Open the hand of thought?

[Simon]

Hello everyone,

I'm excited to make my first post in this forum. I've been interested in Zen for few years now but I've never been part of a sangha. I'm originally from Italy but I currently live in England.

In "Opening the Hand of Thought," Kosho Uchiyama advises that when thoughts arise, we should "open the hand of thoughts" and return to our posture. However, this approach seems to create a sort of internal monitor, as if there is a part of my brain constantly checking for thoughts. It feels like layering a brain atop another. At the moment, my practice involves letting my experiences be, without interference. I donÂ’t use an object of meditation, nor do I intentionally try to be aware of anything specific. Often, I hear the advice that we should remain aware of the breathing, posture, or sensations during zazen, but this, to me, resembles the notion of layering awareness. We are intrinsically aware of our sensations without making a conscious effort to be so. Also, making a conscious effort to be aware of something, whether it's thoughts, feelings, or posture, feels unnatural.

How do you reconcile this coming back to our posture and opening the hand of thought without creating an internal monitor?

[Jundo]

Hello everyone,

I'm excited to make my first post in this forum. I've been interested in Zen for few years now but I've never been part of a sangha. I'm originally from Italy but I currently live in England.

In "Opening the Hand of Thought," Kosho Uchiyama advises that when thoughts arise, we should "open the hand of thoughts" and return to our posture. However, this approach seems to create a sort of internal monitor, as if there is a part of my brain constantly checking for thoughts. It feels like layering a brain atop another. At the moment, my practice involves letting my experiences be, without interference. I donÂ’t use an object of meditation, nor do I intentionally try to be aware of anything specific. Often, I hear the advice that we should remain aware of the breathing, posture, or sensations during zazen, but this, to me, resembles the notion of layering awareness. We are intrinsically aware of our sensations without making a conscious effort to be so. Also, making a conscious effort to be aware of something, whether it's thoughts, feelings, or posture, feels unnatural.

How do you reconcile this coming back to our posture and opening the hand of thought without creating an internal monitor?

Hi Simon,

It is good to have you here.

Have you be able to go through our "we're all always beginners" talks yet? They may help answer some questions for you.

A SERIES OF TALKS FOR NEW FOLKS

https://www.treeleaf.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?121-A-SERIES-OF-TALKS-FOR-NEW-FOLKS

We usually open our hand without thinking about our hand, as just the most natural action. We do not need to monitor our hand and then open it.

Just do not grab the thoughts that pass through mind during Zazen, do not become tangled in thoughts. Let them come, let them go ... like a passing train you do not board.

However, if finding yourself grabbing and tangled in trains of thought ... just easily return to following the breath (what we recommend in this Sangha for newer folks, just following lightly without counting the breaths) or, if you can, sitting in "open spacious awareness" (which is maybe what you mean as "without an object of meditation?) No need to keep checking. Just don't get on the train and, if on the train, just step off without effort. No need to make a conscious effort.

Breath following is suggested for those newer to Zazen until they can settle down the mind a little. But then I guide folks to sit in "open awareness."

Gassho, Jundo

stlah

PS - Simon, when you get a chance, perhaps also introduce yourself here as well. Thank you.

https://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?21823-Greetings-by-new-folks-%28September%29

[Amelia]

It's a tough one. I often struggled with that too for a time. In my experience it just took time and lots of sitting to realize that I didn't need to watch for anything... it was more like noticing that I had wandered off in a thought. Then, I would straighten my posture and focus on some breaths and just open up again to shikantaza.

It's those moments when suddenly you realize, like waking up from a dream, that even though you are sitting on the cushion, you are suddenly thinking through the middle of a movie, or a conversation, or future plans. That's the time to notice and bring yourself back. With time, you can start to see where this chasing begins and just let the thought go.

We don't call it "practice" for no reason! All of it is pretty simple, but it can take time to sink in.


stlah

[Guest]

Hello everyone,

I'm excited to make my first post in this forum. I've been interested in Zen for few years now but I've never been part of a sangha. I'm originally from Italy but I currently live in England.

