Ango Commitment Thread

[Taigu]

Re: Ango Commitment Thread

Fugen is pointing the real thing. Ango is not asceticism. Ango is not about sacrifice and dramatic stuff. It is a call to live your life as fully as possible.
Thank you Fugen


gassho


Taigu

[Seiryu]

Re: Ango Commitment Thread

Fugen is pointing the real thing. Ango is not asceticism. Ango is not about sacrifice and dramatic stuff. It is a call to live your life as fully as possible.
Thank you Fugen


gassho


Taigu

Beautiful! To me Ango is an invitation to return home, the home we are always present to, yet sometimes have trouble seeing.

[Echo]

Re: Ango Commitment Thread

Ango is not about cutting away your "ten pounds of flesh"

Fugen is pointing the real thing. Ango is not asceticism. Ango is not about sacrifice and dramatic stuff. It is a call to live your life as fully as possible.

Commit to give up one or two items or passions one truly loves during the Practice period, for example, sweets after meals, luxurious meals, cigarettes, television, consumer purchases of luxury items.

So which is it? I ask out of genuine curiosity. For example, smoking is bad for me and it is, in theory, a good thing to give up for the duration (and ever after). Except that it drives my productivity through the roof in times of absolute exhaustion and stress (I don't mean a little tired, I mean total collapse), and enriches my life by keeping me in touch with a whole different culture and the people who are part of it. This amounts to living more fully, while I'm young enough to still recover from all the damage, as well as keeping me firmly in touch with the impermanence of my own existence. Conflicting thoughts!

All these commitments are making me feel like we're making New Year's resolutions.

[Seiryu]

Re: Ango Commitment Thread

Ango is not about cutting away your "ten pounds of flesh"

Fugen is pointing the real thing. Ango is not asceticism. Ango is not about sacrifice and dramatic stuff. It is a call to live your life as fully as possible.

Commit to give up one or two items or passions one truly loves during the Practice period, for example, sweets after meals, luxurious meals, cigarettes, television, consumer purchases of luxury items.

So which is it? I ask out of genuine curiosity. For example, smoking is bad for me and it is, in theory, a good thing to give up for the duration (and ever after). Except that it drives my productivity through the roof in times of absolute exhaustion and stress (I don't mean a little tired, I mean total collapse), and enriches my life by keeping me in touch with a whole different culture and the people who are part of it. This amounts to living more fully, while I'm young enough to still recover from all the damage, as well as keeping me firmly in touch with the impermanence of my own existence. Conflicting thoughts!

All these commitments are making me feel like we're making New Year's resolutions.

Instead of smoking with an absent mind, try smoking with full awareness. Each inhalation, each exhalation. Be fully aware of each and every acton, each and every thought. Ango is a chance to fully and completely re-enter our lives. The point is not to just give something up like a new year's resolutions, just to drop doing the things we like with no awareness. It is so easy to get lost in sweets, drinking, sex etc...give up the act of not being aware, and allow yourself to be fully present to each and everything you enjoy....in this way you will walk, sleep, eat, drink, fully in Shinkantaza, it will no longer be just a practice, it will be your very life...

Just some thoughts on this...

[Mari]

Re: Ango Commitment Thread

Ango is a chance to fully and completely re-enter our lives. The point is not to just give something up like a new year's resolutions, just to drop doing the things we like with no awareness. It is so easy to get lost in sweets, drinking, sex etc...give up the act of not being aware, and allow yourself to be fully present to each and everything you enjoy....in this way you will walk, sleep, eat, drink, fully in Shinkantaza, it will no longer be just a practice, it will be your very life...

Just some thoughts on this...

(Italics mine)

This is how I understood it as it was explained to me.

I guess I could offer the context in which the subject was brought up, and maybe that could help. Fugen had asked me if I was going to participate in Ango, and I had initially said no, though I had been thinking about it. My reason was that I didn't know how I'd be doing in September because I've lost a great deal of weight due to my illness and have gotten near the point where it is too low. There's lots of stuff there, too much to explain and I want to be brief about it. Bottom line is, I've been focusing all of my energy and thoughts on losing weight and maintaining an iron-clad grip on this idea that I have to measure up to something, some outside/inside ideal (I was given "homework" to get a ruler to help me remember to stop measuring ) self that I'm "supposed" to be and then everything will be "perfect".

The things that I'm giving up (coffee and diet sodas) are appetite suppressants. Committing to eating three meals a day is an attempt to commit to actually living my life, rather than have it be dictated by abstractions and measurements, "safe foods" and "bad foods", incredibly distorted and dangerous thoughts that I cling to and chase after. Chain smoking (another appetite suppressant) is something I do when I'm very nervous, doing that rather than accepting being nervous and just letting that be there. What I'm doing now is asceticism, sacrifice, and dramatic stuff. Right now, I'm not living my life fully at all. So my commitments are me trying to actually give myself that opportunity to live my life genuinely. I'm seeing it as more of a release than a burden I'm taking up.

