Sympathy for the awakened...

[JohnsonCM]

Re: Sympathy for the awakened...

I used to live in N.C. where we had plenty of the little beasties. Awesome story, great parable. I will remember it. Thank you.

Gassho,

Christopher

[Jundo]

Re: Sympathy for the awakened...

Does that make sense in a Zenny way?

It does. I am starting to see. It is tough, though. When the kids go nuts and the wife is frazzled and I am stressed, I find it hard to just be there with it, instead of becomming distracted by the negative aspects of it.

This is why what we follow is called "Practice" ... Kids going nuts are Buddha, frazzled wife is a Great Teacher.

We live/sit with things "just as they are" ... and that is Freedom.

I know that they will be there, and stress is part of life, and that the stressfull part of life is perfect the way it is, when it is, and when things are mellow and nice that that is also perfect, when it is, and that when things change that's perfect too, because how else could it be? but I tend to get caught up in the emotion of being stressed.

You might just find that being so "allowing" of life that you can even "just be" with stressful situations truly helps your stress! Being so at ease that one does not even worry about being stressed some of the day or about some things is the ultimate Peace! :shock:

As I often say, Zazen will not fix your flat tire, cure your cancer or even your acne or broken marriage (although it may help you deal with each better). What our way will surely do is help you embrace each, go with the flow, allow and be ok with those parts of life (even though still sometimes scary, sometimes stressful, sometimes hard). We "Go With The Flow".

In fact, we can lose our small self to such a degree ... there remains just the Flowing ...

I'll need to sit some more, lately I haven't been because I am sick,

When sick, just be sick. Cough cough.

And I know that experiencing that completeness is sacred (even when it sucks) and perfect too, but I will need to practice the non practice of getting over my self which doesn't exist.

Just Sit ... (or when sick, recline) ... dropping all demands, likes and dislikes, resistance, judgments (all the demands of the "self" on the world). Just Sit ... putting the "self" out of a job for a time.

That is our Practice.

I don't expect that I will reach some plane of existance where I am blissful all the time, but the idea of being in harmony with the now that I am experiencing, whether happy or sad, pleasent or rainy-Wednesday-in-November-with-no-jacket unpleasent, is sometimes very difficult.

Yes. If it were easy, there would be no reason for places like this Sangha. 8)

But, ya know, it is surprisingly not so hard when it sinks in. Kind of like riding a bike ... looks hard before you can.

Look ... there are many kinds of meditation and religions that promise Everlasting Bliss, Health, Psychic Powers, Love, Money In Your Bank Account, a life never disturbed ... no acne, cancer, flat tires. If you want bliss, I know a pusher on the corner who will get you there quick.

Go there is you want that.

Here, all that is offered is is Oneness, Wholeness with life As It Is. That's a Peace Sublime, Total Flowing.

(but, hey, realistically ... I ask you not to even need that 24/7) 8) Sometimes we flow with circumstances ... sometimes we kinda get knocked our of our boat. :roll:

(ever read my alligator story? True story.)

http://blog.beliefnet.com/treeleafzen/2 ... r-zen.html

Gassho, J

[JohnsonCM]

Re: Sympathy for the awakened...

Does that make sense in a Zenny way?

It does. I am starting to see. It is tough, though. When the kids go nuts and the wife is frazzled and I am stressed, I find it hard to just be there with it, instead of becomming distracted by the negative aspects of it. I know that they will be there, and stress is part of life, and that the stressfull part of life is perfect the way it is, when it is, and when things are mellow and nice that that is also perfect, when it is, and that when things change that's perfect too, because how else could it be? but I tend to get caught up in the emotion of being stressed. I'll need to sit some more, lately I haven't been because I am sick, and since I have the immune system of a lab rat, when I get sick, I get the plague, so I am a tad misserable (which is perfect the way it is, as it is, when it is). I know that all of life, in each moment is the most complete when-where-why-how it can be, no matter what that is. And I know that experiencing that completeness is sacred (even when it sucks) and perfect too, but I will need to practice the non practice of getting over my self which doesn't exist. I don't expect that I will reach some plane of existance where I am blissful all the time, but the idea of being in harmony with the now that I am experiencing, whether happy or sad, pleasent or rainy-Wednesday-in-November-with-no-jacket unpleasent, is sometimes very difficult.

[Jundo]

Re: Sympathy for the awakened...

And I want to simplify my whole essay above just to this ...

Be completely, thoroughly, unresistingly to-the-marrow at one with the whole hike one is on... all the ups and downs ... including the poison ivy and the mosquitoes and the times one wishes one were anywhere but on that damn trail.

(How? Shikantaza! Getting the self out of the way of one self.)

[Jundo]

Re: Sympathy for the awakened...