In "Opening the Hand of Thought," Kosho Uchiyama advises that when thoughts arise, we should "open the hand of thoughts" and return to our posture. However, this approach seems to create a sort of internal monitor, as if there is a part of my brain constantly checking for thoughts. It feels like layering a brain atop another. At the moment, my practice involves letting my experiences be, without interference. I donÂ’t use an object of meditation, nor do I intentionally try to be aware of anything specific. Often, I hear the advice that we should remain aware of the breathing, posture, or sensations during zazen, but this, to me, resembles the notion of layering awareness. We are intrinsically aware of our sensations without making a conscious effort to be so. Also, making a conscious effort to be aware of something, whether it's thoughts, feelings, or posture, feels unnatural.

How do you reconcile this coming back to our posture and opening the hand of thought without creating an internal monitor?

Something I took from the study of Benedictine spirituality that informs my approach to Shikantaza, can be summed up in the quote from St Benedict: “always we begin again “.

No need to worry, compare, or judge. We just sit, and if the mind wanders (as it certainly will), we just return to sitting, each moment we begin again.

Sattday

Dan

[RobO]

It's a tough one. I often struggled with that too for a time. In my experience it just took time and lots of sitting to realize that I didn't need to watch for anything... it was more like noticing that I had wandered off in a thought. Then, I would straighten my posture and focus on some breaths and just open up again to shikantaza.

It's those moments when suddenly you realize, like waking up from a dream, that even though you are sitting on the cushion, you are suddenly thinking through the middle of a movie, or a conversation, or future plans. That's the time to notice and bring yourself back. With time, you can start to see where this chasing begins and just let the thought go.

We don't call it "practice" for no reason! All of it is pretty simple, but it can take time to sink in.


stlah

Your last sentence is a very useful reminder for me.

Gassho, Rob
Sat today

[Kaitan]

St

Bernal

[Houzan]

Open the hand of thought?

According to Okumura, when he and his co-translator were translating the Japanese term for what to do with the mind while sitting, they first translated it to “letting go”. However, as “letting go” has some negative connotations to the native English speaker along the lines of “giving up”, they decided to invent the more poetic translation “opening the hand of thought”.

Therefore, opening the hand of thought is an expression aimed to capture most aspects of “letting go”. Jundo uses “sitting in radical equanimity”, which I find to be more useful. Sitting in radical equanimity means that you leave everything as it is. That you don’t do anything. When you don’t do anything with your hand, it opens naturally! This is what Uchiyama meant. He did not mean that you should TRY to open your hand. When you are trying to open your hand, trying to let go, trying to be aware, you are doing something. It is simply another form of active thinking.

So the term “opening the hand of thought”, while clarifying some aspects, might also be a bit misleading as it seems to suggest that we should do something: actively open our hand.

Please correct me Jundo, or someone, if I got it wrong. And sorry to run long!

Gassho, Michael
Satlah

[Jundo]

According to Okumura, when he and his co-translator were translating the Japanese term for what to do with the mind while sitting, they first translated it to “letting go”. However, as “letting go” has some negative connotations to the native English speaker along the lines of “giving up”, they decided to invent the more poetic translation “opening the hand of thought”.

In Realizing Genjokoan, Rev. Okumura writes ...

“Opening the hand of thought” is an expression my teacher, Kōshō Uchiyama Rōshi, coined for the process of letting go of thought in zazen. When we think, we grasp “things” with the “hand” of thought, believing them to actually be the concepts we have made of them. In our zazen practice, we open the hand of thought that grasps objects, and these concepts fall away from us.

My understanding is that Uchiyama's Japanese expression was "思いの手放し." For example, the Japanese Antaiji site has him saying [my boldface] ...

ここで祇管打坐の実際について一言申し上げておかねばなりませんが、われわれ坐禅している時でも頭に思いが 浮かんで来ないわけではありません。いろいろ思いが浮かんで来る。しかしもしこの思いを追ってしまえば、そ れはたとえ坐禅の恰好していても、それはもはや考え事をしているのです。それでこの時「いま自分は坐禅して いるのであって、考え事している時間ではない」と姿勢を正し、思いを手放して坐禅に帰るべきです。これを「散乱からの覚触」と言います。...

つまり上に言ったような思いを手放し、手放し、百千万発している坐禅そのものが身心脱落なのであって、身心脱落と言ってこれも何も決して特別な神秘的境 涯を言うのではありません。

https://antaiji.org/archives/jap/sawaki3.shtml

Just running it through translation AI real quick and patching up the rough parts ...

