Adyashanti's Shikantaza/True Meditation

[Jinyo]

Hi Brian - point 1 - I don't think he's saying that his stories are more significant - he recognises that its the norm to lose the insights of childhood. Later he talks of losing the 'taste' of identity - which is interesting - but also ironic because from what I can glean his identity as a teacher is very strong. I think this is what Jundo was hinting at?

The philosophical discussion about the 'void' is interesting enough - but I'm a stickler for anyone in a teaching position referencing their sources and this seems to happen so rarely in the plethora of videos, books etc that are out there.

What he's saying - and so many others are saying - is probably bound to be close to what we study/practice here. There's an almighty river of learning/thoughts/ideas/beliefs out there - and it all flows from the same source



Willow

[Heisoku]

An interesting thread and I understand many of the points made and why they were made. He reminds me of Eckhart Tolle in his self referential style. I don't know why people feel a drive to be a teacher, or if the need to be seen rather than 'to be' overides any of their experiences. I get the feeling that they got off the bus before the end of the journey. In my experience as a teacher (of children) when you are truly engaged in the act of teaching you are so focussed on the person you are teaching that you for all intents and purposes 'disappear'. It doesn't happen often but when it does it derives from humility and compassionate awareness of the other. I have always been amazed at how both Jundo and Taigu are so immersed in what people are saying that their responses not only target whoever they are replying to, but resonate to a wider audience. This only comes from total immersion, commitment and humility, a place a bit further down the line imho. Gassho.

[Oheso]

Originally Posted by Taigu
Where are you?

Where are you not?

Gassho,

Timo

these sorts of posts/ this sort of verbage/ these sorts of rejoinders in Zen contexts leave me totally confused and frustrated.

with respect and not understanding,

gassho,

-Robert

[Mp]

... I have always been amazed at how both Jundo and Taigu are so immersed in what people are saying that their responses not only target whoever they are replying to, but resonate to a wider audience. This only comes from total immersion, commitment and humility ...

Heisoku,

Beautifully put, thank you for that.

Gassho
Shingen

[Jinyo]

Heisoku,

Beautifully put, thank you for that.

Gassho
Shingen

Yes - in a nutshell - totally agree.

Gassho

Willow

[Kokuu]

Indeed, there are always pioneers. Personally, I like the fact we get not only the (considerable) experience of Jundo and Taigu here, but the wisdom of their teachers and many others before, including Dogen and Bodhidharma. The benefit of lineage and tradition, for me, is that there are checks and balances with other teachers in the same tradition there to put one back on the right course either privately or (less often) publicly. There does also seem to be far less of a cult of personality and making money.

That is not to say that 'go it alone' teachers cannot be good or worth learning from. The very best teachers often have to break free from what has gone before to move forward. Those true pioneers like Bodhidharma, Tsongkhapa and Shakyamuni Buddha, to name but three, were exceptional people and many do not thrive so well cut off from the wellspring of tradition. During my (relatively short) time studying the dharma I have noticed several teachers put forward methods for going 'beyond Buddhism' such as Big Mind and Unlearning Meditation yet, on closer inspection, the problems they claim to have with traditional practice has already been noticed by traditional teachers and included already. Adyashanti's problem of being attached to meditation and needing to go beyond it seems a further case in point.

Adyashanti seems to be a good teacher with good motivation. This is a pretty traditional Zen sangha, though, so there are bound too be differences in approach that trigger cautionary comments. I have other teachers I learn from too but would hesitate to mention anyone living outside of the lineage here as there are already two excellent teachers to ask questions of if we need advice on how to sit.

Andy

[Jundo]

I feel Jundo's post is harsh on Adyashanti and doesn't reflect the truth at all.

In my opinion Adyashanti is as genuine and real as any spiritual teacher can get. I have not seen any teacher living or dead, talk so lucidly and explain what awakening is so wonderfully. This includes Dogen, Buddha and the future maitreya buddha!

Hi,

I honestly express that I think something is "off" with this teacher, not authentic, does not ring true. I may be wrong (of course, I feel I am not wrong or I would not say so), and he might be the greatest thing since apple pie. I appreciate many Advaita teachers who do ring true for me (even if I do not practice such system. Likewise, many Catholic and Christian priests and ministers, Jewish Rabbis who strike me a real and sincere though I do not Practice those traditions. Other ministers, televangelists and such ring false.)

If I am wrong, I am sure that Adyashanti would not care because, in his "Enlightenment", he is beyond all such petty concerns.

