Is Zazen the highlight of your day?

[ghop]

Re: Is Zazen the highlight of your day?

Surely when I drink tea, I am drinking tea; but I might also be looking across the pond at a flight of geese. I would not particularly like to have missed the geese while I enjoyed the jasmine green tea.

This puts me in mind of the Eastern Orthodox monastic practice of Prayer of the Heart, or prayer without ceasing that St. Paul speaks about; which are equally part and parcel of the Hesychyst practice so well observed on Mount Athos or Russia. It is (without all the mumbo-jumbo, incense, candles and such) simply being aware of our living in the presence of eternity. Of course there were those who "over-exercised" this concept and went quite mad, or starved to death, or were eaten by bears ; but even better were those who applied the practices with what we call "economia", or in this sense, a modicum of reason and allowance for our imperfect understanding. So in that imperfect way they lived their simple lives reminding themselves that they lived in eternity, moment by beautiful moment.

Thank you for this Kyrillos. I have read "The Way Of A Pilgrim" with great interest, as well as the Philokalia. But I don't think I have ever heard such a beautiful and clear description of what the "prayer of the heart" is all about. I admire you for living in two worlds at one time, which of course is really just ONE world. Thanks again.

gassho
Greg

[JohnsonCM]

Re: Is Zazen the highlight of your day?

Definitely all things in moderation. That is also what attracted me to Zen in the first place. It's also called the Middle way because we try not to get so caught up in one thing or another to the point that we forget that there is something else there too. No fun when you are standing on one end of a see-saw with nothing to help balance the other side. I try to balance my practice of zen with my every day life, which I try to balance with my practice of zen, which I try to balance with my everyday life....and so on....and so on.

[Taigu]

Re: Is Zazen the highlight of your day?

Indeed Brother Kyrillos,

As an old Zen saying goes: boil the sound of pine trees in the pot...

We may just watch everything as we drink tea, this over there is not excluded form the activity here and now. Drinking tea is drinking air, clouds, highways, fields, mountains...This moment is really big.

Just like our sitting, not just a few inches of flesh balanced on a cushion. Where do sitting starts, where does it end?

As we sit, everything is invited into it. The one and undivided being-time is our practice.

gassho

Taigu

[Taigu]

Re: Is Zazen the highlight of your day?

Hi JohnsonCM,

As you say:

I try to balance my practice of zen with my every day life, which I try to balance with my practice of zen, which I try to balance with my everyday life....and so on....and so on.

Trying is extra. Trying is misleading, I am afraid. Allow your practice to flow into your life and let your life turn into practice, allow the moment where you cannot separate one from the other. That's practice. Otherwise you are pretty caught up in the trying and trying again.

No fun when you are standing on one end of a see-saw with nothing to help balance the other side

Well, we think that our practice is this:

This is from the Mumonkan, the koan collection. This is the
Fifth Case of that collection. It's called "Hsiang-yen: Up a
Tree".
The priest Hsiang-yen said, "It is as though you were up in
a tree, hanging from a branch with your teeth. Your hands
and feet can't touch any branch. Someone appears beneath
the tree and asked, `What is the meaning of Bodhidharma's
coming from the West?' If you do not answer, you evade your
responsibility. If you do answer, you lose your life. What
do you do?"

This is fun. Real fun. And this is your-mine-everybody's life.

Ask trees, grass, birds about balance...they haven't a clue. They don't care about balance. It happens by itself.

gassho

Taigu

[Rich]

Re: Is Zazen the highlight of your day?

Well, we think that our practice is this:

This is from the Mumonkan, the koan collection. This is the
Fifth Case of that collection. It's called "Hsiang-yen: Up a
Tree".
The priest Hsiang-yen said, "It is as though you were up in
a tree, hanging from a branch with your teeth. Your hands
and feet can't touch any branch. Someone appears beneath
the tree and asked, `What is the meaning of Bodhidharma's
coming from the West?' If you do not answer, you evade your
responsibility. If you do answer, you lose your life. What
do you do?"

This is fun. Real fun. And this is your-mine-everybody's life.

Ask trees, grass, birds about balance...they haven't a clue. They don't care about balance. It happens by itself.

gassho

Taigu

Everyday I feel like I am between a rock and a hard place and I'm never going to get it. This place is always moving and I don't know anything except for a moment or two.
/Rich

[Risho]

Re: Is Zazen the highlight of your day?