[Jundo]

Re: Ango Commitment Thread

Well, I will offer this ...

Hi.

Hi, even though just an Unsui, and no authority of any kind, there is one thing i'd like to bring up here...

Ango is not about cutting away your "ten pounds of flesh", Ango is about living life.
Don't take away breakfast, add an extra slice of bread.

As someone who could use to loose that extra "ten pounds" of love handles, I would say it is sometimes very very good to take the extra bread away (even if having some breakfast is healthy). On the other hand, if one needs to eat more for health ... do that. Balance and Health!

Also, yes, I would give up for ango a couple of things one likes/loves ... as a lovely practice in release and non-attachment. Good if it stings a little to do so. Some Zen teachers these days are having a loving conversation on this, and I believe it important. We should wrestle a bit with non-attachment, release, and renunciation!

I would not say that our Zen way of "living life every moment" necessarily means that one has to go out and start living like in a magazine, climbing Mt. Everest, skydiving, writing that novel, going back to college to get an MD, running for President. I mean, one can do any (or all!) of those thing, but not as if one -has to- do any of those things to make life full and complete. Life is always full and complete, right as it is, when known as such ... full and complete when climbing Mt. Everest, full and complete when at the foot of Mt. Everest not climbing but admiring the mountain. So, climb or no climb ... keep living!

And sometimes simplifying, giving up ... is more. Simplify! Toss out! Less is often more.

Finally, giving up smoking is a good idea .... ANY TIME! Not just as Zen practice.

Gassho, Jundo

[Jundo]

Re: Ango Commitment Thread

Let me add a little more specifically about what Mari said ...

If one needs to eat more, or eat less, for health ... do that. If one is being too ascetic and self-punishing ... stop that, and add. If one is self-punishing by doing something in excess and it is impacting one's life and health ... reduce.

The middle way, all things in balance. The Buddha originally tried punishing the body to the point of being anorexic ... and gave it up in favor of eating to restore health, but not in excess.

(A statue showing that 'pre-enlightenment' phase ...)



... but probably not this either!



And we work goalessly. A ZEN DIET: No thought of gain or loss (even as we may cut or add the calories to get healthy) ... nothing to achieve, even as we stick with it. Nothing to measure, even as we check the scale.

Sieryu said ...

... allow yourself to be fully present to each and everything you enjoy...

... but allow yourself to be fully present even to all the parts of life you do not enjoy (and even if you wish they were not so).

Be 'at one' with the good ... be 'at one' with the bad (even as you try to make some of it good).

Be 'at one' with the bad you can change ... be 'at one' with the bad you can't.

Simple as pie (which, by the way, I am giving up for Ango, as well as most sweets).

Gassho, Jundo

PS - Oh, and on the cigarettes ... I know lots and lots of Zen monks/teachers who smoke cigarettes (especially in China and Japan). No precept against it. When smoking, just smoke.

On the other hand, I know several Zen teachers who have died from cigarettes ... John Daido Loori perhaps the most recent, of lung cancer (he had a multi-pack a day habit for many years, even after becoming a teacher). Any addiction or need like that is probably best dropped.

[Risho]

Re: Ango Commitment Thread

So I take it I should return my Cilice? :mrgreen:

[Taylor]

Re: Ango Commitment Thread

I've decided to sort of distill my commitment into a phrase:

Listen fully, give freely.

It means a lot to me, mainly because I thought of it :P . But in all seriousness, it sums up my "goalless goals" for Ango. To understand another we must listen fully, adding nothing and taking away nothing. To give freely is to cut the expectation of return. Self and other fade slowly in either case. It's a tough commitment, but so is living life right here right now, and they're not one not two.

[Risho]

Re: Ango Commitment Thread

Sieryu said ...

... allow yourself to be fully present to each and everything you enjoy...

... but allow yourself to be fully present even to all the parts of life you do not enjoy (and even if you wish they were not so).

Be 'at one' with the good ... be 'at one' with the bad (even as you try to make some of it good).

Be 'at one' with the bad you can change ... be 'at one' with the bad you can't.

Simple as pie (which, by the way, I am giving up for Ango, as well as most sweets).

Gassho, Jundo

PS - Oh, and on the cigarettes ... I know lots and lots of Zen monks/teachers who smoke cigarettes (especially in China and Japan). No precept against it. When smoking, just smoke.

