does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

[ZenYen]

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

Martin: There is a version of that story in "Buddhism: Plain and Simple" by Steve Hagen. In that book, the master tells the man that "we've all got 83 problems, each one of us." He then tells the man that Buddhist teaching cannot help him with any of those 83 problems, but it can help him with "the 84th problem." The man asks, "What is the 84th problem?" and is told that the 84th problem is that "you want to not have any problems."

It's a great story. Thanks for reminding me of it.

[Craig]

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

craig
thanks for the validation and the pep talk.

Pep talk? Who's giving a pep talk?

i hope this happens soon.

And that, my friend, is your "problem".

Wouldn't it be great if the world was perfect?

Gassho

how zenist of you. zen is everything i hate about zen.
c

[Craig]

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

Craig: For me, "real effort" meant doing zazen every night ... good mood, bad mood, tired, bored, whatever, I had to just make myself do it. Every night.

It also meant doing it more mindfully than I had in the past. Once upon a time, I'd sit and watch thoughts come and sometimes dwell on them and then half-heartedly nudge them aside, then do it all again, etc. I'd get some stillness out of meditation, some quiet time and a chance to think, but I got nothing that really seemed to spill over into my daily life. I'd do this for a month or so, decide I was getting nowhere, then quit. A few months later, I'd try again.

A few years ago, I sharpened my focus and really tried to just be aware. I slowly got better at recognizing thoughts and letting them pass by, and that kind of mind-flitting-around stuff stopped being a frequent part of my meditation, and I was spending less time thinking and more time being aware, if that makes sense. It's not like I've really mastered anything, because I still have zazen nights when my mind just hops around all over the place now and then. But it was at this point where I realized there was less of that going on that I seemed to mellow a bit in my daily life, and began to react to problems better and even find joy in things that previously irritated the heck out of me. So, I can definitely see in my own practice that zen has been a boon.

thanks for explaining. i know it's about radical goalessness, but let's be (un)real for one second. we all have initial reasons for doing some form of meditation or practice initially. i'm just saying mine rather than acting like it doesn't exist. and to get the record straight for all the roshis out there, i know zen is not gonna make my problems go away!! :lol:
peace
craig

[disastermouse]

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

craig
thanks for the validation and the pep talk.

Pep talk? Who's giving a pep talk?

i hope this happens soon.

And that, my friend, is your "problem".

Wouldn't it be great if the world was perfect?

Gassho

how zenist of you. zen is everything i hate about zen.
c

Uh oh, someone's getting testy...

Will's not a bad voice to which to listen. He's opened my eyes more times than not.

Just sayin'

Chet

[will]

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

how zenist of you. zen is everything i hate about zen.
c

Yes Craig. A lot of us have felt that way.

But let's drop that for now.

The main thing is that you keep sitting consistently. Don't put any hope in your practice. Just sit.

Dogen Zenji:

It shows itself when we give up our intentions

....

It is a practice that sets body and mind right.

We all have off moments or off days. Eventually we will see how we can wander off the road when we fail to sit Zazen (some of us more than others). Right now is right now. You can't force practice. You can't "Manufacture a Buddha on the cushion" as they say.

Anyway, you have received lots of good stories and experiences from all these guys, so keep sitting, and study the self.

Gassho _/_

and thank you for your practice

W

[Jundo]

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

thanks for explaining. i know it's about radical goalessness, but let's be (un)real for one second. we all have initial reasons for doing some form of meditation or practice initially. i'm just saying mine rather than acting like it doesn't exist. and to get the record straight for all the roshis out there, i know zen is not gonna make my problems go away!! :lol:
peace
craig

Hi Craig,

Ya know, I go back and forth on this issue ... but I think you are right in this. I just read something by Sheng Yen which was on point ...

... people living in American society today, under the strain and pressure of the present environment, suffer excessive tension, and many have lost their mental balance. Some are so severely tense that they have to consult a psychiatrist. Among those who come to learn Chan, I have one woman student, an outstanding lecturer in a well-known university, who asked me at the first meeting if I could help to relieve her from tense and uneasy moods. I told her that for a Chan practitioner this is a very simple matter. After five lessons she felt that Chan was a great blessing to her life.
...