I must say something about the actual practice of Shikantaza here. Many thoughts come to mind. But if we follow these thoughts, even if we are sitting with the form and appearance of zazen, we are still thinking. At this point, you should correct your posture and say, "Now is the time for zazen, not for thinking," let go of your thoughts [思いを手放して], and return to zazen. This is called "awakening from scattering."...

... In other words, zazen itself, in which you are letting go of the thoughts [思いを手放し] mentioned above, letting go of them, and letting go of them, and letting go of them in a million million rounds, is body-mind falling away. This does not mean a special mystical state of being.

Now, one thing I do notice is that "opening the hand of thought" is a bit of a fancy way to translate "思いを手放し," which really is not such an amazing expression, and literally just means in Japanese "let go of thoughts," just like the very ordinary expression "let go of something" in English. They read the Kanji very literally to come up with this "open the hand of thought." Uchiyama was just really saying, "let go of thoughts." Literally, the expression "let go" 手放 means "hand" 手 and open/release 放. You can see the dictionary translation of 手放す here:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%89%8B%E6%94%BE%E3%81%99

手て放ばなす • (tebanasu) transitive godan (stem 手て放ばなし (tebanashi), past 手て放ばなした (tebanashita))

1- release, let go
2- abandon, relinquish, part with
3- send away one's child

An interesting fact, thank you. It is interesting what we translators can do to "fancy up" somebody's quite ordinary expression. Hmmm.

Gassho, J

stlah

[Simon]

Jundo uses “sitting in radical equanimity”, which I find to be more useful. Sitting in radical equanimity means that you leave everything as it is. That you don’t do anything. When you don’t do anything with your hand, it opens naturally! This is what Uchiyama meant. He did not mean that you should TRY to open your hand. When you are trying to open your hand, trying to let go, trying to be aware, you are doing something. It is simply another form of active thinking.

Yes, that's my problem. The instructions place me in a state where I have to do something when I sit. For example, I sit and my mind goes "Now that I'm sitting I must let go of any arising thoughts", and when there are no thoughts it goes "Now there are no thoughts". It's as if there's a constant monitoring due to these instructions. Sitting in radical equanimity sounds better. If my mind thinks I don't do anything because it's fine and if my mind doesn't think it's fine as well and there's nothing to do. Now my problem is that my mind might transform even this into a set of directives, leading to meta-thoughts about the practice. It feels like having a mind on top of my mind if that makes sense.

However, the approach of sitting in radical equanimity and not intervening with our thoughts seems to contradict Uchiyama's instructions.

I must say something about the actual practice of Shikantaza here. Many thoughts come to mind. But if we follow these thoughts, even if we are sitting with the form and appearance of zazen, we are still thinking. At this point, you should correct your posture and say, "Now is the time for zazen, not for thinking," let go of your thoughts [思いを手放して], and return to zazen. This is called "awakening from scattering."...

[Bion]

However, the approach of sitting in radical equanimity and not intervening with our thoughts seems to contradict Uchiyama's instructions.

To add a thought to your last comment there, and please don’t take this as any kind of teaching, but rather my own flawed ideas, I wouldn’t say Uchiyama roshi contradicts “sitting in radical equanimity” … That “snap out of it” moment always happens, and it’s when all of a sudden we realize “oh, I was lost in thoughts”. That in itself corrects the mind. In that moment, the choice we make is to stay not thinking, but that doesn’t mean we start going on a mental rant about how bad it was that we were thinking, and how we should correct that, and what zazen should be like. We simply continue to sit, adjusting body and breath, in equanimity, allowing the past moments to stay there, while we remain present, not judging or rejecting what was there moments earlier.

Again, take my words with generous amounts of salt, please..

Gassho sat

[Houzan]

Open the hand of thought?

Now my problem is that my mind might transform even this into a set of directives, leading to meta-thoughts about the practice. It feels like having a mind on top of my mind if that makes sense.

I had the same experience, but I realized after a while that these are simply just thoughts about my practice. Just sit in radical equanimity and let these thoughts go as well.