On the other hand, I know several Zen teachers who have died from cigarettes ... John Daido Loori perhaps the most recent, of lung cancer (he had a multi-pack a day habit for many years, even after becoming a teacher). Any addition or need like that is probably best dropped.

I used Ango last year to quit drinking coffee (and all caffeine, but to me caffeine is synonymous with coffee since that's where I got it from). I used to be addicted to cigarettes. From 18 to 25 I smoked over a pack a day. I have an addictive personality. Fortunately I'm not an alcoholic like my father, uncle and grandfather, but those addictive tendencies find expression in many facets of my life. I've also never been addicted to drugs. But I know the pain of addiction, and I know how hard it is to quit smoking and drinking coffee.

I use food or caffeine, or anything I can find, to self-medicate to fill a gap. That gap is normal and healthy (it's just space; at least this is what I've gathered from study and zen practice), but I'm an addict and that bugs me. I've got to "fix" that space. Zazen has helped relieve this greatly by just making me aware of these tendencies.

In any case this post made me think of this. Last year's Ango was my first. I failed commitments as Fugen mentioned (thank you for sharing that Fugen; one of my character traits is to beat myself up when I don't meet rigid demands [a form of self-sabotage my ego does to get me back into old habits] I set on myself so if you're also failing commitments it is inspiring not to quit.).

In any case, Ango is really awesome. In some ways Ango starts in September, but in others I've brought that with me from last throughout my practice. It's really something special this Ango; it enriches my practice by showing me what practice is. It fits right in with the Rakusu so beautifully. Sewing that Rakusu is like SLAP, here are your self-imposed limits of what you think your life experience should and should not be!!!! Boom right there. You can go back to old habits or you can just sew through them with your being and let this space take place. What will happen?

Jundo and Taigu, thank you for sharing this practice with us.

Gassho,

Risho

[Kyonin]

Re: Ango Commitment Thread

And sometimes simplifying, giving up ... is more. Simplify! Toss out! Less is often more.

This is exactly how I live my life now a days. I cut a lot of stuff in order to achieve a more simple way of living and so far I think I managed it pretty well.

I have never been into anything like Ango, but I truly believe I can benefit of getting rid of two obstacles in my life: my addiction to bread/cookies and my wasting time in video games.

[Taylor]

Re: Ango Commitment Thread

I have never been into anything like Ango, but I truly believe I can benefit of getting rid of two obstacles in my life: my addiction to bread/cookies and my wasting time in video games.

Sometimes time isn't wasted, where might it go if it were, the time dump? :P I'm kidding, of course, but I'd like to reiterate what Fugen said earlier (and a hefty gassho to him). And let me be clear, I'm not judging anyone's commitment, do whatcha gotta do! It's just something to be aware of that I've noticed in my own practice:

What is wasted time? Is it that time spent watching TV? Is it time spent sitting outside for no apparent purpose? Is it, prepare yourself, time spent sitting? Time spent sewing the kesa?. What is wasted time?

For me, wasted time is time spent running away from life. TV, video games, basking outside, sitting, sewing, can all be wasted time if they're used to avoid meeting life. At the same time, doing these things just to do them can also not be wasted time. Yes, I waste time all the time on the internet when I have a paper to write, or correspondence to catch up on, or club meetings to plan. That is me, knowing life is waiting, saying, "Eh, not right now. Facebook instead." When life is just living life? Fine, Youtube it is for a bit! The line here is a fluid, changing, existantly-non-existant line. The only hard and fast rule is that there aren't any hard and fast rules!

Again, just my experience. Have a splendid day!

[Tb]

Re: Ango Commitment Thread

Hi.

In any case this post made me think of this. Last year's Ango was my first. I failed commitments as Fugen mentioned (thank you for sharing that Fugen; one of my character traits is to beat myself up when I don't meet rigid demands [a form of self-sabotage my ego does to get me back into old habits] I set on myself so if you're also failing commitments it is inspiring not to quit.).

I'm just an Unsui and no authority of any kind, but the point here is not to beat yourself up about failing one commitment or falling for the craving of an cup of coffee...
It happens.
It's part of the practice.
Just see it for what it is, get up, brush your knees and continue.
Don't give up Ango for one thing.
Don't quit.
It happens.
It's ok.

Mtfbwy
Fugen

[Hoyu]

Re: Ango Commitment Thread

Taylor wrote:
For me, wasted time is time spent running away from life. TV, video games, basking outside, sitting, sewing, can all be wasted time if they're used to avoid meeting life.

Nice one!!
_/_

[Undo]

Re: Ango Commitment Thread

My extras are, going to sleep at a reasonable time and I will give up caffine. Though I suspect one will be helping the other.