How to sit, written this July.

[Heisoku]

Thank you Taigu for these words. Nine bows.

[Dokan]

What to say...thank you..

Dokan

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[alan.r]

So much here seems an echo of things read before, and your words make the old things new again, which of course means your words make these old things, never dead, live again for us, in us, as us.

Thank you for sharing this beautiful thing with us.

Gassho

[Neika]

A very deep bow. Thank you Taigu.

Gassho.

[shikantazen]

Thanks Taigu. This is poetic and beautiful. More like Dogen. I find the below practical instructions very useful. May be we should make this thread a sticky and/or move it to the beginners shikantaza set of threads?

Don't do anything, be beyond fabrication. Drop all agendas, ideas of being somebody else or achieving something. In this, traveller, path and destination are neither one nor two. As you sit, cultivate the will to go up yet don't do it. In not doing, the natural response to gravity takes place. An inch of doing, and earth and blue sky are set apart, a fraction of making, and you have already left home.

Just be awake to the scenery of the body- mind and as you drift away, just come back, here and now. And come back again. You may put your mind in the palm of your left hand, be aware of the vertical spine, being awake to sounds without following them; ultimately there is nothing to do and nobody to do anything. Let not knowing manifest.

This sitting is without object or intention. Just the clear, non judgmental, panoramic attention to what arises here and now. Don't be attached to your thoughts of understanding or not understanding, of being right or wrong, break free from the realm of desires and intentions , be still, be the full body of reflection without judging self or others. To sit like this is to live and thoroughly experience the great question, to fully pierce it and penetrate it.

[Joe]

Thank you Taigu

Gassho
Joe

[Koshin]

Thank you teacher

Gassho

[McGettigan]

"Don't sit Buddha, just allow Buddha to sit you. "

Thank you for this teaching, Taigu.

Gassho.

[Nindo]

It is not for you to see, it is for you to be.

Thank you and deep bows.

[Rich]

I'm glad that you included lying down if you can't sit. Have heard that before but first time seeing it in writing.

[Risho]

It is not for you to see, it is for you to be.

Love that line.

Gassho,

Risho

[Jishin]

Thank you.

Gassho

[Genshin]

Thank you Taigu.

Deep bows,
Matt

[Seisou]

Nothing to say but a heartfelt "Thank you".
Gassho
Seisou

[lordbd]

Instructive yet still full of mystery. Very well said!