Someone over at ZFI (where I also posted part of the above) wrote a wondrous response, I believe, to the portion that says ...


"Now, if you think I am saying "just resign yourself to life", you miss my point. If you hear me saying, "just allow life on its own terms, and let life be life", you are closer to my meaning. Dance with life."

He wrote ...

accord, accredit, admit, approve, authorize, be big, be game for, bear, brook, certify, commission, consent, empower, endorse, endure, favor, free up, give a blank check, give carte blanche, give leave, give permission, give the go-ahead, give the green light, go along with, grant permission, hear of, hold with, indulge, let, license, live with, oblige, okay, pass, pass on, put up with, recognize, release, sanction, sit still for, stand, suffer, support, take kindly to, tolerate, warrant

instead of

abandon, abdicate, bail out, bow out, capitulate, cease work, cede, demit, divorce oneself from, drop, drop out, end service, fold, forgo, forsake, give notice, give up the ship, hand in resignation, hand over, hang it up, leave, quit, relinquish, renounce, retire, secede, separate oneself from, sign off, stand aside, stand down, step down, surrender, terminate, throw in the towel, turn over, vacate, waive, walk out, wash hands of

Yep in deedy!

"Allowing" does not mean we must be passive and, as a matter of fact, how we dance that dance with each step and turn makes how it goes.

[Jundo]

Re: Sympathy for the awakened...

But when I stop looking for it and I am just wholey there in the moment, it will find me,

Yes, and sometimes it won't.

(which doesn't mean it is not always 'there' by the way ... just that sometimes it will not come to your mind and eyes when you want it to come).

Where did this idea start that once someone got "Enlightened", the "Lights" had to stay on 24/7 for all the rest of timeless time? And where did the idea come that "Enlightenment" is a fixed state, and not a constantly changing dance to fit each moment and circumstance (a dance in which sometimes we stand tall, and sometimes we fall, sometimes we are graceful and sometimes not ... even though always there is reality and ultimately no place to fall)?

Perhaps part of really getting "Enlightenment" is not needing to "feel enlightened" in every situation (free of that need as much as any desire) ... and just sometimes, somehow getting on with life, even when life is a pure pain in the ass (as life will be sometimes, guaranteed ... even for Buddhas and Ancestors, I believe). THAT strikes me as True Freedom, and a realistic "at homeness" and "oneness beyond oneness" with life. One is so "In Tune", so "Happy & At One With" life As-It-Is ... that one does not even require any longer to always feel, every day "happy" "in tune" and "at one with life"! Being fully in tune, harmonious, copacetic, undivided and A-ok with sometimes feeling each of those ways, sometimes not. It is like some Wise inner sense laughing at the small self when and as that small self feels thoroughly "blue and broken-hearted". It is like being so in love with something or someone, so content and in union with some person or situation, that we no long demand anything from it than that it be "just as it is". And that is Beautiful (even when beautiful sometimes, old and cantankerous and ugly sometimes)!

Yes, there will be times of bliss and joy and union and harmony ... and we savor those. And there will be times of pain and craziness and confusion and more life craziness ... and (now free of any demands) we can savor those too, dropping all thought of what "me, myself and I" demands of the situation.! When up to your neck in the trash pile, "Just Be There"! When the garbage stinks, do not pretend it is perfume ... but neither demand perfume (even as you might try to take it outside ... acceptance-without-acceptance, at once!). Even the stinky garbage is just what it is, a jewel in its way (even as we work to clean it where we can ... cause it stinks.)

Now, if you think I am saying "just resign yourself to life", you miss my point. If you hear me saying, "just allow life on its own terms, and let life be life", you are closer to my meaning. Dance with life.

Look, a Buddha or any Ancestor, Jesus or any Saint dies and ... century by century ... those in the religion (looking from afar at what those attainments actually were on the part of their "religious heroes") start to imagine and fantasize and exaggerate their wonderful nature into something super-human. What was merely "Great, Profound and Wonderful" must become "Miraculous, Wondrous and Ridiculous". The result is called an "hagiography"

A hagiography is a biography, usually of a saint or saintly person, and usually written to idealize their life or justify their sainthood. In other words, a hagiography is usually a positive presentation of a life, rather than an objective or critical biography. When using a hagiography as a research source, the purpose and style must be taken into consideration, as the writer probably omitted negative information and exaggerated or even created positive information about the subject of the hagiography. Lives of the saints are typically hagiographies.

Now, I have no doubt that Buddha and the Ancestors, Jesus and St. Francis of Assisi too, were stupendous human beings. But, Jesus, give me people who were flesh and blood, which is who and what they probably were! I very much appreciate the scattered stories where Buddha suffered from a backache or diarrhea from something he ate for lunch, like the rest of us ...

