Practice question(s)

[BruceS]

This is a really great thread. Didn't think I really had anything to add, but I think maybe I've "felt" Don's resistance to sitting at times, and think maybe now I know why I felt that way.

Thinking back on earlier times, I made way too big a deal out of zazen. At times it was more work than just sitting, but it was just my attitude toward it. I thought I had to be perfect at sitting (which I now realize as a big part of my unhappiness in life - it had to be perfect or I wasn't happy, and we all know it never will be).

The environment will never be perfect, unless you're in a monastery. My posture may never be traditionally perfect (feet perfectly placed high on the thigh(s) in full lotus), but so long as my spine is erect that's fine too. My mind will wander when it wanders, and if I cough all the way through zazen because I have a killer cold, like now, then that's what I do. I just don't have to sit there and think I'm screwing up my zazen because I'm coughing. I'm just coughing!

It's a lot easier to want to sit when you stop thinking about it and just sit. It ceases to be work and becomes, well, nice

Just up from zazen round 2 this afternoon and thought of something else I would like to add. My zazen used to be full of tension, both physical and mental. It was if I was sat there in anticipation of something. That tension or anticipation is duality - this vs that - I'm in this state but want or anticipate some other state. That's just the opposite of what we're supposed to be doing!

When I dropped all expectation (anticipation) the tension left. When the tension left my breathing slowed dramatically. It was if my breathing was mechanical before. The entire experience is so much more pleasant now. It's just sitting. I realize that before I was working at sitting. That creates resistance! Sometimes little insights come in serene reflection. With tension, there's just no room for them to enter.
Cheers,
Bruce

[Jundo]

Hi Bruce,

Thank you for a beautiful description of settling into "just sitting":

My zazen used to be full of tension, both physical and mental. It was if I was sat there in anticipation of something. That tension or anticipation is duality - this vs that - I'm in this state but want or anticipate some other state. That's just the opposite of what we're supposed to be doing!

When I dropped all expectation (anticipation) the tension left.

So much is found when you drop expectations, goals and demands on your Zazen.

Just one comment on this:

The environment will never be perfect, unless you're in a monastery.

The setting of a Zen monastery is not meant to be perfect for Zazen ... In fact, it is supposed to be quite a trial, and much more like boot camp than a comfortable setting. Too hot, too cold, up at 4am, tedious routines, impossible tasks (in many cases, such as in learning ceremonies and other temple routines, the novice is set up to fail) and, yes, living in tight quarters with other people, with all the annoyances and personal tensions that can bring (just the snoring alone!!) ...

As your words so nicely describe, much of our practice is learning to embrace the imperfections, annoyances and little failures. We learn to embrace difficulty and inevitable failures while, yet, being mindful, diligent and careful (e.g., every routine in the monastery should be done with care, even if we know for a fact that it can never be done "right", e.g., we wash the floors even as we know that they will never really be clean). Only as the mind relaxes and settles in, finding a balance, can many of the demanding tasks be done.

Twice today I came across this story about the Buddha. It seems appropriate:

[The Buddha instructed Sona, a lute player, thus:]

"O Sona, what do you think? When the strings of your lute are too tight, will
it produce pleasant, agreeable sounds?"

"O Venerable Sir, it will not."

"What do you think? When the strings of your lute are too loose, will it
produce pleasant, agreeable sounds?"

"No, it will not."

"What do you think? When the strings of your lute are not too tight nor
too loose, will it produce pleasant, agreeable sounds?"

"Yes, Venerable Sir, it will."

"Thus it is that if you are too tight and exert yourself to excess, your mind
too will be excited (uddhacca), and if you slacken for lack of effort, you will
be indolent (kasajjd). Therefore, make every endeavour that is balanced. At-
tain the balanced state in your various sense organs."

Gassho, Jundo

[BruceS]

Hi Jundo,

Thank you for your kind words. Funny, I thought of that story about the Buddha today too! It was told in a couple of books I used to have.

Life in a Zen monastery must really be something! I would like to experience it someday, even if just for sesshin.

Gassho,
Bruce

[will]

You guys pretty much covered everything, but I thought I'd throw in my experience for fun.

I decided to sit for 2 days straight (well not straight, more like a home retreat). So I'm sitting and sitting, doing kinhin and so on and during the whole, I was trying way too hard. I kept trying to feel that breath, feel the feet and so on. Well, the only thing I got from that was head tension from trying too hard. So (after i had a break from zazen haha I just said screw it and remembered to just sit and pay attention to how I'm trying too hard. I noticed that my eyes were focused and not relaxed and this actually caused a lot of tension in my skull. What a realization. So the next day(I only did a retreat for one full day) I just sat in the morning letting seeing see, opened to the sounds around me, and kept noticing the urge to try.Noticing how fantasies get created. It's been very interesting and great.

