Discipline - how to cultivate it?

[natezenmaster]

Re: Discipline - how to cultivate it?

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy - the chance to draw back
Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth
that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans:
that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too.
All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred.
A whole stream of events issues from the decision,
raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance,
which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.
Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.
~ Goethe... or W. H. Murray's interpretation of Goethe.. : P


_/_ Nate

[Kaishin]

Re: Discipline - how to cultivate it?

Good thread, and I can certainly empathize. I expect too much as well. Just expecting itself is unnecessary. I get into the "at such and such point I'll have time to do zazen," but of course that never comes. I've had a very stressful few months, and barely have the energy to brush my teeth, let alone sit! Zazen hasn't become enough of a natural habit for me yet, so like exercise it tends to get put aside when I "don't have time."

Well, I don't have any answers. But you're definitely not alone!

Gassho,
Matt

[Rimon]

Re: Discipline - how to cultivate it?

You might want to consider one of those motivation tricks that are around the WWW. One that is very simple, but works pretty well is called the "Jerry Seinfeld Method", because the famous comedian helped to popularize it.
The idea is simple: if you want to do something everyday (meditation in our case, writing something funny in the case of Seinfeld) you get paper calendar, one of those that shows each month, and mark with an X every day you accomplish it. In the beginning it feels like nothing, but as you progress and suddenly you have a segment of 15 contiguous crosses in your calendar, suddenly you feel the urge for not "breaking the chain" so you end up finding time to do "just one more day of sitting".
Here's the story of the method, and how Seinfeld describes it:
http://m.lifehacker.com/281626/jerry-se ... ity-secret
Hope it helps
Gassho

Rimon

[Hoyu]

Re: Discipline - how to cultivate it?

Thank you very much for posting this Rimon. It is an interesting idea. Though this is the first time I've heard of it I can relate to the same concept in terms of saving money. I've found when I'm saving for a larger purchase I become motivated by seeing that dollar number grow larger and larger on each statement over time. Sort of like seeing all those red Xes and not wanting to break that chain.
I then begin to have the desire to spend less and less because each purchase lowers those numbers I've worked so hard to increase. It becomes such a state of mind that when the time comes to actually make that big purchase it is still hard to part with it because you have to see those numbers return to zero!
If I don't have any savings it becomes too easy to spend without regard. The mentality is with a zero balance I have noting to loose.

Gassho,
John

[Jinyu]

Re: Discipline - how to cultivate it?

Hi fellows!
Thank you all for this thread! I feel sorry I can't be more active on those kind of subjects...
Anyway, i noticed Jundo saying

So, Taigu and I are thinking of making a rule around here recommending 15 minutes of Zazen per day

Wasn't it a clear "rule" in our Sangha that EVERY members of our Sangha should sit Zazen daily? In my silly head it was a very clear statement, maybe Jundo should insist again on this... ?

Again, thank you all for your practice! sorry because I'm a bit out of the subject again!
deep gassho,
Jinyu

[Rich]

Re: Discipline - how to cultivate it?

I am on vacation and was thinking the other day about why I practice. Dogen spent years wondering why he should practice when he already had buddha nature. I mean you can't really verbalize anything that makes sense because you don't really get anything out of it except maybe saying you see more of what is or you feel better in empty space. I think doyen just accepted that just sitting just being is the best you can do.

[Saijun]

Re: Discipline - how to cultivate it?

... just sitting just being is the best you can do.

_/_

Saijun

[Nenka]

Re: Discipline - how to cultivate it?

I'm glad this conversation came up. It has inspired me to work out every day, and start watching my calories again. (And, of course, to be sure to sit every day. :mrgreen: )

Gassho

Jennifer

[Eika]

Re: Discipline - how to cultivate it?

My take on discipline is that it is a daily refusal to allow something we resist to determine our actions. It is returning, day by day, to face discomfort or aversion and working with it and through it. Not so much an act of conquering as much as a coming to terms with ourselves . . . Just as in zazen.

15 minutes or 15 seconds . . . either are fine. I find that there is a threshold around 20-25 minutes that makes some kind of difference in my sitting, but I recognize that individual experience varies greatly. I think the will and courage to keep returning to the cushion to sit are possibly the most important attitudes developed by sitting.

Here's to everyone's practice, the virtuoso and the beginner.

Gassho,
Eika

[Taigu]

Re: Discipline - how to cultivate it?

Once you give up on the idea of getting somewhere, grasping something, realizing some mystical state, attaining high peaks...you may open your eyes on what it takes to practice: just be alive now for IT IS ALL THAT YOU ARE. Sunny, rainy, moody, happy, depressed, the ground for practice is endlessly changing and yet, this is it. End gaining is a major sickness of practice and a great hindrance as we spend measuring what separates us from what could be, what should be. Drop the could, would, should and penetrate through this very naked gate. In a train, walking the dog, shopping, dancing, sitting, lying down...it rings into the ten thousand activities, the one thousand arms of Kannon, each one being exactly what it is and yet the very core of perfect practice. If we fail to do so, we come back again and again. That's simple.

