The big trip to nowhere...

[Dosho]

Re: The big trip to nowhere...

I've been away for a while mostly because of exactly the kind of uncertainty in my mind that this thread highlights. I appreciate your brutal honesty, Chet, and I take (most) things you say very seriously, despite the pit-bull mouth it sometimes comes from. But now you want to take away faith, too? I'm sure I'm missing something here, but what else are all us deluded, desperate assholes sitting and doing nothing every day, denying the tenets of all the bullshit religions we were raised on, supposed to use for a rope as we climb down this hole? After all the possible cute Zen cliches and mind-bending conceptual somersaults, video sitting, bantering of ethereal ideas and ego-suppressing straight-faced concentration on absolutely nothing, at the end of the day what the hell is supposed to get me through to the next one? There is no book, no dogma, no haiku, nothing to hold onto anymore, wandering in the dark waiting for the lights to come on. I thought faith told me to not give up, because there was something here, to which a lost person could aspire. :?:

Hey Tobiishi,

I may not be the right person to give a perspective here since I was never religious growing up and have never had much direct experience with more traditionally Western religions. So, faith is not a word I use regularly, but I will just say that when I have the most trust and optimism about the world as well as what helps me to get up off the mat after a terrible day is seeing simple acts of compassion, which I like to think our practice encourages in abundance. I still have a strong fear of death and what comes next for all of us, so I am no different there. When I need rope, I come here. When I need a lift, I look for guidance from others. When I feel hopeful, I try to offer some in return. It isn't much to fall back on, but the good things in life tend to be the most simple. Yes, it's zenny, but in my experience it tends to be true.

Gassho,
Dosho

[Rich]

Re: The big trip to nowhere...

It's not like anyone can explain to you what you are, what your experience is. Even if you don't understand anything, sitting is a good way to rest.
don't expect anything.

After cutting the grass around the shed yesterday, I went in the house and heard a tremendous cracking and boom. Looking out the door I saw a large tree lying where I had just walked. Just a reminder that 'Life is like a floating cloud which appears, death is like a floating cloud which disappears.' Sometimes sitting is like the one pure and clear thing that does not appear or disappear. Like the big trip to nowhere...
/Rich

[Taigu]

Re: The big trip to nowhere...

Chet,

Your participation is really appreciated. Nothing wrong with leg-strectching. There is a lot of me in you, something quite passionate and radical I also share. I was suggesting that there is a way for people like us to scream Mu and yet find the silence undisrupted.

triple gassho again, brother


Taigu

Re: The big trip to nowhere...

It's hard to be silent on a discussion forum.

Part of this is probably a leg-stretching thing. I've spent a long while being told that my practice was inauthentic. Mostly, it was my time in LA and with Hannah.

I guess my approach could do to have a bit less pesticide and a bit more fertilizer. It's harder for me to sympathize with people who probably do need some faith and encouragement.

Chet

[Taigu]

Re: The big trip to nowhere...

When I read you Chet, I cannot help it, I find it d... clever, but at the same time, your voice, the tone of your voice and where it comes from... let's put it another way, a barking dog knows about the sound of MU, makes it sound BIG in the dark, but is short of one thing: being silently MU.

And yes,I agree with you, faith...And no, I don't agree with you, faith...

How can you-he-I express it without spoiling it?

Thank you for hanging around and sharing with us.

triple gassho


Taigu

Re: The big trip to nowhere...

I don't mean to do harm here, Tobishi. All sorts of people and organizations are more than willing to give you a faith structure to get you through to the next day or the next life. I think the Dharma is different.

Why did you leave your previous faith? Isn't it because you found something tenuous and 'not right' about it? What makes you think a particularly Buddhist version of the same thing would not lead to similar disillusionment? What is it that you aspire to attain? What does 'progress' look like to you? Be very honest as you approach these questions, because their answers are the very seed of future disappointment.

This sorry state of confusion and despair - what causes it? If you are not clear about this, no one can help you. What future attainment would also not be susceptible to chaotic conditions?

What does this 'future where all is well' look like? It's a phantom, and frequently this phantom is a large part of what prevents waking up. Aren't all the elements of enlightenment already here? Where else would they be? In your actual experience, where else IS there?

Faith and doubt both can and do serve to drive one to examine one's own perception, but they can also drive you away from sincere practice - and faith does this by the egoic manipulation of a concept of enlightenment as 'something else' (often anything else) than this samsaric(?) moment.

Chet

[Taigu]

Re: The big trip to nowhere...

Hi all,

My very down to earth approach to the path is to only revere what I meet or have met, to follow what has been experienced. For everything else, I remain open and sometimes skeptical. Much like Jundo, I tend to read esoteric teachings as metaphors and images and take this stuff with a pinch of salt. I sometimes work as a conjurer, a close-up magician for parties and restaurants, I always have a deck of cards or something to unleash the moment wherever I go and do magic in trains, streets...Why? Because this magic is a form of metaphor that takes people right back into the space of wonder they have left behind as they operate within the dualistic and so called rational mind. I often tell them that I am not the magician, they are. And My skills allow them to bring back to life this ability they have forgotten. They may open their eyes on ordinary magic which is much bigger than a few and cheap and ridiculous visual effects.The esoteric teachings of Buddhism are very much the same, once crossed, the world appears again in a complete different and yet not different way. A truly explicit illustration of this can be found in the 9th Oxherdind picture, reaching the source:


[attachment=0]9[1].gif[/attachment]

Too many steps have been taken returning to the root and the source.
Better to have been blind and deaf from the beginning!
Dwelling in one's true abode, unconcerned with that without --
The river flows tranquilly on and the flowers are red.