[HOWEVER] If one's object of study is just to acquire physical and mental balance, and not to study meditation proper, then one will probably feel that the completion of the first stage is enough; but many students are not content with this

and, indeed, Sheng Yen then goes on to point out that the real "fruits" of Zen practice can only be harvested in what comes next ... that whole "escape from the sense of small 'I'" thingy ...

There is also nothing "wrong" per se in using a little Zazen just to relax a bit. But using Zen for just a bit of relaxation or good health is called "Bompu Zen", and is rather like missing the real medicine which Zazen offers. It is a bandaid, not the real cure for the Dukkha that our practice provides. To get the true benefits of the practice, one needs to press on ...

And on your original posting ...

Yes, sometimes I compare Zen Practice to a wonderful toolbelt of mental tools we develop with practice, fitting particular situations. Sometimes, we can learn to "be in the moment" with washing the dishes. Sometimes washing the dishes will even be tasted as an experience which transcends time and space ... all the universe is in that washing!

But other times ... washing dishes will just be dull and tedious. And that is just life.

Our Zen practice embraces all of that ... push none of that away. When amused be amused, when bored ... just be bored. Life is sometimes to be bored, sometimes not be be bored. The "Zen" part is not to resist that sometimes we are bored ... or even to resist that sometimes we resist to be bored! 8) That, strangely, makes us at home in our lives and thus reduces the fire which feeds the boredom!

(In fact, my recommendation to you is that the correct response may not be in your Zen practice alone ... but in finding a new job or hobby! )

Gassho, Jundo

Ps- And all of us should be a little forgiving when the inevitable "zenisms" "inscrutable sayings" and such creep into to conversations. We keep it to a minimum around here, but it kinda goes with the territory sometimes. I try to stamp it out when I see it, but we are all guilty from time to time (me too). The speaker should try to avoid the "stink of Zen", and the listener should try to get past the "stink of Zen" to the message conveyed.

[Jundo]

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

Hi Dirk,

Just one thing about this comment I wish to underline ...

As you have already read this practice actually can make life just that much harder if you want to see it that way. You have to look at the shit parts as well as the shiny, see all the rough and splintered parts and learn to live with them. Of course living with them doesn't only mean accepting your life as is but also working to improve the parts that you can. Your cruddy aspects of life are perfectly cruddy but you have wonderful parts too and you can always work away at the parts you need to.

It is important to recall that our "accepting of the cruddy parts" of life via Buddhist practice is not mere resignation or stoic "bite the bullet"-ness. It is not a "beaten down" acceptance. It is that little light of "illumination" that shines in the silence of our sitting, the subtle smile on the Buddha's face even when facing all the crud. I did a talk on this recently ...

Don't get me wrong, I am not talking about some simple, cockeyed optimism ...

I sometimes talk about an aspect of our Zen practice I call "acceptance without acceptance" ...

By that I mean an approach to all the ugly and painful aspects of life and this world which are just so hard (perhaps impossible) to accept.

We can accept and not accept simultaneously, repair what needs to be repaired.

I recall, for example, a dear zen-friend of mine who, facing a serious illness, accepted the condition fully, accepted that it is natural for us to all get sick sometimes - yet fought the good fight for a cure.

That is acceptance without acceptance.

Today, I would just like to add another perspective that makes us the mystics which we are ...

For besides merely accepting while not accepting ... we might EMBRACE, CELEBRATE and SINK RIGHT IN! (and that includes the worst of it)! Maybe not all the time, but lots of times even in the face of the worst crud of life!

Any garden is flowers and weeds ... life is beauty and ugliness (some of it heartbreaking). Yet we see ALL of that as life's nature. We not only accept and tolerate ... we GIVE THANKS FOR all sides of it.

...

Now, don't ever get this point wrong: Praising the weeds and wars and wrongs, and being thankful for all of it ... that does not mean we do not set to pulling weeds, fixing this world, righting wrongs.

http://blog.beliefnet.com/treeleafzen/2 ... k-rig.html

I am reminded of part of Master Hongzhi's classic poem on keeping the "illumination" in the "silent sitting", for otherwise we turn to dullness and sit like ghosts ...

When “silence” and “illumination”
both are operating and complete,
the lotus flower opens and the
dreamer awakens.
The hundred rivers flow into the sea,
and the thousand peaks face the
great mountain


But if illumination neglects serenity then aggressiveness appears.
...
But if serenity neglects illumination, murkiness leads to wasted dharma.

