Zazen help

[Daisho]

Re: Zazen help

Hi Onken, I'm a newcomer to Greenleaf, but when practicing sitting, I do try my best to have no expectations and know that whatever comes up or how I feel, is what's supposed to be. All I have to do is just sit!

[Ekai]

Re: Zazen help

When thoughts or feelings arise of wanting to stop, let them go and keep sitting. You might find yourself letting these emotions go over and over again, minute after minute but that's OK. It's a part of the practice. Sit with your resistance and drop any self-judgements of how your Zazen Is going. When I experience this, I just keep letting the resistance go even if it's during the entire sit.

I hope this helps.

Gassho,
Ekai

[RichardH]

Re: Zazen help

Maybe a teacher would have a proper response , but as another sitter I can share something that was helpful. When I first learned Buddhist practice.. it was in the Forest Sangha tradition. It is quite different than Zen, but there was one teaching that has always stayed with me, and made coming to Soto Zen as taught by Jundo and Taigu inevitable. It was the teaching of "Tanha". Tanha is a pali word that means "I-want". At least this is how it was taught to me.. In particular there are the terms Bhava-Tanha and Vibhava-Tanha.. meaning wanting to get a state-of-being, and wanting to get rid of a state-of-being. "State-of-being" is the total sense of your being now. Bhava Tanha and Vibhava Tanha are like the push-and-pull of wanting this moment to be other than it . In short, when just sitting includes the tension of wanting this moment to other than it is.... just includes it.... there is tensionless just-sitting.

That is rambling and probably useless.....

[Hans]

Re: Zazen help

Hello Onken,

could you maybe go into a little bit more detail about the time leading up to and including this urge to stop? Is it a purely emotional phenomenon, or a physical one comparable to situations where one just has to scratch a wound, no matter how much one knows it's not what one should do....? Adding to this I'd like to ask you why you do sit? It's perfectly okay not to share intimate details here by the way - and I'd always suggest you talk to your teacher.

My two Unsui cents might not be worth a lot, but at this point I'd just like to make a general point that one should not ever mistake one's own ideas of what "right" practise is with a desired/imagined end result.
Encountering difficulties is the practise.

Hang in there.

Gassho,

Hans Chudo Mongen

[Onken]

Hello All,

Lately I have a had encountered some problems in my zazen. I feel that after a few minutes I need to get up and STOP. It's like my mind needs distraction. For a while my practice has been going very well, but with no changes in my life, I feel that sitting has become a chore. Any help with this? I keep reminding myself to just sit and go back to my breath. It may work for a few minutes, but the feelings come back. Any thoughts are welcome.