Precious Insights during Zazen - What do you make of it?

[Jinyo]

Re: Precious Insights during Zazen - What do you make of it?

Taigu wrote
'To go along Bro Jundo and go one step further I would say: chuck them out!
Don't become a living clutter, a collection of piled up item

When freedom is, wisdom blooms.
I don'get my wisdom from quotes, books, or experience.'

Taigu what you write is so true - but the doing of 'uncluttering' can be a hell of a process - each person must surely have their personal journey with this?

It may be written about someplace on this site - I keep discovering new links - but I'm wondering how did this happen for you?
Was it easy to get rid of all the books/words? I think at one time you were an academic?

You also wrote

'One more thing:?the first koan of the book of equanimity points at something like that, among other things.'

The Book of Equanimity is on my bookshelf - with all the other books on Zen - by the above principle do I also throw this book out?

This is the difficulty - is anything really worth keeping - worth investing time in? Do we reach a point in life where in our innermost hearts
and being we grasp how to be a fully functioning/caring individual living this one precious life? 'Nothing to add - perfect as is' as Jundo teaches.

Zazen seems so 'pure' in a way - but the written paraphanelia around Zen is mind boggling. :roll:

Perhaps we need the words there in the first place in order to reject - work out the unnecessary.

We are perhaps fortunate in having a choice?

Gassho

Willow

[will]

Re: Precious Insights during Zazen - What do you make of it?

Jundo

Feel free to try to figure out which is which ... between sittings. Maybe, better yet, don't even bother ... and let time and life just sort them out.

This one I like.

Gassho

W

[Jundo]

Re: Precious Insights during Zazen - What do you make of it?

'Nothing to add - perfect as is' as Jundo teaches.

Just a footnote ...

I never say that, that things or people are "perfect as they are" or "perfect as is".

Maybe I say that everything and everybody be perfectly just what they are. Each Buddha, although drenched in flaws. All perfectly-imperfect specimens! Cracked Buddhas.

Nothing to add or take away to make you more you, or Buddha more Buddha, or you more Buddha ... but best to be rid of those flaws to be&act more like a Buddha. 8)

Heck, best to just forget judging "perfect" and "imperfect" at all!

End of footnote.

[Jinyo]

Re: Precious Insights during Zazen - What do you make of it?

Jundo - sorry I misquoted you. ops:

Gassho

Willow

[AlanLa]

Re: Precious Insights during Zazen - What do you make of it?

Practically speaking, when I uncover or discover some great insight during zazen, I go "Wow!" and then drop it and go back to zazen. Later, after zazen is over, if the insight was important enough (which it often isn't), I write it down. Even later, if it wasn't important enough (which it often isn't) I forget about it entirely. And on those rare occasions where the insight truly was important, so important that it changes my life in some way... well, writing it down to remember it isn't really necessary, is it?

Insights are not outcomes, just small way stations on the Path. By all means, check out their scenery, but don't mistake the scenery of insight for the journey itself.

[Jinyo]

Re: Precious Insights during Zazen - What do you make of it?

Have just watched new video Taigu - thankyou, my questions are answered.

Gassho

Willow

[Hoyu]

Re: Precious Insights during Zazen - What do you make of it?

Practically speaking, when I uncover or discover some great insight during zazen, I go "Wow!" and then drop it and go back to zazen. Later, after zazen is over, if the insight was important enough (which it often isn't), I write it down. Even later, if it wasn't important enough (which it often isn't) I forget about it entirely. And on those rare occasions where the insight truly was important, so important that it changes my life in some way... well, writing it down to remember it isn't really necessary, is it?

Insights are not outcomes, just small way stations on the Path. By all means, check out their scenery, but don't mistake the scenery of insight for the journey itself.

Wonderful! Deep gassho _/_

[Kyosei]

Re: Precious Insights during Zazen - What do you make of it?

