The big trip to nowhere...

[JamesVB]

Re: The big trip to nowhere...

Are you looking for something? ... What are you looking for? ..

I don't know what I'm looking for, but if I find it, I'll share.

[Shohei]

Re: The big trip to nowhere...

tokyo, chet, tobishii, and I are here-
and though i see all as seperate and unque
despite having never met you, tobi or tokyo
i have experiences i rely on to say they are different. funny bit is these things i call experiences are not exclusive to anythign
they are empty. I get lost pretty easy. I would have said the cup ends and i begin the moment i say there is a cup and me.

Anywho Great post Chet!

Deep Gassho
Shohei

Re: The big trip to nowhere...

I lost here.
I know everything is here,
and I've never left here, even before I was born here.

When I discover I am here, I will be home.

But I certainly feel somewhere else.

I sat zazen, and instantly a light went on here.

Now I've lost my sitting, and it's like wandering in the dark, forgetting which direction I saw that light.

My original post was not a riddle. A clever response is nice, but do you know who you are(n't)?

If you feel something is 'wrong' about life, intellectualizing about it won't make that 'axle-off-true' feeling go away.

Chet

[Tobiishi]

Re: The big trip to nowhere...

I lost here.
I know everything is here,
and I've never left here, even before I was born here.

When I discover I am here, I will be home.

But I certainly feel somewhere else.

I sat zazen, and instantly a light went on here.

Now I've lost my sitting, and it's like wandering in the dark, forgetting which direction I saw that light.

Are you looking for something? What are you looking for? Where could it be?

Enlightenment isn't a state. It isn't something that one becomes. Meditating is not for attaining enlightenment - at it's heart, meditation IS enlightenment. So is defecating. What prevents you from seeing this?

While you are sitting, a dog barks. Where is it happening? Where was it before it happened and where does the 'barking' go? What is the 'barking' without the barking?

If you sit zazen in order to attain some state - you're lost. Can you examine this state (the only state that ever exists)? When you grasp a cup, can you tell me where 'you' end and the 'cup' begins? Where is the 'cupness'? Where is the 'you-ness'? If you think in terms of before and after, this and that, you're hopelessly going down rabbit-trails.

In a sense, nothing happens anywhere and in another sense, everything happens 'here'. There is nowhere else for it to happen. 'Tokyo' is happening right here...and yet, you could be in downtown Tokyo and be so lost in thinking it must be something else that you are not aware that you're actually in Tokyo. As long as you think there is 'Tokyo' happening somewhere else, you are like a person standing in a river wondering what 'wet' feels like.

Honestly answer the question! What are you looking for? If it is not here, where else could it be? Where else is there? How can you continue to not understand??

CHet