And if I am right, I am sure he still would not be much bothered or even hear about it.

Further, those who really believe in the fellow will continue to do so. One thing I do know is that it is almost impossible to change anyone's views about their religious or political heroes. (The reason is something we humans are prone to called "cognitive dissonance") ...

http://www.skepdic.com/cognitivedissonance.html

So, I just offer a perspective and leave it there.

Right now, I am facing a similar situation in the Zen world, translating Japanese reports from old newspapers about a Japanese Roshi who caused a pretty nasty scandal in Japan years ago, was convicted and sentenced to prison for it, then came to America and engaged in various sexual shenanigans ... all unknown or (known but) denied by those around him for years. (By the way, Adyashanti seems like a pretty straight and honest fellow, and I am in no way talking about something like that in his case). In the Japanese Roshi's case, his most loyal followers are doing everything in their power to rationalize away the story, paper it over, deny it, shoot the messengers, talk of some conspiracy to "get" their hero. The disease of hero worship to the point of not seeing ... not even looking because one does not want to see ... is in the Zen world too, all religions, politics.

Gassho, Jundo

PS - Yes, in Taigu and my case, it is obvious that we are two foolish and imperfect guys ... though well meaning. I will agree with that. More than anyone's "guru", we are more like your grandmother ... generally warm, well meaning, even frequently filled with wise advice, and at other times annoying, small minded and embarrassing.

[Andrea1974]

I have seen Adia's videos before but never read any of his books. My general impression is that his message is positive although I have my reservations about his awakening experience. Heart beat up to 200 beats per min? Information being "downloaded" into his mind from I do not know where? It sound too new agey and a bit scary to me. I am not a seasoned meditator but the best experiences I have had while sitting have been completely ordinary and nothing more. I do not think that his idea of crossing to the other side accurately reflects what true enlightment probably is. The beauty of Zen in my view is in its simplicity. No complicated practice...no fancy words...no-thing special.

Gassho,

[shikantazen]

To all those who doubt his awakening: His Zen teacher confirmed his awakening and asked him to teach and that's when he started to teach. He started teaching in the traditional Zen style (robes, zafus, dokusans etc...) but then his teaching evolved naturally to what it is now. He was initially worried about this and asked his Zen teacher to come and visit one of his group meetings and she came in and in the end said "now thats zen"; here is a link

http://www.buddhistgeeks.com/2010/03/bg-164-now-thats-zen/

My opinion of him is not formed just by a couple of videos. I read all his five books, attended his weekend intensive and personally saw how his words just flow through spontaneously. You just cannot fake it. The true meditation book and few of his other books too he just sat and gave an impromptu talk and the editors published it like that. If you read those books, you would be amazed at how someone can speak such wisdom and so spontaneously.

I don't even care about all of the above, how impressive he is, how he talks about awakening etc... What I was attracted most to was his "True Meditation" method. As I told you earlier I have been doing mantra meditation for some years and when I heard him say, just sit and allow everything to be as it is, I felt an instant attraction to it. I didn't know that there is something similar in Zen called Shikantaza. As he started teaching in a non-traditional zen style (mixture of advaita self-inquiry and shikantaza meditation), some of the zen teachers talk disapprovingly of him (and some zen teachers I met did say he was a great teacher too). That could be the reason why he doesn't want to call his method shikantaza and create more confusion.

Anyway my main question is this. Forget Adya. Is the method he proposes shikantaza? if we stay alert with effortless effort and let our experience be as it is without any manipulation is that same as shikantaza? I'm not planning to leave my zafu and sit "only" as per what he says. I see the value of teacher/tradition/lineage/transmission. For the past 2 months every weekend I go and sit with my zen teacher, I see that my meditation becomes much better for the next few days (awareness comes back to the current moment much sooner, less getting caught up). So there is definitely a value-add. But I want to use Adya's instructions to help/clarify my practice. I think sitting with non-manipulation (just let sitting sit) is the most important thing for shikantaza and other things (spine straight, zafu, eyes open, facing wall vs room, being buddhist) help but are not very important. Is my understanding correct?

- Sam

[Jundo]

Anyway my main question is this. Forget Adya. Is the method he proposes shikantaza? if we stay alert with effortless effort and let our experience be as it is without any manipulation is that same as shikantaza?

Hi Sam,

I will try to respond because you ask.

As I wrote in my first post above, "There is some very nice sections and advice in what was posted above." I like where he says such as:

I would sit down and let my experience simply be, in a very deep way. I started to let go of trying to control my experience. That became the beginning of discovering for myself what True Meditation is.

