Youtube Meditations

**Drut** · 10-01-2007, 01:36 AM

**Drut** · 10-01-2007, 01:38 AM

Heck...If you are good you could save yourself several hundred dollars and a trip to Salt Lake City with those.

**Ryan** · 10-01-2007, 02:04 AM

Hmmm.... I have to admit that I'm inclined toward skepticism about Big Mind. Maybe that's just because it sounds a like a "quick fix" Maybe I should be more open minded about it and watch a few of these =)

-Ryan

**Gregor** · 10-01-2007, 02:20 AM

Did any body see the ad for Big Mind in the recent edition of Tricycle. . . It literally says, "Genpo Roshi. . . One of the greatest living Zen Masters!"

I prefer the Bozo on the bus approach.

Then again it's of very little significance nothing is permanent, even the dharma so if somebody enjoys it in a corrupted form, great, I just won't be spending my money on it.

**Drut** · 10-01-2007, 04:30 AM

You have to admit that it is tempting even if it seems a bit modern "instant gratification". I looked at those and while I am not qualified to declare it the next big thing or not and while meditation has been good technology for 2500 years, it is conceivable that someone may come up with something more effective. My listening to Gil Fronsdal's podcasts suggest he thinks it requires 30 years including eight month stints of meditating 20 hours a day. If family history is any indication I will be a crazy old man by then. Others suggest five years for good result. I know such thinking is an obstacle to the present but one would like to know.

Maybe this helps:
Ma-tsu was doing Zazen daily in his hut on Nan-yueh Mountain. Watching him one day, Huai-jang (Nanyue Huairang, Nangaku Ejo) 677-744, his master, thought, "He will become a great monk," and inquired:

"Worthy one, what are you trying to attain by sitting?"

Ma-tsu replied: "I am trying to become a Buddha."

Thereupon Huai-jang picked up a piece of roof tile and began grinding it on a rock in front of him.

"What are you doing, Master?" asked Ma-tsu.

"I am polishing it to make a mirror," said Huai-jang.

"How could polishing a tile make a mirror?"

"How could sitting in Zazen make a Buddha?"

Ma-tsu asked: "What should I do, then?"

Huai-jang replied: "If you were driving a cart and it didn't move, would you whip the cart or whip the ox?"

Ma-tsu made no reply.

Huai-jang continued: "Are you training yourself in Zazen? Are you striving to become a sitting Buddha? If you are training yourself in Zazen let me tell you that the substance of Zazen is neither sitting nor lying down. If you are training yourself to become a sitting Buddha, let me tell you that Buddha has no one form [such as sitting]. The Dharma, which has no fixed abode, allows of no distinctions. If you try to become a sitting Buddha, this is no less than killing the Buddha. If you cling to the sitting form you will not attain the essential truth."

Anyway, I found those you-tube bits while trying to find the source of the Heart Sutra recording that accompanies the meditation timer on this site. I never found it but I saw some amazingly hokey presentations that looked like a Chinese Buddhist version of a Billy Graham evangelist meeting.

In the mean-time I continue to sit.

**Jundo** · 10-01-2007, 05:42 AM

Originally posted by Drut

You have to admit that it is tempting even if it seems a bit modern "instant gratification". I looked at those and while I am not qualified to declare it the next big thing or not and while meditation has been good technology for 2500 years, it is conceivable that someone may come up with something more effective. My listening to Gil Fronsdal's podcasts suggest he thinks it requires 30 years including eight month stints of meditating 20 hours a day. If family history is any indication I will be a crazy old man by then. Others suggest five years for good result. I know such thinking is an obstacle to the present but one would like to know.

Hi Drut,

Allow me to wax a bit poetic ...

Realizations happen in an instant. Some stay, some fade in hours or an instant. Some are perceived clearly, some occur below the surface. Yet all stay with us forever, in one way or another, even the ones that seem not to last. How? Like the single strokes of a sculptor's chisel, like drops of water beating down upon rock ... they come and go in an instant, yet last. Each single stroke and drop is here and gone, yet joins with the rest to carve stone into new forms ... its mark remains permanently upon the rock.