As-it-isness is the wondrous state. As we often say chopping wood and carrying water is it. In a modern wording: doing the laundry , paying bills and driving the car to the local supermarket.



gassho


Taigu

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[Jundo]

Re: The big trip to nowhere...

Hi,

I believe that starting off in Buddhist practice takes a certain amount of "trust & dedication" (a term I prefer to "faith" because of all the baggage that "faith" carries with it for most folks). At the outset, one has to trust that there is something to what our practice and philosophy is about, because one yet has no personal experience and must just go on the assumption that the teachings and teachers and books are reliable. You need the same faith the first time you try anything without personal experience. Even a cake recipe from a book.

But like that cake recipe, if it doesn't start to taste right, and prove itself in your life after a short time (and continue to deepen and deepen in your life over time) ... then forget it. Give it up. Become a scientologist or something! :roll:

This is especially true for the most fundamental teachings such as the Four Noble Truths and the like ... the proof is in the pudding. Even those teachings that seem a bit fantastic and less "common sense" (such as that your "self" is not your "self", that "time is a state of mind", that "life and death are a state of mind" too, and the like), well, those need to be tasted by yourself personally ... and until they are, don't believe in them. Doubt 'em all. You can still get a lot out of practice without them (although missing what is, deep down at the center of the cake, the "best part").

But as to the superstition, magical systems, talk of post-mortem rebirth as a bunny rabbit, hocus-pocus, Buddha's in the Sky floating on Golden Lotus', super-normal powers, angels and devils, heavens and hells (outside the heavens and hells we create for ourselves in our lives) ... you name it ... Well, I actually think of much of that as something we can take or leave. Forget that stuff completely or, at best, remain an open minded, but very skeptical agnostic (I discount most of it, need little of that). That is what I do. Others, I take on a symbolic level. None of it is necessary to the central message of the Buddha. All the "magic" one needs is right before our eyes, and the Buddhist teachings are wondrous even without the flying Golden Lotus'.

But as to the "main teachings" of Buddhism and the worth of this Practice? Trust in that (or have "faith" ... whatever one wishes to call it. Nishijima Roshi calls it sometimes a "Will to the Truth").

Gassho, Jundo

[Tobiishi]

Re: The big trip to nowhere...

Chet said:

Believing it because someone tells you it's true is a sort of faith, and faith is the crutch of ego. It's a shaky thing - a construction - and it requires support and a lot of work. It's as insecure as any sort of conceptual attempt to answer the question what am I?. It leads, like most things, away from peace and security.

gassho...

I've been away for a while mostly because of exactly the kind of uncertainty in my mind that this thread highlights. I appreciate your brutal honesty, Chet, and I take (most) things you say very seriously, despite the pit-bull mouth it sometimes comes from. But now you want to take away faith, too? I'm sure I'm missing something here, but what else are all us deluded, desperate assholes sitting and doing nothing every day, denying the tenets of all the bullshit religions we were raised on, supposed to use for a rope as we climb down this hole? After all the possible cute Zen cliches and mind-bending conceptual somersaults, video sitting, bantering of ethereal ideas and ego-suppressing straight-faced concentration on absolutely nothing, at the end of the day what the hell is supposed to get me through to the next one? There is no book, no dogma, no haiku, nothing to hold onto anymore, wandering in the dark waiting for the lights to come on. I thought faith told me to not give up, because there was something here, to which a lost person could aspire. :?:

gassho
tobi

Re: The big trip to nowhere...

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

Zenny response:
There once was a guy named Vimalakirti who asked how to enter the dharma gate of non-duality.
Everybody gave it a shot but when the question got back round to him, Vimalakirti's answer left everyone speechless.

I think the answer to your question is the same as Vimalakirti's.

Honest response:
I don't know what the fuck I'm looking for. I just have this constant source of dissatisfaction that nothing seems to cure. It's like having a big hole in your life that you can't fill no matter what you throw in. Every accomplishment is followed by "Now what?". Every meal is followed with hunger. Every breath asks for the next.
It sucks because I generally like to figure shit out. I originally hoped Zen would tell me "the secret" but instead it just told me to sit down and stop complaining.
Squatting there in the dark it occasionally occurs to me: Maybe this is just what being alive feels like? Maybe there is no "cure". Maybe the problem is "me".

Wise ass response:
You said defecating is enlightenment. heh heh. heh heh...

Gassho,
-K2

*Gassho!*

Thank you for being honest - and oddly enough, I even appreciated the Zenny response.