Speaking of life being a "pain in the ass", the Buddha had a bloody big pain just before he died ...

The Mahaparinibbana Sutta, from the Long Discourse of Pali Tipitaka, ... paints two conflicting personalities of the Buddha, one overriding the other. The first personality was that of a miracle worker who beamed himself and his entourage of monks across the Ganges River (D II, 89), who had a divine vision of the settlement of gods on earth (D II, 87), who could live until the end of the world on condition that someone invite him to do so (D II, 103), who determined the time of his own death (D II, 105), and whose death was glorified by the shower of heavenly flowers and sandal powder and divine music (D II, 138 ).

The other personality was that of an old man, who grumbled about his failing health and growing senility (D II, 120), who almost lost his life because of a severe pain during his last retreat at Vesali (D II, 100), and who was forced to come to terms with his unexpected illness and death after consuming a special cuisine offered by his generous host. These two personalities take turns emerging in different parts of the narrative.
http://www.lankalibrary.com/Bud/buddha_death.htm

How truly Glorious it is to be at Fathomless, Abiding Peace with a life which is sometimes peaceful, sometimes turbulent and chaotic! Letting it all be, allowing the "self's" demands for "peace and joy" to drop away! How Joyous to be One with a life sometimes joyful, sometimes heartrending and filled with ordinary human loss and grief. At one with life as-it-is, on life's terms (not yours ... although when the barrier come down on "self" and "other", it no longer is a difference). If one reads between the lines of the Nirvana Sutra, one can find such a Buddha ...

Not very appealing to me is the part of the story wherein the Buddha claims the ability to live forever (and not merely in a way we all can, all of us, beyond small concerns and thoughts of "life" and "death") ...

3. And the Blessed One said: "Whosoever, Ananda, has developed, practiced, employed, strengthened, maintained, scrutinized, and brought to perfection the four constituents of psychic power could, if he so desired, remain throughout a world-period or until the end of it. 21 The Tathagata, Ananda, has done so. Therefore the Tathagata could, if he so desired, remain throughout a world-period or until the end of it."

Instead, I appreciate the Buddha resigned to his human fate ... at Peace with it all ...

"Now I am frail, Ananda, old, aged, far gone in years. This is my eightieth year, and my life is spent. Even as an old cart, Ananda, is held together with much difficulty, so the body of the Tathagata is kept going only with supports. It is, Ananda, only when the Tathagata, disregarding external objects, with the cessation of certain feelings, attains to and abides in the signless concentration of mind, 19 that his body is more comfortable.

33. "Therefore, Ananda, be islands unto yourselves, refuges unto yourselves, seeking no external refuge; with the Dhamma as your island, the Dhamma as your refuge, seeking no other refuge.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .vaji.html

and even if it's completely not what I thought it was it will be completely clear to me.

It may be completely clear to you that it need not always and ever be completely clear.

Sometimes, we can appreciate the sweetness of the rose, and of this life, without fully comprehending its origins ... and despite the frequent thorns.

Even if it changes every moment of every day, in that moment in that way, that's what it is.

... that experience, being there in that moment is all I really need to be. It's all I really can be.

And you will always be there "in that moment" ... even without always feeling so (heck, where else could one be?). But being with how one feels "in that moment", and not needing that moment to be some other way is truly being at one with that moment, being "in the moment". Feeling 'out of the moment' in a certain moment, yet wishing to instead feel some other way (such as "in the moment") is truly being out of the moment, out of your life.

Does that make sense in a Zenny way?

Get your "self" out of the picture, and let life just be life ... no gap, no you apart from life.

Gassho, Jundo

[Dosho]

Re: Sympathy for the awakened...

By looking for it, I keep thinking it's something particular.

One finds things by finding them, not by looking for them. (Another of those kind of ideas I thought I would never say)

Gassho,
Bill

Indeed...that thought is contained in my signature line (from Aitken Roshi) just below this post.

[Eika]

Re: Sympathy for the awakened...

By looking for it, I keep thinking it's something particular.

One finds things by finding them, not by looking for them. (Another of those kind of ideas I thought I would never say)

Gassho,
Bill

[Shogen]

Re: Sympathy for the awakened...

There was nothing 'special' about the experience you had. Enlightenment is THIS experience right now, no matter how confused you are about it.

I think Chet might have just "Koan-ed" me. I'm begining to see that I've been trying to put a square peg in a round hole, trying to make enlightenment or peace or wholeness fit into a idea I had of what enlightenment or peace or wholeness should be. But it's allways right there, isn't it? Where ever or what ever I'm doing, that's really it. That's what you meant by "stop looking for it", right? By looking for it, I keep thinking it's something particular. But when I stop looking for it and I am just wholey there in the moment, it will find me, and even if it's completely not what I thought it was it will be completely clear to me. Even if it changes every moment of every day, in that moment in that way, that's what it is. Even if that moment is, say, having a meeting with my boss over my processes, that experience, being there in that moment is all I really need to be. It's all I really can be.