I think I concur with the statement: "Real meditation is not about mastering a technique; it's about letting go of control."

Apart from that, I am not sure. He speaks about some other things that sound pretty fuzzy and "double speak" to me, and I do not find him as lucid and clear in his explanations as you may encounter. It may be my own lack of an ear for this, but to me he is one of those fellows who says something that sounds like it sounds like something ... and he says it very smoothly and charmingly ... but one has to scratch one's head a bit in asking "what does that really mean?" (We have lots of folks like that in the Zen world too. Suzuki Roshi was one, but that was mostly due to his terrible command of English I think). I am sorry, but I don't get sentences like:

By letting go, we allow awareness to do what it wants to do. It goes where it needs to go. We realize that awareness has an intelligence in and of itself. The invitation for you as a meditator is to become very engaged with where awareness wants to go, with what it wants to experience. You are engaged; you're right with it. You are willing to go where awareness wants to go"


Sounds like something, sounds like "Eastern Wisdom" of some kind, but not sure just what. It may be that I am simply not attuned to it. Sorry, and it may not be so for others.

Also note this:

One vital aspect of Shikantaza I regularly point to is the following. We have had this conversation a few times now, Sam, and this must not be left out of Zazen as Dogen encouraged it. When practicing Shikantaza, SHIKANTAZA MUST BE SHIKANTAZA'D WITH A CERTAIN UNDERSTANDING RIGHT TO THE MARROW, to wit:

Seated Zazen is our ONE AND ONLY practice, for by the very nature of Shikantaza ... when sitting Zazen, there is nothing more to do, nothing more that need be done, no addition needed nor anything to take away. Zazen is complete and whole. No other place to be in all the world, no other place we must (or can) run to. Nothing lacks, all is sacred, and Zazen is the One Liturgy. It is vital to be sat by Zazen with such attitude. Thus, Zazen is sat each day as the One and Whole Practice. If one sits any other way, if one sits with any sensation of "'I' need to fill some hole that is not Whole" ... one kills Zazen, gets nowhere. If one sits Zazen, one need do no other practice!

Why?

I have explained often, but the crazy wisdom goes like this:

Our small self, the body-mind, is always filled with countless desires ... the desire to be somewhere else, be getting somewhere, achieving some prize, some distant goal. Our body-mind is always judging this or that as somehow inadequate to what the body-mind wants, its likes and dislikes, needs, regrets and dreams.

Thus, when there is sat an instant of Zazen as wholeness in just sitting, the only place to be and act to do in that instant, in all of reality, to fulfill life as life ... the Buddha and all the Ancestors just sitting in that instant of sitting, no other thing to attain or which ever can be attained ... no other place to go or in need of going ... all holes filled, whether full or empty or in between ... all lack and excess resolved in that one sitting, with not one thing to add or take away ... judgments dropped away, "likes and dislikes" put aside ... nothing missing from Zazen (even when we might feel that "something is missing", for one can be fully content with the feeling of lack!) ... the sitting of Zazen and all life experienced as complete and whole as just the sitting of Zazen ... the entire universe manifesting itself on the Zafu at that moment ...

... [then] the "little self" is thereby put out of a job by the experience of "just sitting" as whole and complete with nothing more to be desired or needed[.]

Human beings simply do not know how to act an action pierced as naturally complete just by the act of the action itself, how to live life that is whole just by the act of living life.

...

If you simply sit with the attitude that your Zazen in that moment is "perfectly whole, just complete unto itself, without borders and duration, not long or short, nothing to add or take away, containing all moments and no moments in "this one moment" ... then IT IS! IT IS because you learn to treat and taste it as so. Your learning how to treat it as so, makes it so. If you can learn to sit there feeling about Zazen, and all of life, that "there is not one thing to add or take away" ... then, guess what: there is not one thing to add or take away precisely because you feel that way. Each moment is perfectly whole when you can see each moment as perfectly whole.

Anyway, Sam, maybe the above also sounds like "fuzzy spiritual double speak" to many folks, so I may be guilty-as-charged too.

Gassho, J

[kosen]

All your messages are very interesting, thank you. Adyanshanti doubtless has qualities, human and intellectual. But as soon as a guru or master is nice, or the worse attractive, it is necessary to run away. The seduction, even intellectual, transform the teacher into obstacle.
Adyashanti is successful: then it is also necessary to avoid him. One day Kodo Sawaki declared: the fate of a Zen monk is to die only by the roadside (for me, it is a big koan).
Kosen

[shikantazen]

Thanks for the clarification Jundo. I happened to read a book in a local library by a buddhist teacher just today which explained a similar thing. That there are two things both of which are equally important;

- A true belief in one's intrinsic buddha nature
- Practicing Zazen

As per what he says though they sound contradicting they are not and they both are essential for awakening. Just believing in one's buddha nature without practice is merely a belief and will not do any good. Practice without believing in one's intrinsic buddha nature will make practitioner try hard to be somewhere other than where he is and to reject what he has and to strive to get to something else which will never work.

I think that's why Zen stresses the important of goalless practice.

One issue I have though is this. Don't you think sitting with an attitude or belief can come in the way of pure sitting? Or do you mean it more like having a belief outside practice and/or repeating that as an affirmation before the start of the practice?

- Sam

[shikantazen]

Can I put the essential shikantaza points like this?

- Sit doing nothing
- Let your experience be as is; don't desire for certain experience & don't reject whatever is happening
- Put right amount of effort; not manipulating your experience does not mean no effort
- Have a belief in your intrinsic buddha nature; no where to go; nothing to gain; that zazen is good for nothing

[Jundo]

As per what he says though they sound contradicting they are not and they both are essential for awakening. Just believing in one's buddha nature without practice is merely a belief and will not do any good. Practice without believing in one's intrinsic buddha nature will make practitioner try hard to be somewhere other than where he is and to reject what he has and to strive to get to something else which will never work.

I think that's why Zen stresses the important of goalless practice.

That sounds Wise and Right to me. We must "bring Buddha to life".

One issue I have though is this. Don't you think sitting with an attitude or belief can come in the way of pure sitting? Or do you mean it more like having a belief outside practice and/or repeating that as an affirmation before the start of the practice?

Good question!

When we are sitting, we are not in a coma, trance or deep sleep. We are feeling something, have to be feeling something, so what should that be? In Shikantaza one should have a general feeling in one's marrow of Sacredness and Wholeness, Completeness, Nothing-More-In-Needness while sitting.

Why?

Because what one usually feels in one's heart is dis-satisfaction, restlessness, lack, need, worry, clutching etc. ... Dukkha.

"Sitting As Buddha Sitting" is medicine for that.

HOWEVER, don't think that I am saying that one should be sitting there pondering this, or intentionally repeating like a Mantra "Buddha Sitting" or the like in Shikantaza. While we don't forcibly squelch the thoughts in Shikantaza, neither is it a time for pondering. I am merely describing an attitude felt right in the bones.

- Sit doing nothing
- Let your experience be as is; don't desire for certain experience & don't reject whatever is happening
- Put right amount of effort; not manipulating your experience does not mean no effort
- Have a belief in your intrinsic buddha nature; no where to go; nothing to gain; that zazen is good for nothing

Not quite.

We are not "sitting doing nothing". Nor are we intentionally doing something. We are sitting beyond doing and not doing, something and nothing (and like mental categories) ... Doing-Non-Doing.

We let the experience be, but neither do we allow ourselves to get tangled in chains of thought and runaway emotions. When finding ourself pondering or otherwise stirring up chains of thought or mental drama, we "open the hand of thought" and let it go. Then, we sit with what is.

We put in effort to sit each day ... but we sit beyond effort or achievement. That is how we diligently achieve non-achievement.

Yes, we feel that intrinsic Buddha Nature as one's own bones ... nothing to gain ... and thus we discover the Greatest Treasure only found when we stop running after shiny distractions.

Gassho, J

P.S. ...

I fear I also engage in a kind of "fuzzy double talk".

You know, Zen Teachers of old also said many things that sounded illogical, like riddles, mysterious. They did. That is because Zen and Mahayana Buddhism have a "logic of their own" ... a Buddhalogic ... often very different from ordinary day-to-day logic. For a Buddha, A is often not B, yet B is precisely A ... and, anyway, what "A" or "B" at all? They would use wildly poetic or wordless gestures and images to convey this ... as we encounter in our Koan reflections each week.

http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?55-BEYOND-WORDS-LETTERS-BOOK-CLUB

I put that in a different category from Mr. Adayashanti who just strikes me as often double talking. As I said, it could simply be my lack of an ear for his way of putting things.

[Jishin]

Hi Sam,

There is too much to read out there. Too many teachers. I am tired of wandering in the desert. I am too old. I think I will just sit here. Listen to fellow treeleafers. Listen to Jundo and Taigu. Read Dogen. Nothing else is needed in my case.

Gassho, John