Why practice?

[Omoi Otoshi]

Re: Why practice?

I'm not sure I follow you here. In my view, you cannot realize no-self, non-duality, buddha nature, dependant origination, if you don't realize emptiness. Without realizing emptiness, how can you realize nothing has true existance? And if you don't, how can you escape dukkha, samsara. How can you be liberated? With emptiness, we probably mean different things. Both Dogen and Nagarjuna discussed emptiness from several different perspectives, if I recall correctly (I'm no buddhist scholar and I tend to forget details). Like buddha nature, emptiness is impossible to define in conceptual terms.

Thanks for sharing your experiences Chet,
Pontus

[RichardH]

Re: Why practice?

Sometimes, in retrospect, I see that my time away from practice has been important, revitalizing it. Sometimes it has been more like chasing an illusion for far too long, before finally opening my eyes again. But what is important is practice, and life, now.

In this sense we are on the same page, for sure.

[RichardH]

Re: Re: Why practice?

You won't realize emptiness - it's not something that's realized I don't think.

Just started reading Hanh's Heart Sutra commentary and thought his words on emptiness were quite interesting.:

"Form is the wave and emptiness is the water"

"Emptiness means empty of a separate self. It is full of everything, full of life."

So from Hanh's pespective, maybe you can realize emptiness, but only as it appears as form?


Gassho

Dokan

Sent from my SGH-I897 using Tapatalk

Same thing.

Funny story....a year or two after sitting regularly, I was walking after meditation, and was having a difficult time not seeing things as separate-not-separate. I could see them separate, but not not-separate...and so I looked very closely at a snowbank or something and it began it irritate me....I was obsessed with seeing things as not-separate, but I couldn't! Suddenly, it occurred to me that I was STARTING from separate and trying to make them not-separate. But you can't make separate things not-separate. Not-separate (empty) is not something that has to be made out of things - it's what's there before separate comes about. They are not fundamentally different. Yet, if you get stuck trying to see them a particular way, even a way that you've experienced before as essentially 'true', you are still stuck.

You can not see emptiness if you insist on form. Remember the sutra - emptiness is form but it is also EMPTINESS. IMHE.

Chet

Emptiness talk is slippery but I'll describe the basic practice taught to me and my own experience.

Poetically speaking, sitting emptiness is sitting alone. Body, mind, and world, internal, external, subtle, and gross,... alone. If there is any checking back, this sitting is partial. If there is no checking back, this sitting is forgotten. Forgetting is like this...

On this spot where I am typing there used to be a farm house. For someone who saw that farmhouse before it was torn down, there is here the absence of a farmhouse. For someone who never saw that farmhouse, there is here no absence of a farmhouse.

Sitting and forgetting is like the person who sees no absence of a farmhouse.. That is just sitting, just bowing, just chanting, just walking etc..

Not sure if this is the tea served here, but I suspect it is in part.

[Keishin]

Re: Why practice?

Why practice?

Why, practice!


the why shows up in the doing/not doing of practice

the question becomes its own answer


Hellos to all posting and not posting here; to all those asking and not asking questions, to those practicing and wondering why, to those who don't practice and don't wonder about any of it

[Omoi Otoshi]

Why practice?

Emptiness in a philosophical sense is difficult to discuss, because if all is empty, even our view of emptiness is false, not true.

Our experiences of emptiness in Shikantaza can more easily be put into words, but as Rev Jundo sometimes says, talking about water and swimming in it isn't the same. For me, now, emptiness in sitting is when the ego is silent there is no longer anywhere to go, nothing do to. This emptiness is empty of ego, craving, dissatisfaction, and yet doesn't feel empty at all, but full of beautiful, warm, tranquil presence, an experience of coming home.

To me, this is emptiness, and the experience could perhaps be called an insight, but I don't feel I have realized emptiness fully, because once I get up from the Zafu, BOOM, the ego takes over and there is suddenly so much I need to do, so many places I need to go...

/Pontus

[Omoi Otoshi]

Why practice?

the question becomes its own answer

Wow, Keishin, you amaze me sometimes. No, not sometimes, often. I'm stunned. So few words, so much impact. Thank you so very much.

Gassho,
Pontus

[Hoyu]

Re: Why practice?

Why practice?

Why, practice!


the why shows up in the doing/not doing of practice

the question becomes its own answer

Beautiful!! _/_
Thank you for this wonderful reminder Keishin! I would also like to suggest to all, a similar expression of this given in a talk by Rev. Jundo. They compliment one another very well
viewtopic.php?f=17&t=4071

[Rich]

Re: Why practice?

The top 10 reasons to practice

#10. Its the only way to visit hell and return unscathed.

#9. Its good for your posture.

#8

[Heisoku]

Re: Why practice?

Thanks Rich. Seconded.

[Rich]

Re: Why practice?

Thanks Rich. Seconded.

#8. Its a low risk behavior.

#7.

[disastermouse]

Re: Re: Why practice?

Emptiness talk is slippery but I'll describe the basic practice taught to me and my own experience.

Poetically speaking, sitting emptiness is sitting alone. Body, mind, and world, internal, external, subtle, and gross,... alone. If there is any checking back, this sitting is partial. If there is no checking back, this sitting is forgotten. Forgetting is like this...

On this spot where I am typing there used to be a farm house. For someone who saw that farmhouse before it was torn down, there is here the absence of a farmhouse. For someone who never saw that farmhouse, there is here no absence of a farmhouse.

Sitting and forgetting is like the person who sees no absence of a farmhouse.. That is just sitting, just bowing, just chanting, just walking etc..

Not sure if this is the tea served here, but I suspect it is in part.

This struck me as a very helpful description. It reminded me of the Zen teacher and the student walking near the lake in late fall. The student says that the ducks (or geese? I forget) have gone for the winter. The teacher twists the students nose and drives him to the ground and says, "Tell me, where have they gone?!"

*gassho*

Chet