Intellectual understanding as an obstacle

[AlanLa]

Re: Intellectual understanding as an obstacle

I wrote:

Sit with a fan on low and have that fan blowing air on you, then focus your attention on the sound of the fan and the sensation of the air blowing on your body. Whenever you start thinking thoughts, just drop them and focus back on the sound of the fan coupled with the feeling of air crossing your body. That combination of mind-sound and air-moving-body is the present moment. Right there you can realize it! It's really that simple, though using a little bit of a mind trick to get you "there."

Stephanie and anyone else that this might appeal to,

I thought about this for quite a while before deciding to post it, just wanting to be sure it was ok to share as a technique. Because it isn't something I set out to do, rather something that just happens when I do zazen, I wasn't sure about recommending it. I decided it was fairly harmless, but now that it is posted I have been thinking about it more and want to mention two Big Cautions:

One, zazen is about accepting things as they are, not about manipulating the environment so you can accept it that way. This "trick" is meant to possibly help the mind slow down, or maybe stop, and is not "true" zazen.
Two, if you do this and it works, great; but make sure this is a temporary thing you do. Care must be taken you don't condition yourself into "needing" a fan in order to experience "good" zazen. You don't "need" anything for zazen other than maybe a posture, and refer to Jundo's post about right/wrong/good/bad zazen.

Also, I think to struggle is good. As I mentioned above, with time my hindrances became facilitators, and that process involved lots of struggle. I think if you observe (without participating) the struggle long enough it will eventually transform into something else or drop away entirely.

[Jundo]

Re: Intellectual understanding as an obstacle

two Big Cautions:

One, zazen is about accepting things as they are, not about manipulating the environment so you can accept it that way. This "trick" is meant to possibly help the mind slow down, or maybe stop, and is not "true" zazen.
Two, if you do this and it works, great; but make sure this is a temporary thing you do. Care must be taken you don't condition yourself into "needing" a fan in order to experience "good" zazen. You don't "need" anything for zazen other than maybe a posture, and refer to Jundo's post about right/wrong/good/bad zazen.

Also, I think to struggle is good. As I mentioned above, with time my hindrances became facilitators, and that process involved lots of struggle. I think if you observe (without participating) the struggle long enough it will eventually transform into something else or drop away entirely.

Hi Alan,

I am very glad you added this, and it all sounds fine to me. Sometimes, on those days when the mind is really really storming, we may use a trick or two ... such as counting the breath ... until things settle down. Then, we return to open, steady awareness focused on everything and no thing at all.

Our way is not to be completely without thoughts, however, but rather to not be attached and clinging to thoughts and emotions, not tangled or stirring, letting them go ... sometimes seeing the space between ... sometimes seeing through thoughts and emotions in clarity and translucence. As Al says, "observe without participating" ... and the sea will "transform ... or drop away entirely"

One might say that the way of the sea is not to be without waves, flat as glass (although that may happen once in awhile too), and the sailor must sale the ordinary waves and storms ... for they too are the sea. Sometimes we dip in to where all the waves vanish ... and we vanish too ... but most of our sailing must be where sea meets sky and life ... all whole.

On some days though, when the typhoon blows, he may have to take some special steps to get back to the open sea, battening down the hatches and mast, avoiding the rocks and reefs. All until the storm blows past.

Something like that.

[Stephanie]

Re: Intellectual understanding as an obstacle

Thanks again for the great posts, everyone.

Taylor, I don't think you're young and foolish, just young and almost impossibly exuberant and upbeat :wink:

AlanLa, I quite liked your suggestion about the fan, prescient as it's something I've already done. Given I have no air conditioning, on hot days, I aim the fan at me while I sit, and occasionally focusing my attention on the sensation of the breeze from the fan blowing on my skin can be very grounding. That moment of grounding can do a lot to slow the momentum of my whirling centrifuge of a brain. I'm definitely not trying to stop my thoughts, rather I find it almost impossible to have any sort of awareness if the thoughts don't drop below a certain density. Sometimes it takes 15 minutes for this to occur, sometimes a whole sitting period. Though the amount of time for the momentum to slow has historically been reduced when I've been sitting consistently every day.

