Stop looking for something else

[Dosho]

Re: Stop looking for something else

Thank you Sensei...a very topical thread for me, today especially.

[Jinyu]

Re: Stop looking for something else

Hello!
I just wanted to thank you for this thread

gassho,
Luis/Jinyu

[Taigu]

Re: Stop looking for something else

Indeed Chet, Zen is easy, and this is why it is sooooooo difficult.
People ( Taigu included) want to talk about experiences, insights and stuff... To stop is real and not rewarding.
Don't we all much prefer cheap Chinese food to the real deal?

Joyful mind, kind mind,big mind... May everybody manifest these three minds that are one! ( allow one, the two others are free)


gassho


Taigu

Re: Stop looking for something else

I've been thinking about this thread for awhile....

I think I got really lucky early on by NOT being exposed to a lot of Zen books before beginning a meditation practice. Hell, it was already about a year or two after :wink: that I even began sitting regularly and it was a little bit into that before I picked up 'Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind'. Nothing I read or was exposed to early on gave me a case of the 'chase syndrome'.

There are some pretty popular books out there that could be particularly problematic in setting up someone on a 'chase syndrome' path - 'The Three Pillars of Zen' springs immediately to mind, for instance. I think that for a lot of people, they never take the 'chase syndrome' path to its end point - the point where they are crushed by the chase and everything springs open.

From the other end, I think most people never 'grok' the subtlety of the 'shikantaza' path either - they either drive their chase 'underground' where they don't acknowledge it - or they never get their practice up to the 'open-mind intensity'.

Either way, Zen is sort of a grind - but only because we make it that way by bringing 'attainment consciousness' into it. In reality, Zen is quite simple - quite easy.

Chet

[ghop]

Re: Stop looking for something else

Thanks Taigu. I appreciate everything you didn't say. 8)

gassho
ghop

[Kent]

Re: Stop looking for something else

Thank you Taigu. Gassho Kent

[Shohei]

Re: Stop looking for something else

Thank you for the reminder

Gassho
Shohei

[Taigu]

Hi all,

Going through the latest posts, I would like to just remind everybody and Taigu too that the way is not difficult, we just have to cease the chase, stop looking for something else. To just stop. And that's enough. What is taking place beyond the action of stopping is none of our deed or work or responsability, for this self is empty anyway. So, just stop. And the idea of going on and searching again arises, drop it and stop. Do this as many times as necessary, thousand times a day. The action of stopping is the act of sitting without agendas and goals, it is this naked awareness, open to thoughts and non thoughts, allowing everything, detached from everything.

The Shodoka, one of the most inspiring poems ever written by one of our ancestors, Yoka Daichi, starts like this:

There is the leisurely one,
Walking the Tao, beyond philosophy,
Not avoiding fantasy, not seeking truth.
The real nature of ignorance is the Buddha-nature itself;
The empty delusory body is the very body of the Dharma.

When the Dharma body awakens completely,
There is nothing at all.
The source of our self-nature
Is the Buddha of innocent truth.
Mental and physical reactions come and go
Like clouds in the empty sky;
Greed, hatred, and ignorance appear and disappear
Like bubbles on the surface of the sea.
(Aitken translation)

Not avoiding fantaisy, not seeking truth...
Not picking up or choosing...

Just endlessly do this, stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. And enjoy.

The real nature of ignorance is the Buddha-nature itself;
The empty delusory body is the very body of the Dharma.

As Chet would say, you are swimming in IT.

gassho to all


Taigu