Haha. There were moments where I was trying so hard. Ways that I focus attention, and contract muscles. wow.

[Keishin]

practice questions

Hello Will!
I really like your description.
It amazes me: this body/mind.
All these years, my living as if it were two.
Sometimes it is one. Sometimes it feels like at least two! And sometimes it feels like a split level!
gassho
keishin

[will]

Gassho Keishin

I think a lot of the time (for myself anyway) we come to practice looking to get rid of something like our thoughts or our little terrible habits, make ourselves a better person or to find great enlightenment, but in the end it's like you realize there is nothing that you can get rid of and there is nothing that you can find and thoughts and habits well... when you look at them clearly you see exactly what they are. Anyway, the Buddha taught all this stuff. He was the first one to actually look at what he was. He saw his habits,craving and stuff clearly and he did it through paying attention to his life. He just sat down and payed attention to what was going on. How simple.

like a dog chasing his own tail thinking that it's something else then... he bites it and reality sets in.

[BruceS]

Well said Will!
Gassho,
Bruce

[Gregor]

My lute strings are just way to loose. I think it may just be a question of me being lazy and always gravitating to the easy way out. I realize this yet, don't seem to be making real drastic change. If I look at things with a wider view, then yes I'm moving in the right direction. However, I cannot escape feelings of frustration and complacency.

[Gregor]

oops duplicate post!

[Dainin]

Wow!

I don't have much to add, except to say thank you to everyone who has posted on this thread! I can relate to so much of what many here have expressed regarding your practice, and I've gained some great history lessons.

Gregor, my lute strings could always use a good tightening!

What a community!

[Martin]

Will's post earlier today about trying too hard reminded me of the time I gave up on Zen.

I had been determined to experience in meditation the things that others wrote or talked about. I sat and tried and tried. And then tried more. Damn it, it didn’t work. The harder I tried the less it worked. The moment came where I decided it was all nonsense and to give up. So that very moment I gave up on trying to meditate….. and found myself just sitting. And here I am.

Gassho

Martin

[Urug]

Will's post earlier today about trying too hard reminded me of the time I gave up on Zen.

I had been determined to experience in meditation the things that others wrote or talked about. I sat and tried and tried. And then tried more. Damn it, it didn’t work. The harder I tried the less it worked. The moment came where I decided it was all nonsense and to give up. So that very moment I gave up on trying to meditate….. and found myself just sitting. And here I am.

Gassho

Martin

Beloved Martin,

Thank you. I had a similar experience. I went to a three day meditation intensive and tried hard for three days to really do it right and have "something" happen. It was a good experience, but I did not have the breakthrough or awakening that I sought.

A year later, I retrurned to the intensive again, but this time as a volunteer not as a participant. I brought water to the participants, arranged cushions, helped out any way I could. One evening we were outside doing walking mediation. I watched as the participants walked as slowly as they could with their eyes focused on the ground. I thought about why do we walk so slow in this meditation, and I thought it must be because we are not trying to get somewhere else... we walk slow to get closer and closer to this very moment... to where we are now... I thought the slower we walk the closer we are to now... and the slowest I can walk is to stand still...so I stopped walking and looked up...and everything was incredibly beautiful and perfect and one...everything was just as it was and completely different from how it had been at the same time...it was ... it is............ 8)

It seems to me that at some point we have to drop the desire to be here now, and give up, and just be here now...

Namaste brother...Gassho...

Urug

[Urug]

oops...pushed the button twice...methinks... ops:

Urug

[will]

Nice Martin.

Hey Urug.
The way that I understand Kinhin is that it is just an extension of your sitting practice. It is zazen in motion. Walking slowly gives you more of a chance to pay attention to your experience and all the other stuff you do while sitting zazen. Like you feel the lift of the foot, the air passing by it and the pressure when it lands on the ground etc...
It is just one way to bring practice off the zafu.

Gassho

[Urug]

The way that I understand Kinhin is that it is just an extension of your sitting practice. ...It is just one way to bring practice off the zafu.

Beloved Will,

I agree. For me it seems that my entire life is becoming an extension of sitting practice. Walking, cooking, feeding the chickens, working in the gardens, stacking wood, clearing trails, driving the car, etc. Each seems an oportunity to choose to be here with what is happening, or to choose to be in my head/thouhgts or just function on automatic.

I still fall into the usuall human state of being lost in thoughts for a big part of the day, but more and more I'm learning to find little cues to remind me to wake up and live each moment.

As Jundo has said sometimes it is OK to day dream.But for me, I have spent so much of my life doing that, that it feels wonderful to stop and be here now.

Also, since making my life my practice, I have felt better than I ever have before. I am much more easy going, less fretful or worried, more at ease, and much more at peace. I also feel connected to everything on a very basic level, while before it was only an intellectual concept.

Namaste brother...gassho & peace to you...

Urug 8)