It's definitely really bad after a day at work, which includes navigating a long commute full of incredibly aggressive drivers, as well as a day full of emotionally exciting and finely tuned interactions with others.

Back to the fan--this reminds me of something I heard in a talk a woman gave at a symposium on perception at my college. She was a Buddhist, I forget who she was, but the talk was great. She talked about how her teacher had taught her to let the sound of a gong or bell pass through her. It was a very vivid way she put it--of letting the experience of sound pass through you with no resistance or reactivity to it. Letting the whole body and mind ring. The sensation of air blowing on skin can be the same, I've noticed. You can let the whole body take it in, it becomes body-fan.

The main thing I'm seeing is that I am wired toward life very aggressively. I set things up in my head in terms of fighting or overcoming obstacles. Part of what happens when I sit is that this aggressive mind takes over the zazen, and turns the zazen into a battle against something--a racing mind. Waking up is upheld as the outcome of a successful battle with myself. I see this, and its absurdity, and when I can just let go of it and stop fighting, there is no issue.

[AlanLa]

Re: Intellectual understanding as an obstacle

Just watch the battle, don't take sides, because there are no sides. And it takes a loooooooong time of consistent sitting to get to this nowhere-to-go place where the battle finally subsides. At least this is how it was for me, and hey, it's not like I'm any good at getting to this nowhere-to-go place at all. If I gave the impression I no longer struggle, that would be wrong, because the struggles just change over time. My hindrances mentioned became facilitators, only to be replaced by new hindrances, like waves that keep on coming, and so I am still a pretty crappy surfer. But I do my practice diligently, and even more so during Ango.

[Keishin]

Re: Intellectual understanding as an obstacle

Hellos to all posting here

Many people said many things

Stephanie said "I wish it were easier putting thoughts in their place"

Nothing could be easier! they already are

kinda like saying I wish I could put farts in their place: they arise where they arise and dissipate where they dissipate


I remember once telling the head of the group I sat with (Lone Star Sangha in Jifu Gower's home) that I liked my mind: I mean as much trouble as it got me in, it also helped me through some tight places. (I forget what she told me at the time--I do recall she did not discourage this--but I don't remember what she said, it was 15 years ago or so...)

Nowadays with the middle age brain glitches--the total blankness of brain where just a second before a whole convoluted thought was standing in the wings about to go public...
well!




well, well, well....

[Jundo]

Re: Intellectual understanding as an obstacle

Just watch the battle, don't take sides, because there are no sides. And it takes a loooooooong time of consistent sitting to get to this nowhere-to-go place where the battle finally subsides. At least this is how it was for me, and hey, it's not like I'm any good at getting to this nowhere-to-go place at all. If I gave the impression I no longer struggle, that would be wrong, because the struggles just change over time. My hindrances mentioned became facilitators, only to be replaced by new hindrances, like waves that keep on coming, and so I am still a pretty crappy surfer. But I do my practice diligently, and even more so during Ango.

It also takes not even an instant to arrive at this "no where to go place" ... when one realizes that even the battle is/was the "no where to go place" ... that the struggle is the hike ...

... thus the battle over, the struggle over ... even as we keep pushing on up the hill to right here.

There are no crappy surfers, and no right or wrong surfing. Nobody stays standing on the board forever, and we all take a dip. Surfing is not only the time you feel like you are standing on the board feeling balanced and in the zone. It's ALL SURFING!

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2816

[AlanLa]

Re: Intellectual understanding as an obstacle

I may have been a little overly hard on myself in describing my surfing. More accurate would be that I am still very much learning how to surf. I can find my board regularly, and I need to because I fall off regularly. Other than that, yeah to all you say Jundo.