are yet are not ... mountains are mountains yet not, thus mountains again. We do not escape yet fully escape.

So, Zen folks know how to make a living and thorough escape of the "I."

Sorry to run long.

Gassho, J

STLah

[Hokin]

Hi Hokin,

We Zen folks really have to avoid getting into intellectual wheel spinning and debates, but I did enjoy your long presentation. There is one statement I disagreed (or, more specifically, disagreed-not-disagreed) with:



There is some Wholeness embodied in Zazen that leaps right through all 12 links and then some. Hard to express, but a flowing right through action, consciousness, name/form and all the rest ... including ignorance.

The reason I say "disagree-no-disagree" is because, you are right, this also does not, and we cannot escape these while alive (except perhaps in a coma or such.

They are yet are not, just as you and I are yet are not ... mountains are mountains yet not, thus mountains again. We do not escape yet fully escape.

So, Zen folks know how to make a living and thorough escape of the "I."

Sorry to run long.

Gassho, J

STLah

Yes, Jundo...I understand what you mean, and I agree with you.
I too find all those explanations somewhat 'too much'...but I thought it would be interesting share it because Guish asked to know something more about that whole dependent origination thing.

I should have clarified, as I thought I would, that this is just a more theravada explanation of the twelve links, and also that, probably right because of that, just upayas...especially that part on the 'relax-craving-tension-work-out'.

In zen we just sit...and everything is already complete.
Utterly complete even when it feels it isn't and we righly so adjust and work towards anything that could mend that, to finally realize that it is always more simple than we could ever think...and yet...there we are.

Something I should have also pointed out is that every link is so very much connected to all others that in reality they are actually one whole thing, and that if one link goes, all the others go too, at once. Where does that all go? Nowheeeeeerreeee! Or also now-here...Never did that come, in the first place! Mind...mind....mind...

In a sense, after all, as you beautifully always point out, we are already arrived, for there is nowhere to arrive too.
Our practice itself is the goal-no-goal, without end.

Gassho.
Hokin.
SAT&LAH.

[Suuko]

An interesting question. Long story short is that this is one of the widely and wildly interpreted teachings in old Buddhism, many versions, many interpretations, the strangest interpretation being that the first 4 apply to a past life, the middle 4 to the present life, and the last 4 to future lives. They make no sense. I happened to be looking at three scholars papers, last month, on the origins ... it is a mess.

If you ask me, it is not such a mystery: The whole point is how one develops a sense of separate self, with all the suffering (attachments, view of personal life and death etc.) that results.

So, I feel that it is very obviously similar to some modern models of infant development. Not exactly, but pretty darn close. What do you think of this?

Buddha-Basics (Part XIV) – The Twelve-Fold Chain

https://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?7707-Buddha-Basics-%28Part-XIV%29-%C2%96-The-Twelve-Fold-Chain

Gassho, J

STLah

Thanks for the link, Jundo. I remember watching this video years ago. I sat with you when the talk ended and heard the rainfall in the background. At that moment, there was no me and no you.
So, Shikantaza is the gateway to the original mind even if it has always been here.

Gassho,
Sat today,
Guish.

[Suuko]