Gassho, Jundo

[will]

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

But if illumination neglects serenity then aggressiveness appears.
...
But if serenity neglects illumination, murkiness leads to wasted dharma.

And that's what some people call "Balance".

Of course, either or may appear whether we like it or not.

Gassho

[Jundo]

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

But if illumination neglects serenity then aggressiveness appears.
...
But if serenity neglects illumination, murkiness leads to wasted dharma.

And that's what some people call "Balance".

Of course, either or [both or neither sometimes, despite our hardest practice,] may appear whether we like it or not.

Gassho

Ah, that seems so.

[I added a word or eight that seems to have been dropped. Did I do right?]

Nicely said. Gassho, J

[disastermouse]

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

When drudgery comes, you sit with drudgery.

I've noticed that when I feel 'numb' to something, it actually takes a lot of energy and I'm usually furiously trying to avoid looking at something.

Either that or my CNS is just fried.

Chet

[will]

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

[I added a word or eight that seems to have been dropped. Did I do right?]

That's fine. lol

Gassho

[Craig]

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

how zenist of you. zen is everything i hate about zen.
c

Yes Craig. A lot of us have felt that way.

But let's drop that for now.

The main thing is that you keep sitting consistently. Don't put any hope in your practice. Just sit.

Dogen Zenji:

It shows itself when we give up our intentions

....

It is a practice that sets body and mind right.

We all have off moments or off days. Eventually we will see how we can wander off the road when we fail to sit Zazen (some of us more than others). Right now is right now. You can't force practice. You can't "Manufacture a Buddha on the cushion" as they say.

Anyway, you have received lots of good stories and experiences from all these guys, so keep sitting, and study the self.

Gassho _/_

and thank you for your practice

W

will-
this post and the dogen quote were quite helpful. i'm gonna copy it and put some where conspicuous i always forget to 'drop' anything. so thanks for reminding me.

[Craig]

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

it is so liberating to 'put no hope in practice'!!
craig

[Craig]

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

incidently, this is what i think causes so much suffering. my reactions to pretty much everything. it all just happens so fast. event>immediate reaction. rather than simply being the event, what ever it is. on paper, it seems nice and neat to 'just be bored' or whatever, but in reality, thoughts feelings reactions just are a big mess and it's a miracle to not get caught up in it all for a few seconds a day.
peace
craig

Understanding how we react and generally manufacture our own realities is one of the two wings on the one airplane of Buddhist Practice ... Keep up that examination and "self" understanding.

We had another thread on this recently ...

In traditional "lingo", our Practice does consist of both ?amatha (calming thoughts and emotions, illuminating and dropping body-mind) and awareness and understanding of vipa?yan? (insight and awareness primarily into the nature and workings of 'self' and mental functions).

In a nutshell, Vipa?yan? might be described as insights and awareness, based on Buddhist psychology, as to how the mind works and plays it games. It is an understanding of the Skandhas (form, sensation, perception, mental formation, consciousness ... those words always sung in the Heart Sutra), how our thoughts and emotional reactions arise, how we label and divide the world. We should also understand the Buddha's ideas about how suffering arises within us, which is intimately tied to all that.
viewtopic.php?p=22898#p22898

Gassho, Jundo

[disastermouse]

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

Ps- And all of us should be a little forgiving when the inevitable "zenisms" "inscrutable sayings" and such creep into to conversations. We keep it to a minimum around here, but it kinda goes with the territory sometimes. I try to stamp it out when I see it, but we are all guilty from time to time (me too). The speaker should try to avoid the "stink of Zen", and the listener should try to get past the "stink of Zen" to the message conveyed.

jundo,
thanks for the response. i agree about zenisms. my remark was a bit disparaging. my reaction to such things can be my own and i need not take it any farther. incidently, this is what i think causes so much suffering. my reactions to pretty much everything. it all just happens so fast. event>immediate reaction. rather than simply being the event, what ever it is. on paper, it seems nice and neat to 'just be bored' or whatever, but in reality, thoughts feelings reactions just are a big mess and it's a miracle to not get caught up in it all for a few seconds a day.
peace
craig

It helps when you can demonstrably show yourself that your thoughts are not necessarily true.

I do Byron Katie's 'Inquiry', but I'm sure there are many methods that could work.

I can relate to your essential issue here.

Chet