I guess the question is: Do you realize that what you're looking for is a fool's game based on a profound misconception? Have you really seen it? 'Knowing' it and knowing it are very different. And....it shouldn't be taken as a conceptual truth. It shouldn't be believed as though it were true - because the difference between knowing it as an experience and taking it as simply an a priori fact just don't lead to the same sorts of peace. Believing it because someone tells you it's true is a sort of faith, and faith is the crutch of ego. It's a shaky thing - a construction - and it requires support and a lot of work. It's as insecure as any sort of conceptual attempt to answer the question what am I?. It leads, like most things, away from peace and security.

This is what I love about Zen. It frustrates conceptualization and forces the adherent to continually come back to the examination of what is actually happening(?) - what do I actually know and who knows it? Just asking this question earnestly and with total honesty is so unbelievably revolutionary! In a way, it's just everyday life and sensation, but examined with total honesty. 'Enlightenment' is just this - seen without agenda or self-deception.

This isn't to say that seeing your 'original face' leaves one impervious to egoic manipulation, but egoic manipulation leads to suffering and suffering very often 're-awakens' you. And this isn't to say that you become an automaton - never experiencing any pain or suffering at all. For instance, losing a spouse or child can obvious be very painful events and they should be honored - they are just a part of human experience and even trying to 'be above them' or 'impervious to them' is an ego manipulation in itself. Believing that you are unloveable or intrinsically flawed or turning your own pain against others who should be 'punished' for causing the same sorts of pain as you went through - these are emotionally charged but fraudulent stories that need not have any real meaning and do not hold up to the scrutiny of actual reality as it happens.

I do believe that true awakening can lessen the grief of death because it's been true in my own experience, but it's more of a curious side effect, and the result does not lead to imperviousness so much as an opening to the suffering of those others around you who are also grieving. Then again - I've never been married and I have no children.

Chet

[Hoko]

Re: The big trip to nowhere...

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

Zenny response:
There once was a guy named Vimalakirti who asked how to enter the dharma gate of non-duality.
Everybody gave it a shot but when the question got back round to him, Vimalakirti's answer left everyone speechless.

I think the answer to your question is the same as Vimalakirti's.

Honest response:
I don't know what the fuck I'm looking for. I just have this constant source of dissatisfaction that nothing seems to cure. It's like having a big hole in your life that you can't fill no matter what you throw in. Every accomplishment is followed by "Now what?". Every meal is followed with hunger. Every breath asks for the next.
It sucks because I generally like to figure shit out. I originally hoped Zen would tell me "the secret" but instead it just told me to sit down and stop complaining.
Squatting there in the dark it occasionally occurs to me: Maybe this is just what being alive feels like? Maybe there is no "cure". Maybe the problem is "me".

Wise ass response:
You said defecating is enlightenment. heh heh. heh heh...

Gassho,
-K2

Re: The big trip to nowhere...

I was looking for something and became lost. Nothing was found because "I" was lost. Because "I" was lost enough was able to find me wherever I was. Everything being everything and everywhere, there was nothing to lose and nothing to find. No losing, no finding. No more looking, only being found... by being and by losing myself.

I'm looking for nothing. Which is nice because it's everywhere. I suppose, on one level, I am looking for conservation of energies... to prepare for old age. It isn't anywhere because it is a removal of the unnecessary and harmful... it's the nothing that's left in their place.


Cheers,
Cam

We don't know each other very well...

But this sounds like so much philosophical bullshit. I don't really think you know what you mean when you say 'nothing is everywhere'. The nothing isn't what's left in the place of something. The something actually is the nothing. They are both the same stuff. Really. Not philosophically. Not conceptually. Not if you 'close one eye and turn your head' intellectually-speaking. Maybe I'm just hearing you wrong, but you seem to be on about a 'slack motherf***er' sort of Zen. There's a lot of that about - especially in the West. I assure you, you will most certainly tire of it and you will not be able to convince that part of yourself that knows that something is still terribly 'off'.

I'm not playing with ideas here - I'm talking about first-hand experience. In a sense, there's no way to talk about this without inviting such thought-play. We are conditioned to think of the world in this way, and invitations to examine this thing right here will not be understood.

Maybe my post sounds like philosophical bullshit too - but that's not what's intended. I'm trying to point at something - and if you see it, you'll forget all about the gesturing itself.

Chet

[Taigu]

Re: The big trip to nowhere...

Thank you Rich, so true. Young energy is challenging and roaring. Yang. On the other side, things get pretty cool. Easy going. Easy doing.

gassho


taigu

[Cameron]

Re: The big trip to nowhere...

I was looking for something and became lost. Nothing was found because "I" was lost. Because "I" was lost enough was able to find me wherever I was. Everything being everything and everywhere, there was nothing to lose and nothing to find. No losing, no finding. No more looking, only being found... by being and by losing myself.

I'm looking for nothing. Which is nice because it's everywhere. I suppose, on one level, I am looking for conservation of energies... to prepare for old age. It isn't anywhere because it is a removal of the unnecessary and harmful... it's the nothing that's left in their place.


Cheers,
Cam

[Rich]

Re: The big trip to nowhere...

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


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

Sometimes I still wish I had all the answers but more and more it's just do it.