In our 'Just Sitting' Practice, Realization arises from the radical release of all search for Realization. There is nothing to change. Releasing all need for Realization is the greatest Realization. Giving up the need for change is a revolutionary change. Dropping all friction between our self and the universe drops the walls between the two. Thus, we find that this very instant of Zazen is complete and 'fills the universe'. It is an expression of, and wholly, all of the universe. We find too that --every-- action of our lives is complete and fills the universe, is an expression and whole with all the universe.

Realizing such perspectives may take an instant. But to truly grasp these facts, down to the marrow, takes each moment by moment of Practice ... like those chisel strokes, like those drops of water that wear down the stone. In fact, Zen Practice is a lifetime practice ... it is never over or complete (even though each moment is complete). Each instant of your life is timeless and complete, yet life takes a lifetime.

Yes, I think that technology, and our knowledge of the workings of the human brain, will allow some quick 'short-cut' ways to experience various 'Zen-like' experiences. Hell, they already exist, in the form of various pharmaceuticals and hypnotist's tricks ... many experiences can be summoned very much like what we experience on the cushion. 'Big Mind' (when I experienced parts of it) does this.

But they all miss the real point:

They are not Practice ... they do not serve to completely recarve our lives. That takes daily effort (to be effortless), and constant attention. There are few short-cuts for developing new habits, values and ways of thinking. What is a good analogy?

Cigarette smoking can be dropped in an instant. Yes a healthy lifestyle comes day by day. Something like that.

I think that Genpo is selling a taste a Zen, a bit of stage hypnosis and some snake oil. I don't think that necessarily a bad thing, but it is not 'once and for always life fixing' ... and it is certainly not worth the $1400 pricetag ... I think.

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:hO ... cd=4&gl=us

Big Mind will induce certain Zen-like states in participants (I know because I was there), but it is not what we are doing here ... which is more the slow process of training to be athletes of the mind. Something like that.

Pardon my flowery language, but some topics just lend themselves to it.

Gassho, Jundo

PS- The Heart Sutra with the timers ...

http://www.treeleaf.org/meditation.html

... is in Korean. I just liked it at the time, as it had a little jump. I cannot find the original file, but will look for it when I have some time.

**will** · 10-01-2007, 07:12 AM

I just noticed the incense burns with the time. Hehe. cool.

**will** · 10-01-2007, 12:19 PM

I just recieved an email. "Buy Integral Institute Kit and recieve 7 free gifts!"

Hey Jundo maybe Treeleaf should do something like this. Like a fruit basket or something.

Gassho

P.S. That's a joke by the way. However.....

**will** · 10-01-2007, 10:17 PM

haha

**Rev R** · 10-01-2007, 10:38 PM

Maybe it should be socks. I've heard that is the most thoughtless gift.

**Drut** · 10-02-2007, 02:50 AM

Maybe it should be socks. I've heard that is the most thoughtless gift.

That's great. I wish I had thought of that one.

I seem to have hijacked this post but I am very happy with the response and, while perhaps not as well articulated in my mind as Jundo has expressed, it is as I had expected. My intent was mostly provovative with a whisper of hope that it would be useful.

So back to you-tube and the like. There are a bunch of lectures by Brad Warner on Punk and Zen...

**Drut** · 10-02-2007, 02:53 AM

He rags on Genpo mercilessly and also elicits strong responses within the community.

**Rev R** · 10-02-2007, 06:58 PM

I think you must have taken that literally.

R

**Drut** · 10-03-2007, 06:46 PM

O.K. Here's one. "Zen Fighting."

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 2236826328

Not to be taken too seriously but shows what others think of us a bit. Personally I was rooting for the "suit" as I thought he was less tainted although the other guy impressed me sitting seiza on the bare concrete. The image was very left brain/right brain. The result was perhaps predictable.

Youtube Meditations

Youtube Meditations

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment