non-dual philosophy

[Jundo]

Somebody wrote to ask if I have something against sensory deprivation tanks.

I love to try all those things like sensory deprivation tanks (remember the movie where the guy goes into one and comes out a caveman)?



I did not mean that there was anything wrong with them, and I have done so several times. A few years ago I also tried one of those places a few times where they put glasses and headphones on you and play beats and a light pattern that harmonize the brainwaves ... very deep Samadhi resulted.



Many many things can inform our Zazen. Even my driving my car down the highway (also a kind of meditation on the edge of life and death! ) does that.

They are all just a bit different from Shikantaza too (though each is also Shikantaza if we say that Shikantaza is just what is ... and the tank etc. is "just what is" while one is in floating it! The changing room before and after is also "just what is" as one is drying off! ).

I was just trying to draw some clear picture about what makes Shikantaza a bit its own flavor of ice cream from many other types of meditation or experience. Please don't misunderstand. Gassho, Jundo

[Taigu]

Hi Oheso,

The practice of one thing through and through, only one thing . Of course one might go around and look and listen. One might even borrow some practices from different traditions, keeping it simple and faithful to what has been handed to you. The point is that it doesn t belong to you, in this perspective you receive the teachings from teachers of the future and preach the living ancestors.

If you would have put the suggestion to sit to Ponjaji et would have laughed and laughed. Did anybody call him a fundamentalist , a man of orthodoxy?

Take care and thank you for throwing your stone in this pond.

Gassho

Taigu

[Myozan Kodo]

Hi all.
The way I see it is that you have to dig in one place. After a long time, after going very deep ... if there is no burried treasure, you start to dig in another place.

Of course, that is just the view through these wrinkled eyes.
Gassho
Myozan

[Jinyo]

Hi all.
The way I see it is that you have to dig in one place. After a long time, after going very deep ... if there is no burried treasure, you start to dig in another place.

Of course, that is just the view through these wrinkled eyes.
Gassho
Myozan

I hope the treasure isn't really buried - digging. with eyes down, we might miss the point?


Gassho

Willow

[Hans]

Hello,

A day has but 24 hours, a week but 7 days.
Every shovel full of dirt is the complete treasure,
yet intimacy deepens over time.


We will all die soon, take heed.

Gassho,

Hans Chudo Mongen

[Taigu]

Mongen,

Three pai

Taigu

[Taigu]

I don't know if you noticed guys, our two unsui have perfectly presented two yanas of our tradition, Myozan's search for the treasure is pure style of the Theravada, Mongen comes with the Mahayana statement like thunder and lightening and yet, and yet...
At the tail end of shobogenzo, the monk Dogen , listening to our two unsui, picks up a brush and comes with another twist and answers both Myozan and Mongen, he traces in a very fine and delicate brush work: tada, yoku masani onozukar no hozo o horaite, juyo nyo i natashimen, your jewel treasury will fully and naturally open and you will be free to receive and use it as you like.

No digger, no digging, nothing to do, just in this sitting- being time, the treasure has your eyes and hands and lap. You are it!

Gassho

Taigu

[Myozan Kodo]

Gassho

[Jundo]

Wonderful.

[Nengyo]

These kind of threads remind me of the continual debates on fitness forums about which program to use. Should I use Stronglifts, starting strength, the texas method, convict conditioning, gymnastics, swim, run, or do crossfit? Should I mix and match? Is there an ultimate program?

Sadly, there are so many options you can easily suffer paralysis through analysis or even worse F**karounditis. Either you have so many choices that it is overwhelming and you never start. Or you get the desire to keep tinkering with stuff instead of really getting down to business. If you feel like there is always something to add or change with a system even though thousands of people have used the system with success in the past, you have f**karounditis.

I would give someone the same advice here that I give on fitness forums. Find something you like to do, find someone who does it well to teach you, and do that until you are really good at it. By the time you are really good at it, you will know what steps to take next. Then you can add and subtract whatever you want. I'm sure I could find a thousand different practices to mix in with my shicantazer (Yes, I southernfied it), but what would I get out of it if I weren't already aware of what is possible with Shikantaza.

Of course there is a good chance that this analogy is crazy, unrelated, and I just have lifting on the brain after taking a week off.

Gassho,
Charles

[Jundo]

I'm sure I could find a thousand different practices to mix in with my shicantazer (Yes, I southernfied it)

Zazen ... Get-r-done!

[Heisoku]

A great thread. Thanks all. Gassho.

[RichardH]

This sounds like a confused struggle. I've been there, and I hope it can be put down. It is a drag.


The Four Noble Truths, the Buddha's "nobel silence" on tail chasing ontological questions, recognizing the gyres of Eternalism and Nihilism that people routinely slip down in pursuit of ..... , all this and much more distinguishes the skillful way Buddhism. Respecting these distinctions and not blurring them in New Age generalizations does mean being a fundamentalist. There is nothing supremacist about it, nothing chauvinistic, nothing closed minded. It just means practicing thoroughly and with fidelity.

Gassho Daizan

Ha. just checking in on this busy week... and noticed that i wrote here that distinguishing the skillful way of Buddhism does mean being a Fundamentalist , when i meant to say doesn't. But then that's O.K. too. The fundamentals.. the ABC's, of Buddhism are always at play as far as I can tell.

Gassho, Daizan

[JohnsonCM]

Hi all.
The way I see it is that you have to dig in one place. After a long time, after going very deep ... if there is no burried treasure, you start to dig in another place.

Of course, that is just the view through these wrinkled eyes.
Gassho
Myozan

Where you dig is up to you, but wherever you start, as with any circle, if you dig deep enough, clear away enough dirt, no seperation between you, shovel, dirt, or act of digging, eventually you will reach the center.enso.jpg

[JohnsonCM]

"When you dig a well, there's no sign of water until you reach it, only rocks and dirt to move out of the way. You have removed enough; soon the pure water will flow," said Buddha"


Can you 'dig' it? Hehehehe..........