CM
YES without the "Me" and its attachments. Zak

[JohnsonCM]

Re: Sympathy for the awakened...

There was nothing 'special' about the experience you had. Enlightenment is THIS experience right now, no matter how confused you are about it.

I think Chet might have just "Koan-ed" me. I'm begining to see that I've been trying to put a square peg in a round hole, trying to make enlightenment or peace or wholeness fit into a idea I had of what enlightenment or peace or wholeness should be. But it's allways right there, isn't it? Where ever or what ever I'm doing, that's really it. That's what you meant by "stop looking for it", right? By looking for it, I keep thinking it's something particular. But when I stop looking for it and I am just wholey there in the moment, it will find me, and even if it's completely not what I thought it was it will be completely clear to me. Even if it changes every moment of every day, in that moment in that way, that's what it is. Even if that moment is, say, having a meeting with my boss over my processes, that experience, being there in that moment is all I really need to be. It's all I really can be.

[Shogen]

Re: Sympathy for the awakened...

" Joy for the awakened" Gassho Zak

[Jundo]

Re: Sympathy for the awakened...

Hi CM
All of life is just Coopers Rock, not just in the Spring, but Summer, Fall and Winter, too. In each of the seasons the perfections remains even in the frigid days of a West Virginia winter morning. Your experience was just that but now you must move on .....

Oh, I care for that image. Thank you, CM.

Heck, I go so far as to say that the life-self-world hiking trail is wondrous and a miracle when it looks like this ...



or like this (where did the hiker go?) ...



... and when it looks more like this ... all the trail, reject none of the trip ...



Of course, on can still learn to see through to the river and mountain which are always ever still there, never truly hidden .. no place for the dust and trash to alight ...

As well, one can and should do a bit of this, at each moment as one can ... to help reveal the trail in our lives ...



Though river and mountain and you may be hidden in a pile of trash, they are never hidden.

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

There was nothing 'special' about the experience you had. Enlightenment is THIS experience right now, no matter how confused you are about it.

Chet

[Shogen]

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.

Hi CM
All of life is just Coopers Rock, not just in the Spring, but Summer, Fall and Winter, too. In each of the seasons the perfections remains even in the frigid days of a West Virginia winter morning. Your experience was just that but now you must move on or stay in the frozen frame of your special moment. This frozen frame may become your delusion or ideal so let it go, it's over with. What's is very important on this special journey of yours is to pay heed to something very, very important, Jundo had to say. Some things said are like popsickle sticks in a raging sea storm, always finding a way to rise to the top. Anyway Jundo said, " EACH SECOND OF LIFE IS A PERFECT ARRIVING, NO PLACE TO GO OR NEED TO GO." Stay with this and sit with this for a while. Look between, around, under, and behind the words. Gassho Shogen

[Jundo]

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.
..........
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

A perspective of our Soto tradition which many seem unusual compared to the emphasis in many other schools of meditation is that we do not necessarily take such experiences as something to run toward, or run away from for that matter. Better said, we cherish and welcome and learn from such moments when there ... then cherish and welcome the moments when something else is there. There are profound insights to be gained in such experiences, but we do not remain there nor seek such "peak experiences" out. It is all part of life's mountain hike ... with vistas constantly changing ...

In our Soto Zen Practice, such states and experiences are but one perspective, one observation point, on a long hike on the mountain. In our philosophy, such experiences are not the "goal", just a precious and useful reference. Some folks reach it in deep experiences on the Zafu, some in small tastes and step by step realization, some in a bit of both, some while literally hiking through the mountains! It is all a lifelong hike up a mountain where, every so often, we get to a vantage point where the trees and rocks clear away and we can see the wide valley and how all is connected and whole. Perhaps we get to a peak where all is visible in all directions, and even the mountain drops away. You know the old saying: "In the beginning, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers; later on, mountains are not mountains and rivers are not rivers; and still later, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers again.”

I will use another example ... In fathering a child, there is nothing to compare with those "peak" moments when you first hear of the pregnancy, or first hold the newborn child in your arms. Yet, the true riches and lessons of parenthood are to be found in the whole, long trip, the ups and downs of what is to come ... all sacred, each a jewel in its way.

So, as Chet said ...

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

How about now? And now?

This is true. Every moment is a realization, but it may not seem like the kind of "revelation" that we sometimes revel in in those peak experiences.

Is my point clear? I have a little flu today, so a little fuzzy in the head. Gassho, J