If all these "insights" are meaningless (and sometimes may be false concepts, illusions, points-of-escape of the intellectual mind), why did the Shakiamuni Buddha Himself paid so much attention to them (when structuring His doctrine)?

The teachings which composes his "dharma" seems to be based on the insights He had along the Way.

Logical deductions (maybe in other levels of comprehension, but still logical deductions) about the causes of suffering and all of this.

I still cannot see where is my intellectual mind (it (begins to) seems to me that is no "mind" neither "mine" nor "intellectual" - that´s what I understood from that experience I wrote here), if I wasn´t thinking in nothing special during practice.

All being just a flow, if we catch a leave flying in the wind, can we say we put that leave there?

I´m trying to understand that simplicity of the practice: Drop away mind and body... or so, as Master Dogen Zenji said.

But how can I say something like it is "my mind" or "my thoughts" if I didn´t started them, I just catched it on that flow of "opening windows" Zazen seems to provocate?

(Dear friends, sorry but many times "my" limited english doesn´t help me to put things exactly how I want to expose it to you. Hopefully I could give you an idea of what is going here. :-) )

[Kyosei]

Re: Precious Insights during Zazen - What do you make of it?

One more thing:?the first koan of the book of equanimity points at something like that, among other things.

gassho

Taigu

Taigu Sensei,

I´ve looked for this book on internet, read the 1st case, but I don´t understand when it relates to the questions/experience I´ve described...

For me, when I read it (on google books), it seemed that when we think on Buddha as a superior being, outside of us, he is visible, on the platform (above us) but when we truly comprehend His dharma, he "leave the platform" to be among us, it tells me he and us are in the same level - we are the same.

Still, I don´t understand, can you help? What is Koan? Is it used in Zen? what the objectives of it? how can we study them?

And for you all: Today on the Zendo I´m practicing, it will begins a group of studies "basic level" on Buddhist doctrine... I think I´ll be there, what do you think of it? can it be good for me to study buddhism intellectually? :wink:

[Rich]

Re: Precious Insights during Zazen - What do you make of it?

The buddhas words were orally transmitted for over 200 years before being written down. Then they were translated and interpreted many times by many people. So there is some disagreement about meaning. From my study what the buddha actually did is repeated again and again by most people. He did a lot of sitting meditation, he walked around the countryside alot, and he did a lot of dharma talking. Personally I feel that just sitting is the core teaching and the walking and talking is to help everyone with this and whatever else they need.

[Taigu]

Re: Precious Insights during Zazen - What do you make of it?

Marcos,

We will all soon start to read the book of equanimity, part of the book club.

koan are seen in our Soto tradition not as tools to generate understanding and breakthrough but as the ten thousand ways to look at the same reality.

this, from Jundo might help:

There is absolutely nothing wrong with understanding a Koan intellectually ... so long as one does not stop there.

Most of the Koans do have some "point" being made arising out of Zen and Buddhist perspectives/non-perspectives and philosophy (for example, a lot of the Koans are about Emptiness or the Relative/Absolute or the nature of a Buddha) ... and it is baloney for one to say that one must ignore, or not "think about" that aspect of the Koan and that it is not helpful to understand it on an intellectual level. BULL & BALONEY! Few if any legitimate teachers of Zen assert such an extreme opinion (at least if you read them closely), although many people bandy such assertions about.

Such assertions come from (1) people who ignore the fact that most monks of old were very highly trained and familiar with the central questions and perspectives of Zen Buddhist philosophy and teachings, and so were able to "pick up" the implied message in the Koans ... for example Dogen, Matsu, Ta Hui, Hakuin and about everyone else were very much highly educated and immersed in Buddhist culture, history and teachings and thus knew the back story on the Koans and what the discussion was about "between the lines", (2) certain radicals who, although a minority, misused the Koans by emphasizing some extreme view of "A Way Beyond Words And Letters" that overlooked the fact that all the great teachers first understood the letters in order to go beyond them! , (3) the modern foolish types who think that, because the Koans are written in a way that is hard to understand to modern readers 1000 years and several cultures removed from their writing, that they are not supposed to be understandable! Don't believe the propaganda!

