Sympathy for the awakened...

[JohnsonCM]

Re: Sympathy for the awakened...

Chet,

Well, that's the thing. The knowledge stayed with me, and the memory has stayed with me, but the experience, I find, is often few and far between. Perhaps it is due to the stress I am typically under, and in those moments I was more able to shrug it off. Now, I have super briefly experienced it again while sitting zazen, which is more than I could say before I started practicing. So, while the information in yesterday's news paper might no longer be relevent, now that I am familiar with the layout and format, perhaps I will be better able to recognize it in the future.


Gassho,
Christopher

Re: Sympathy for the awakened...

Thank you for this teaching! I have experienced something like this myself. There is a large park in WV called Coopers Rock and it has many trails that you can hike. There have been one or two occasions when walking with my wife and kids, that I just sort of stopped walking and closed my eyes, took a deep breath and felt whole. I felt together and whole with the trail, the woods, the rocks, the air, the insects, my wife and kids, the world at large. It was a very profound moment. I think it was probably the first time that I understood that getting to the other end of the trail was missing the trail itself. Not only that it was missing everything while on the trail. The goal I had in mind of "get to the end of the trail" stopped me from "just being on the trail at that moment". I heard it once exclaimed as "be here now." And I try to follow that when ever possible, good or bad, non-good or non-bad, being-there-then, or not-being-anywhere-anywhen" No matter what, I try to remember back to those moments on those trails where everything was always just as it was meant to be.

Yesterday's realization is about as useful as yesterday's newspaper.

How about now? And now?

Chet

[JohnsonCM]

Re: Sympathy for the awakened...

Thank you for this teaching! I have experienced something like this myself. There is a large park in WV called Coopers Rock and it has many trails that you can hike. There have been one or two occasions when walking with my wife and kids, that I just sort of stopped walking and closed my eyes, took a deep breath and felt whole. I felt together and whole with the trail, the woods, the rocks, the air, the insects, my wife and kids, the world at large. It was a very profound moment. I think it was probably the first time that I understood that getting to the other end of the trail was missing the trail itself. Not only that it was missing everything while on the trail. The goal I had in mind of "get to the end of the trail" stopped me from "just being on the trail at that moment". I heard it once exclaimed as "be here now." And I try to follow that when ever possible, good or bad, non-good or non-bad, being-there-then, or not-being-anywhere-anywhen" No matter what, I try to remember back to those moments on those trails where everything was always just as it was meant to be.

[Martin]

Re: Sympathy for the awakened...

Thank you for joining us on the ride, Martin.

Thank you for having me on this ride with you, Jundo.

Gassho

Martin

[Manatee]

Re: Sympathy for the awakened...

Just lurking over here

Lurking and sitting.

M

Re: Sympathy for the awakened...

Thanks for this, guys.

Don't have anything mindblowing to say, just thanks.

Mandy

Holy shit, Mandy - you're alive.

Wondered what happened to you.

Chet

[Manatee]

Re: Sympathy for the awakened...

Thanks for this, guys.

Don't have anything mindblowing to say, just thanks.

Mandy

Re: Sympathy for the awakened...

As Stephanie said, we can't help looking for and chasing something. Or, at any rate, I can't, and I guess the same may be true for others. Something "beyond", some "meaning". That urge, I suspect, is part of who we are. The human animal evolved that way, and the urge to survive and improve one's position was / is presumably useful in the evolutionary struggle for survival, driving us ever on to secure a better food supply, a safer place to sleep, a better mate, a bigger car with shinier bits on, and so on. And, faced with what we perceive as our own impending extinction, that urge doesn't just give up, but carries on looking for a way out, a form of survival, a surer place in heaven, a better awakening (also with shinier bits on) and so on.

Reducing it to biology or evolution does not eliminate it as being at the core of our fundamental misunderstanding of reality. Natural /= 'correct'.

I'm not sure that this urge will ever "go" somewhere, though as I get older and more tired it maybe gets a bit less urgent (leading to the temptation to mistake tiredness for wisdom!). Any more than the urge to eat when I need food will go away; again, we evolved that way. Or at least I did, especially when faced with chocolate. Sometimes I think that the urge to find "meaning" or "awakening" is just that, an urge to find meaning. It's not "right" or "wrong". It's no more to be "let go" of or fought against than the urge to eat when hungry.

It will be there whether you drop it or not - the question is, are you investing your identity in it? And is it an accurate perception of what you actually experience?

It's just part of the landscape, of what "I" call "me". Perhaps the thing is not to mistake that urge for anything real, or to make the mistake of thinking that because we have evolved with that urge this somehow tells us anything about whether there is or is not a "meaning", or that it could either lead us to or stop us awakening. The urge is there, so one accepts it and enjoys the ride, but one doesn't therefore fall into the trap of thinking that there's a destination to be reached at the end of the ride, because in fact the whole of the ride is the destination, starting right here, starting with that urge even.

Gassho

Martin

And here's where you redeem yourself, IMHO!

Gassho.

Chet

[Jundo]

Re: Sympathy for the awakened...

The urge is there, so one accepts it and enjoys the ride, but one doesn't therefore fall into the trap of thinking that there's a destination to be reached at the end of the ride, because in fact the whole of the ride is the destination, starting right here, starting with that urge even.

Thank you for joining us on the ride, Martin.

[Rich]

Re: Sympathy for the awakened...

This urge is the universe itself as manifested thru your view of life and death. Even this has to be dropped. But I don't know, I just try to keep a just sitting mind all the time. Everything else seems to be speculation.
/Rich

[Martin]

Re: Sympathy for the awakened...

As Stephanie said, we can't help looking for and chasing something. Or, at any rate, I can't, and I guess the same may be true for others. Something "beyond", some "meaning". That urge, I suspect, is part of who we are. The human animal evolved that way, and the urge to survive and improve one's position was / is presumably useful in the evolutionary struggle for survival, driving us ever on to secure a better food supply, a safer place to sleep, a better mate, a bigger car with shinier bits on, and so on. And, faced with what we perceive as our own impending extinction, that urge doesn't just give up, but carries on looking for a way out, a form of survival, a surer place in heaven, a better awakening (also with shinier bits on) and so on.

I'm not sure that this urge will ever "go" somewhere, though as I get older and more tired it maybe gets a bit less urgent (leading to the temptation to mistake tiredness for wisdom!). Any more than the urge to eat when I need food will go away; again, we evolved that way. Or at least I did, especially when faced with chocolate. Sometimes I think that the urge to find "meaning" or "awakening" is just that, an urge to find meaning. It's not "right" or "wrong". It's no more to be "let go" of or fought against than the urge to eat when hungry. It's just part of the landscape, of what "I" call "me". Perhaps the thing is not to mistake that urge for anything real, or to make the mistake of thinking that because we have evolved with that urge this somehow tells us anything about whether there is or is not a "meaning", or that it could either lead us to or stop us awakening. The urge is there, so one accepts it and enjoys the ride, but one doesn't therefore fall into the trap of thinking that there's a destination to be reached at the end of the ride, because in fact the whole of the ride is the destination, starting right here, starting with that urge even.

Gassho

Martin

Re: Sympathy for the awakened...

The longer I'm here, the more I feel I'm in the right place.

Chet

[Jundo]

Re: Sympathy for the awakened...

What about this obsession that there is something to see, that I am not seeing? How do I drop it? I try, but "trying" seems worse than useless. I do not know how to let go other than to try to let go, which isn't working very well

First, there --is-- something most special to "see" ... although "see" is not quite the right word for it, because it implies that there is a "something" apart from "you" to see. What I describe is so "whole", that it is not "you" tasting the "ice cream" ... but just "icecreaming" (something like that). A perfect lick licking lick.

Second, the way is just to change your perspective on how this game is played, how the race is run (and where the finish line truly is). See if this description helps (I will also reprise it during our Beginners talks in the coming days) ...

http://blog.beliefnet.com/treeleafzen/2 ... fo-24.html

There is just running a race with no finish line to cross and no place to get to or, said a better way, the finish line fully crossed again and again with each step by step. We do not sit still, do not quit living and moving forward ... yet now with a sense that each step is a total arriving.

Develop such an attitude, and one is already ever home even while still creeping along the rocky road back to your house. Savor such a perspective, and this imperfect trip is ever perfectly what it is.

Does that make sense (in a Zenny way)?

Re: Sympathy for the awakened...

What about this obsession that there is something to see, that I am not seeing? How do I drop it? I try, but "trying" seems worse than useless. I do not know how to let go other than to try to let go, which isn't working very well

[Jundo]

Re: Sympathy for the awakened...

I feel like on some level I've realized that it's not to be found elsewhere, that whatever I have been looking for has always been right here. That it is not to be found in the perfect teacher, the perfect situation, the perfect temple on the most perfect mountain, the most perfect state of mind... it never goes anywhere... and yet I can't see it. I know it is right there, in front of me, around me, in me, with me, but I still can't see it or feel it. So the strange situation is that even though I know there is nowhere to find it, because I cannot see it, I keep looking for it. Is it here yet? What about now? Maybe if I can calm my mind, maybe if I can let go completely, stop striving, just sit... but of course, I cannot "just sit" as long as I am "just sitting" in an effort to find something, see something, make something happen. I see this, I understand it, but it is not enough to break the compulsion. Because I cannot see it, I keep looking for it. I want to see it. Maybe I could let go if I did not want to see it? But I cannot play a game with myself where I pretend I do not want something I want. So here I am stuck with my tail in my mouth, going around and around in a circle, like an ourobouros or this ridiculous dog: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-r4OGt9bms[/video]]

Yes, you are a dog chasing its tail. Just stop, truly come to a rest, and the tail will be caught.