Just a thought: I used to be a chain smoker for 25 years. If my friend doesn't call me, I may start to worry. I realized how addictive my personnality is. How unnecessary this addiction is. It could be everything and anything, chocolate, sex, liquor, people: an addictive personnality is just desperatly trying to play with past and future, to manipulate reality in order to recreate something lost or gaining something yet to be discovered. Once you sit now in now, the addiction vanishes, and this moment is truly complete, nothing extra, nothing missing. This is what our practice is about.

So 15 minutes of sitting a day, multiple insta-zazen and countless opportunities to open Kannon sun-moon glow.

gassho

Taigu

[Stephanie]

Re: Discipline - how to cultivate it?

I have found that in my own personal experience, "discipline" does not work to foster long-term change.

Over and over again, with the healthy habits I've picked up, it has not been because I've forced myself to be disciplined, but because I've found something about these activities or pursuits that I love.

I started exercising regularly because I started going to step aerobics classes where I had so much fun I just wanted to go back to enjoy doing the class for its own sake. I've been sticking with my weight loss regime because I've found a way to do it that is natural and makes me feel better than I do when I'm not doing it. I have been sitting more now because the energy of the group I am sitting with is inspiring, and the atmosphere of the zendo is one I enjoy experiencing.

Things I've gotten myself to do through "bootstrapping" are things I almost always stop doing at some point down the road. The artificiality of discipline almost always prevents the habit from sinking in to any more than a superficial level. It's like people who go on dramatic diets and lose a lot of weight and then put it all back on somewhere down the road. You can sustain that kind of bootcamp approach for some time, but not indefinitely. Why? There's no energy coming from anywhere other than your reserves to sustain it, and you run out of what you've got in your reserves if it's not coming through anywhere else. Something you do because of the energy it gives you is a self-sustaining system, because the thing that takes energy to do is also generating energy in return.

As for struggling with the discipline of sitting... I'm learning that my sitting practice fell apart when it did for very particular reasons. I was wounded in a way that made sitting difficult. I believe that when we don't sit, especially after we've established regular sitting at least once before in the past, there's something in or about ourselves we don't want to face. The ego is more seized up than usual. Now, I'm still struggling to get myself to sit on my own, but I know it's because I'm still healing. The support of a face-to-face, in-person group is really helping me along in that healing process. And instead of judging myself or trying to bootstrap myself into a frequency of sitting that is artificial for me, I'm just letting that process of healing happen, and stepping things up as and when it's natural to do so.

[Shogen]

Re: Discipline - how to cultivate it?

Once you give up on the idea of getting somewhere, grasping something, realizing some mystical state, attaining high peaks...you may open your eyes on what it takes to practice: just be alive now for IT IS ALL THAT YOU ARE. Sunny, rainy, moody, happy, depressed, the ground for practice is endlessly changing and yet, this is it. End gaining is a major sickness of practice and a great hindrance as we spend measuring what separates us from what could be, what should be. Drop the could, would, should and penetrate through this very naked gate. In a train, walking the dog, shopping, dancing, sitting, lying down...it rings into the ten thousand activities, the one thousand arms of Kannon, each one being exactly what it is and yet the very core of perfect practice. If we fail to do so, we come back again and again. That's simple.

Just a thought: I used to be a chain smoker for 25 years. If my friend doesn't call me, I may start to worry. I realized how addictive my personnality is. How unnecessary this addiction is. It could be everything and anything, chocolate, sex, liquor, people: an addictive personnality is just desperatly trying to play with past and future, to manipulate reality in order to recreate something lost or gaining something yet to be discovered.

Once you sit now in now, the addiction vanishes, and this moment is truly complete, nothing extra, nothing missing. This is what our practice is about.

So 15 minutes of sitting a day, multiple insta-zazen and countless opportunities to open Kannon sun-moon glow.

gassho

Taigu

Sitting now in now, even for just one moment, is the essence of great discipline. Gassho, Shogen

[Rich]

Re: Discipline - how to cultivate it?

Drop the could, would, should and penetrate through this very naked gate. In a train, walking the dog, shopping, dancing, sitting, lying down...it rings into the ten thousand activities, the one thousand arms of Kannon, each one being exactly what it is and yet the very core of perfect practice. If we fail to do so, we come back again and again. That's simple.


gassho

Taigu

Thanks Taigu. Being reminded to come back again and again is inspiring. Just the trying to come back again and again is enough. On that note I am now inspired to finish my tax prep

[pinoybuddhist]

Re: Discipline - how to cultivate it?

There's this Japanese saying regarding the daruma doll, something like: fall down ninety-nine times, get up one hundred times. Something like that. There's also Nike's "Just do it" slogan. I think these two sum up nicely my approach on discipline.

[Stephanie]

Re: Discipline - how to cultivate it?

"You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves."
-Mary Oliver