As we shall encounter when we delve into the Book of Serenity, such is not the case. Often the Koans can be understood by the intellect ... although the message is often shocking, MIND BLOWING, an attack on our ordinary suppositions about who we are and how the world is!

HOWEVER, the point is that one must not stop with an intellectual understanding, but go beyond and live it! Do not just get trapped in your head, armchair philosophizing and spinning mental wheels!

Simply, it is like the difference between understanding the rules of baseball (important in playing baseball) ... and actually taking the field and playing baseball. It is the difference between understanding music and how to play a guitar (important in playing a guitar) ... and actually playing a guitar with all one's heart. It is like the gap between an intellectual understanding of romance and sexual reproduction (a bit of knowledge is helpful even here ) ... and making love.

Got the point? Give the Koans some time ... don't be too worried that they are too hard to understand the first few times, or that they don't ring your bell right away. Like playing baseball, guitar ... or making love ... one does tend to get better at it with time!

For now, just give space and time to just sitting. Attending a group studying Buddhism is a good idea. It may make things clear.

If you want to meet the real practice and ultimate study, the study of the self, open your heart-mind, fold your legs and sit.

The chapter called genjokoan in Shobogenzo, a letter Dogen wrote to one of his students, would be helpful to you.

viewtopic.php?f=40&t=4160


gassho


Taigu

[Jundo]

Re: Precious Insights during Zazen - What do you make of it?

If all these "insights" are meaningless (and sometimes may be false concepts, illusions, points-of-escape of the intellectual mind), why did the Shakiamuni Buddha Himself paid so much attention to them (when structuring His doctrine)?

The teachings which composes his "dharma" seems to be based on the insights He had along the Way.

If one reads the Suttas and Sutras (I am reading slowly the wonderful new translation by Red Pine of the Lankavatara now), one finds that the Buddha spends as much time pointing to mistaken or partial views that arise in meditation, practice and life as pointing to right views. Sometimes, he even corrects or rejects teachings he seemed to make in other Suttas and Sutras! And, in the Mahayana anyway, the Ultimate View is somehow the view of no views and all views.

So, the problem is not insights ... it is separating the gold from the fools gold (i.e., the medicines that work in life's dis-ease and those that don't), all while not failing to live the No View of All Views.

Sit when sitting. (And also don't let the mind run wild like a run-a-way train of thoughts and suppositions between sittings! One might even find that there is no "in between!")

But how can I say something like it is "my mind" or "my thoughts" if I didn´t started them, I just catched it on that flow of "opening windows" Zazen seems to provocate?

Reminds me of another Koan about Bodhidharma and his student, Hui'ko ...

Hui-k'o, who would be the Second Patriarch of Ch'an, ... said, "Your disciple's mind has no peace as yet. Master, please, put it to rest." Bodhidharma said, "Bring me your mind, and I will put it to rest." Hui-k'o said, "I have searched for my mind, but I cannot find it." Bodhidharma said, "I have completely put it to rest for you."

Like a mind imagining an imaginary man searching for his imaginary mind where he imagines feeling imaginary "no peace". That's an imagined insight once that arose while sitting imagined Zazen! 8)

Like the mirror giving image to a mirror searching for that mirror where the mirror reflects "no peace". That's a reflection that lit up once while sitting mirror Zazen!

Like the wetness of the ocean looking for ocean water where waves are sometimes not "at peace." :wink:

Good insights perhaps? Maybe not? No matter, let them go ... and just sit~live this dream Zazen as a mirror, as flowing ocean.

Something like that.

Gassho, J


Ps -

Lovely, Rich ...

just sitting is the core teaching and the walking and talking is to help everyone with this and whatever else they need.