Hello Guish!
For whatever maymatter my opinion, 'dependent origination' is the Buddha’s way to analyze and explain how the ego-centered identification in the world comes about. It shows how cause and effect is at the root of everything especially in one’s mind. Every second we literally ‘make-up’ our sense of self, our sense of ‘I, me, mine’, and that is being brought to life and dying and been born again and dying the following instant once more, again and again, all the time...forever...until we can see through that whole process thoroughly and realize that it all is but, as I personally like to call it, a ‘convenient construct’. Here we can fathom how the continuous chain of birth and death (samsara) is perpetrated, and once we can really clarify the three seals of existence (dukkha-dissatisfatoriness, anatta-impersonality, anicca-impermanence) that are underlying the whole dependent origination process, we can be free of birth and death (nibbana) by seeing that nothing of that which we call ‘I’ is some real, consitently fundamental essence in any case, but a process, a construct that is born and dies all the time thousands of times per second, and also we can see that it is all marked by the three seals of existence.
Anyways.
The Buddha taught in the suttas that we can’t, as practitioners, work in any really easy, direct way with the first 7 links up to ‘feeling’, because we can’t help but ‘let it be’ for now, because they are factors already, pardon me the oxymoron, temporarily permanent and, psychologically speaking, they are subconscious. They are like the 'built-in apps' in the new cell-phone we just bought, take them away at once and it dies out! Hehehehe…Take the 6th, for instance: feeling. In traditional buddhism, and we see it in chain of dependent origination, feeling is caused by 'contact' which is of 6 kinds: eye-contact, ear-contact, nose-contact, tongue-contact, body-contact and mind-contact). So, all we see, hear, smell, taste, touch and think causes a feeling, which in turn is of 3 kinds: pleasant, unpleasant and neutral. 'Contact' we can't manage really, because most of the time we can't control what we see, hear, smell, etc...Maybe there is something we can do with feeling, and that is to take it all with equanimity, whether it be pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. But the eighth, ‘craving’ (in pali is ‘trishnaa’ which literally means ‘thirst’-for more!), well, with craving we really can work with!
Vimalaramsi and Buddha, long before him in the suttas, teach that craving manifests as some sort of a tension in the practitioner’s body-mind (the two are really one!). So we recognize the tension and we let go that same tension and also we physically and mentally relax that tension so that there can be no attachment or grasping (upadana, literally: ‘fire’) which is the result, the effect of craving. Vimalaramsi teaches that craving is the ‘I-like-it, I-don’t-like-it’ mind we apply on 'feeling' and that attachment or grasping is all the thoughts and opinions that we 'attach' to that very same craving to justify why we like or not something...Thus perpetrating the whole'I'-dentification system.
Then, after 'attachment', comes ‘becoming’ which in reality is simply the habitual reactions we apply at things, persons and situations.
And finally 'becoming' causes 'birth' and this in turn causes aging, sickness, death and all suffering (dukkha).
This whole process takes infinitesimally small fractions of a second and it is not to be simply viewed as, for example, the process of ‘birth and death’ of a whole ‘incarnated’ entity, but as the ‘birth and death’ of the 'sense of self' itself (the thought of identity, the ‘I, me, mine’ thing) which, as I said, happens numberless times in each second.
Actually, I find, the only thing that in reality seems to ever come to birth and subsequently die, is only the thought of 'I, me, mine'.
So...what really matters in this is the practice we can actively do on craving (in general the cause of dukkha) to calm down the whole process and see through these fabrications and attain liberation from that.
I hope this reflection may help elucidate somewhat the whole matter.

Gassho.
Hokin.
SAT&LAH.

Thanks for this, brother. I have a similar view to yours. We observe a lot what we are not in our practice and the more we do that, the veils fall down. However, at the same time, we need this software as you pointed out, to live in this world. So, it's a bit like knowing that the matrix is not real but you still have a part to play in it.

Gassho,
Sat today,
Guish.

[Suuko]

Something I should have also pointed out is that every link is so very much connected to all others that in reality they are actually one whole thing, and that if one link goes, all the others go too, at once. Where does that all go? Nowheeeeeerreeee! Or also now-here...Never did that come, in the first place! Mind...mind....mind...


Gassho.
Hokin.
SAT&LAH.

In the beginner's mind, Suzuki said something like " we are independent and dependent at the same time". The mind creates the separation but we can really never be disconnected, lonely or separate from anyone else. We are all jewels which connect through the Indra's net.

Gassho,
Sat today,
Guish.

[Hokin]

In the beginner's mind, Suzuki said something like " we are independent and dependent at the same time". The mind creates the separation but we can really never be disconnected, lonely or separate from anyone else. We are all jewels which connect through the Indra's net.

Gassho,
Sat today,
Guish.

Beautifully said, Brother!
Independent yet dependent.
No dependence...no independence...
Simply this.
The Indra's Net.

Have a nice day, precious jewel!

Gassho.
Hokin.
SAT.

[Hokin]

In the beginner's mind, Suzuki said something like " we are independent and dependent at the same time". The mind creates the separation but we can really never be disconnected, lonely or separate from anyone else. We are all jewels which connect through the Indra's net.

Gassho,
Sat today,
Guish.

Beautifully said, Brother!
Independent yet dependent.
No dependence...no independence...
Simply this.
The Indra's Net.

Have a nice day, precious jewel!

Gassho.
Hokin.
SAT.

[Hokin]

Sorry for this that doesn't belong here but, may I ask two questions that, as I said, have nothing to do with what is being discussed here?
The thing is that, in trying to reply, I would like to use the option that allows you to quote only certain sections of sombody else's posts and not the whole thing, as I see many are doing, but I simply don't know how to do that...Is there anyone that can explain me how to accomplish that?
The other one question is kinda similar in that I simply don't know how to create a new post...I am not one that really very often think creating a new one either, but yes, sometimes happened that I wanted to but finally didn't just because I simply knew not how to. So...anyone there that can help me out with taht too?
Maybe there is a part in the forum where things as these are expained, but I can't find that either!

Gassho.
Hokin.
SAT.

[Hōkan]

in trying to reply, I would like to use the option that allows you to quote only certain sections of sombody else's posts and not the whole thing

When you click on "Reply With Quote", you can edit what's in the quote. Remove what you want to remove and you're good-to-go.

Sat