Looking over the threads about posture I do not have strong feelings about how to sit properly, and just sit as I was taught, which feels natural. So, deferring to others on that issue, I am wondering how people feel about being still, once proper sitting form is established, and what the value of sustained stillness is?
For me stillness is without rigidity, but it is still. That stillness throws into relief every impulse to escape this moment as it is. Keeping still can turn into a foolish endurance trip, like holding your hand over a flame, and I am not talking about that. However, with stillness there does inevitably come a certain point of crisis (perhaps while keeping a retreat schedule) when “I want” meets “what is”, and “I want” gives way. Just Sitting is “useless”, it is not about breakthrough or getting something. I believe what I'm describing is in accord with the practice of Just Sitting because it is not about getting something, or seeking a breakthrough, but a natural and inevitable frustrating of I-want as a result of prolonged stillness, and its dropping away. Just prior to this dropping away there is a body-mind crisis in some form, because every impulse and drive we have is geared toward sustaining and feeding “I”, and without this crisis/dropping away, practice remains a self-satisfying pastime. We could say “there is no I to drop way”, and it is true, but effectively the entire conditioned orientation of body-mind is centred around “I-want”, so to say there is nothing to drop away seems like a dodge. At some point in practice the body-mind shifts. Maybe this is unskillful talk because it gives the impression of something to attain, but I do not mean it in that way at all.
What do people who have long practised in the Soto tradition think of this?. I have been told by others this is more like a Rinzai approach, but do not see how that is the case, because it is not about pushing anything, or drilling at a koan, merely sitting.
Thankyou.
For me stillness is without rigidity, but it is still. That stillness throws into relief every impulse to escape this moment as it is. Keeping still can turn into a foolish endurance trip, like holding your hand over a flame, and I am not talking about that. However, with stillness there does inevitably come a certain point of crisis (perhaps while keeping a retreat schedule) when “I want” meets “what is”, and “I want” gives way. Just Sitting is “useless”, it is not about breakthrough or getting something. I believe what I'm describing is in accord with the practice of Just Sitting because it is not about getting something, or seeking a breakthrough, but a natural and inevitable frustrating of I-want as a result of prolonged stillness, and its dropping away. Just prior to this dropping away there is a body-mind crisis in some form, because every impulse and drive we have is geared toward sustaining and feeding “I”, and without this crisis/dropping away, practice remains a self-satisfying pastime. We could say “there is no I to drop way”, and it is true, but effectively the entire conditioned orientation of body-mind is centred around “I-want”, so to say there is nothing to drop away seems like a dodge. At some point in practice the body-mind shifts. Maybe this is unskillful talk because it gives the impression of something to attain, but I do not mean it in that way at all.
What do people who have long practised in the Soto tradition think of this?. I have been told by others this is more like a Rinzai approach, but do not see how that is the case, because it is not about pushing anything, or drilling at a koan, merely sitting.
Thankyou.
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