However, the approach of sitting in radical equanimity and not intervening with our thoughts seems to contradict Uchiyama's instructions.

My humble understanding is this (but please be aware of my limited experience): You have to separate "thoughts" from "thinking". Thoughts will always come. No point in trying to stop these. ThinkING, however, is actively doing something. You have already intervened. Okumura describes it as "interacting with thoughts". Although it feels out of our control, it is a mental avoidance strategy we have internalized. Therefore, when the mind is ready and becomes aware of our doing, our thinkING, we stop this doing and therefore return to non-doing, time and time again. I guess in one way we could say that we are not really doing shikantaza when we are not on the zz' line. BUT, in another way, we could most definitely say that we ARE doing shikantaza despite not always being on the zz' line.

Sorry to run long.

Gassho, Michael
Sat

[Jundo]

It is truly as natural as opening the hand, and is not instead being fixated on "do I need to think, and pay attention to my hand, to open the hand." No need for that thinking and attention in order to open the hand.

Instead, without thought, just open the hand. No need to focus on thoughts or on the hand, no need to be watchful. Just don't grab thoughts.

If the eye blinks, it blinks. If we need a breath, we breathe. If food is in our mouth, we swallow. We do not need to focus and think about blinking, breathing or swallowing.

Remember too that Zazen is not being without all thought or stopping thinking (although it may naturally happen sometimes). It is about letting thoughts come and go, as well as the spaces between thoughts, all without grabbing on. Truly, it is the opposite of effort.

I am reminded of this Koan which Dogen sometimes quoted, although it is on the naturalness of Kannon's acting with compassion without "giving it a second thought."

“What does the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion do by using his limitlessly abundant hands and eyes?” Ungan asks.

“He is like a person in the night reaching back with a hand to grope for a pillow,” Dogo responds.

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

I will say this about Uchiyama's description: It is not perfect, he did the best he could to say "just let go when you happen to notice you are caught in thoughts and thinking." He liked returning to the posture, but around here we practice returning to following the breath lightly, or "open awareness."

He did the best he could with words, but words are imperfect. It sounds like Uchiyama is describing something that requires attention, notice, effort ... but I assure you it is not.

Does walking require effort? Do you have to think, "now I must move my right leg, now my left?" No, we just walk ... the most natural thing.

Gassho, J

stlah

[Houzan]

[emoji120]

Gassho, Michael
Sat

[Seikan]

Does walking require effort? Do you have to think, "now I must move my right leg, now my left?" No, we just walk ... the most natural thing.

Love this analogy. So long as we are alive, we are "doing" something. Even in Zazen we are sitting, breathing, "Zazen-ing", but just like learning to walk, once we know to simply allow our thoughts to go their own way without taking us with them, it becomes quite natural to let it happen. It is our thinking about the process that always seems to get in the way.

Jundo's teachings/guidance on Zazen are some of the clearest and easiest to understand (that's why I'm here!). If you haven't already, I recommend spending some time with the teachings in the "Beginner's Place" and "Teacher Talks & Tips" sections of the forums (he provides some links above). I frequently revisit many of these myself as I always find that something new resonates with me that may not have resonated as strongly in the past (perhaps I simply wasn't ready to understand it yet...).

In addition, if I may, Domyo Burk also offers a wonderful, fairly concise teaching on Zazen that I feel perfectly complements how we practice here at Treeleaf (If I've misconstrued any of this, I'm more than happy to be corrected. ).

https://brightwayzen.org/instructions-for-zazen-in-eight-verses-explained/

Disclaimer: She does allude a bit to "proper sitting" and "appropriate posture", but not so much as to seem to be forcing a particular sitting position. In full Treeleaf spirit, I believe that the "appropriate posture" can refer to any posture that works for one's body/situation.

Sometimes hearing the "same" teaching, but through different (seemingly contradictory at times) words can make all the difference. If the language of "opening the hand" conjures up too much of a sense of "doing", then perhaps that isn't the right wording to focus on. We each infuse additional meaning into words based on our own experiences, etc. Therefore it is wonderful that there are so many great analogies/teachings on Shikantaza as one or more of them is likely to "click" and help us to settle into the practice.

Apologies for rambling a bit long with my imperfect opinions and understanding...

Gassho,
Seikan

-stlah-