First I'm thankful that this is an online zendo and that it's not an ancient zen school or I'd probably have received several whacks by now. lol

But I can't resist asking questions, and I hope I'm not annoying because I ask so many, but I feel if I don't ask them I won't be following the dharma. I dont want to just nod my head in agreement if I don't "get" something. I read Buddhist literature, but it just isn't the same as the forum posts here. Every time something is posted it tests my understanding (I don't know if that's the right word) of the dharma.

In any case, now I have another question about that koan. I mean if you don't answer you live (but you evade your responsibility), if you answer you fall to your death. Is there no answer? Is the answer outside of that dual way of looking at it (Is that what you meant Taigu)? We typically view our practice in a dualistic way, but this is pointing to another way not tied to yes/no, right/wrong thinking?

**EDIT**
Or is this how we view our practice from our "I" perspective, when in fact practice isn't this at all?

Is this not living pointing to the death of the ego that if you answer in accord with the dharma it kills the false notion of self?

Am I sort of on the right track, am I over-thinking it?

Thank you all for humoring my questions

Cyril

[Taigu]

Re: Is Zazen the highlight of your day?

Not bad Cyril, but who said the answer had to be wordy? The koan itself says "what do you do?" not what do you say :wink: ...How do you allow the non-dual to be alive in your life? How? How?

The question won't be answered. It would be dead. The answer is alive, made of cells dancing away in your own Cyril way yet Buddha.

Keep the question as it is ans sit it. Sit and live as it. Do shikantaza.

gassho


Taigu

[Risho]

Re: Is Zazen the highlight of your day?

Thank you!!!

[Taylor]

Re: Is Zazen the highlight of your day?

In any case, now I have another question about that koan. I mean if you don't answer you live (but you evade your responsibility), if you answer you fall to your death.

Just as a side note, I've seen this translated a few ways. Now a days, people aren't as concerned with evading responsibility as they were so long ago. The "modern day" version I've seen says that if you do not answer you will be killed and if you speak you fall to your death. A bit more sticky, but also a bit less.

I have no answer, and because I would be stealing it, I cannot give you. However, Uchiyama Roshi once wrote something along the lines of, "When the time comes to die, why not just shut up and die?"

Gassho

[ghop]

Re: Is Zazen the highlight of your day?

The priest Hsiang-yen said, "It is as though you were up in
a tree, hanging from a branch with your teeth. Your hands
and feet can't touch any branch. Someone appears beneath
the tree and asked, `What is the meaning of Bodhidharma's
coming from the West?' If you do not answer, you evade your
responsibility. If you do answer, you lose your life. What
do you do?"

Stop climbing trees!!! :shock:

[Taigu]

Re: Is Zazen the highlight of your day?

too late ...

Cracking a cheap joke won't get you anywhere, buddy

T

[Genkai]

Re: Is Zazen the highlight of your day?

Is there another lesson in balance here? I would hope the passerby would recognize the gravity (:P) of the situation and go get a ladder, we can discuss Bhodidarma after he helps me down.

Bringing practice into every part of your life doesn't mean walking around all day in some sort of wigged-out Zen-stupor. That's the troubling part of this koan for me: why's this guy looking for answers to philosophical questions when there's obviously an emergency overhead? There's a wide gap between dropping attachment and becoming so detached that you can't function.

Look at it from the perspective of the other us, the person on the ground. If we laser-focus on practice/study/contemplation to the exclusion of all else, one day we'll be sitting Shikantaza and our friend's jaws will finally tire out... then they'll fall right on our head.

Still no answer, and maybe I'm cheating, but more to consider.

[Taigu]

Re: Is Zazen the highlight of your day?

one, two, three and ... My steps on this earth. I am walking on the edge of a cliff. It is not philosophical and no ladder will save me.
Wake up Peter.

gassho


Taigu

[Taigu]

Re: Is Zazen the highlight of your day?

By the way, your appreciation and understanding of shikantaza...read my previous post, please. Where does sitting start or end?

gassho


T

[Genkai]

Re: Is Zazen the highlight of your day?

Where does sitting start or end?

Now.

gassho