Ongoing Motivation

[Joyo]

Thank you, Jundo

Gassho,
Joyo

[Jundo]

I enjoyed this and feel inspired by it, which I suppose is its intention. However, I sometimes dislike how some teachers talk about practice, as if it is only a concrete thing - like, "Hey, stop thinking and pay attention to washing your hands." This is fine, and it's sort of revelatory when one first really does it, when one first begins to pay attention to how often the "physical" moment is pushed aside for some dreaming/thinking/etc, but I think that there are different ways to do the "wash the hands in the moment" thing. Or, it's less narrow than that - for instance, I'm typing this "right now" and paying great attention to what I'm writing (I feel "in the moment") - but, see, because I'm paying great attention to what I'm thinking and writing, I'm not really noticing other stuff, until I stop typing (there's a dog barking outside, right now, and there's a siren, too).

What I mean is, there's often this insistence in these "live in the moment" parts of articles that suggest that living in the moment is purely about physical, concrete reality, and placing our awareness there. There sometimes seems to be a kind of one-to-one correlation that I find a little troubling: just this = concrete reality. I think that we can be "in the now" when thinking thoughts, when writing our thoughts out (as now), and etc. Jundo has often said that when you're daydreaming be fully aware and into that - that is the now, too.

I wonder if others have felt this way. In any case, just some thoughts, and thanks for sharing.

Gassho

Hmmm. Once, hiking down Mt. Tsukuba, I was so content and focues on how "in the moment" I was being, that I failed to notice a rock, stumbled and fell right on my ass into the mud! So, sitting in the mudhole, I was just mindful of the mud.

Yes, sometimes we are "just in the moment" more with the body (such as, when drinking tea, just drink tea), and sometimes we may be "in the moment" more with the mind (when reading a poem, just read and feel the poem) and usually it is really both (because body-mind are not two). In sports, martial arts, dancing or Oryoki eating (as we are practicing here: http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/forum...ractice-Circle ) we can encounter those moments when the mind drops away because the body just takes over. Wonderful! Zazen too can have such an effect when we just throw our self into the physical act of sitting, allowing the posture to just do all.

However, I say that there is a bit too much emphasis these days in Buddhism on "being in the moment" or "doing one thing at one time". That is one powerful skill that our Practice allows us, but not for most moments of the day (we could not function really if we were like that most of the time. I think overemphasis on always "being in the moment" is a misunderstanding (PAY ATTENTION TO THE FOLLOWING SMALL CHANGE IN LANGUAGE) of the more vital skill of "being one with the moment, and just allowing and fully being the moment, whatever it contains".

Yes, I believe that there are times to be "mindful" ... and there are times not. Sometimes when I eat, I just eat ... when I sip tea, I just sip tea ... when bowing, just bowing ... fully absorbed in that action. A wonderful, insightful practice. When doing one thing, just do one thing with all one's body-and-mind.

At other times, I just grab a sandwich and a coke while reading the newspaper and thinking about the job I have to do. That's life too. Nothing wrong with it.

...

In my view, the heart of this Practice is merely "being at one" with this self-life-world just as it is ... dropping the resistance, barriers, separation between our "self" and all the circumstances in which that "self" imagines it finds itself in ... until even the walls between "self" and "life-world" (or self and itself) soften or even fully drop away ...

So, for example, when drinking tea, just do that and fully allow that. When grabbing a sandwich while reading the paper and thinking about your annoying co-worker in the office, just do that and fully allow that (and fully allow the craziness in the newspaper and your annoying co-worker too).** When your kid plops in your lap during tea drinking and the cup spills all over the table, just do and allow that. ... When suffering with old age and sickness of ourself or someone we love, even death, just do that and fully allow that.

In my view, all of the above together is truly balanced, "mindful" living. That is "being the moment".

A little more here ...

http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?7910-Being-mindful-of-mindful

and here ...

http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?9565-Fantasizing-Is-it-really-worth-it&p=74133&viewfull=1#post74133

Now, forget all that. Go wash you bowls.

Gassho, J

[Shokai]

_/\_

Sent from my Note 2 using Tapatalk4

[alan.r]

Now, forget all that. Go wash you bowls.

Gassho, J

About to wash coffee cup right now. Gassho.