Stillness

[Andrea1974]

When sitting and doing Zazen for awhile most thoughts settle down and the mind becomes quieter. Random ideas still "show up" but they just come and go. For a few moments there is just silence and pure stillness. Yet it seems to me that that stillness is very much alive and it is not just nothing. What is that stillness? Awareness? Consciousness? Is that what we are all trying the get more familiar with while doing Zazen to better "understand" ourselves? I would love to hear what your thoughts are.

Thanks,

A.

[Ryumon]

There is a space in the mind it is still and quiet. We do not see it often, but sometimes we get glimpses of it. Let it drop away, just like your thoughts, because it's really nothing special. But remember that it's there; always there, behind the thoughts.

Gassho,
Kirk


(Posted from my iPhone; please excuse any typos or brevity.)

[Kokuu]

Hi Andrea

Stillness is stillness :-) Sometimes it is there in zazen, sometimes there are thoughts, sounds and sensations. Each comes, each goes.

For me, zazen is about becoming familiar with whatever is happening, whether it is stillness, noise or the smell of coffee coming through the window. I certainly agree that when the stillness comes, it is very much not a dead thing and totally alive, just as a blank canvas invites all kinds of possibilities.

As a wise person once said 'To study the Buddha way is to study the self, to study the self is to forget the self.'

I would just enjoy the stillness when it is there but neither try to cling to it nor analyse it.

Gassho
Andy

[Andrea1974]

Thanks for your comments!

>We do not see it often....But remember that it's there
>For me, zazen is about becoming familiar...I certainly agree that when the stillness comes...

Who is the one that sees, remembers, becomes familiar, and agrees? I cannot find it but it is there! Is IT that awareness that in a moment of stillness (e.g. when sitting) seems to be able to observe everything that is going on around IT?

[Kokuu]

Who is the one that sees, remembers, becomes familiar, and agrees?

This is the paradox. Awareness is there yet when we look for the one who is aware, there is no one to be found, just an endless stream of experience.

Why try to find something other than that?

Gassho
Andy

[Ishin]

This is the paradox. Awareness is there yet when we look for the one who is aware, there is no one to be found, just an endless stream of experience.

Why try to find something other than that?

Gassho
Andy

Perhaps we try to find something OTHER than self, to re-establish self? Very great advice here from Kokuu and Kirk. I agree with Andy in that the best thing to do is drop that too. Don't analyze anything just be with whatever comes up. I think ultimately if we could define all of this there would no need to sit. We could just read about it. Some things just defy linear explanation, and yet it isn't supernatural, it just IS.

Gassho
C

[Kokuu]

I think ultimately if we could define all of this there would no need to sit.

Clark, I think I see what you mean by this, but disagree somewhat. Although sitting can enable us to see 'deeper' truths about the nature of self and experience, ultimately we sit just to sit. Even after his awakening, the Buddha still sat, so did Dogen.

Gassho
Andy

[Andrea1974]

>Why try to find something other than that [endless stream of experience]?

That is a great point! Yet, when Andrea breaks a leg he is the one crying, while Andy and Clark feels just fine How is it possible that I cannot clearly find a self while there are obviously (well...maybe it is not that obvious) differences between individuals and there respective experiences? I have been tempted to assume that that "stillness", that "awareness", that "observer" that I was describing before is indeed my real self.

Thanks again for your input guys!

A.

[Jishin]

What is that stillness? Awareness? Consciousness? Is that what we are all trying the get more familiar with while doing Zazen to better "understand" ourselves?

A.

What is stillness? Stillness.
What is Awareness? Awareness.
What is Consciousness? Consciousness.

Just this. That is what we are trying to get more familiar with while doing Zazen IMHO.

Gassho, Jishin

[Mp]

What is stillness? Stillness.
What is Awareness? Awareness.
What is Consciousness? Consciousness.

Nice! =)

Gassho
Shingen

[Ishin]

Clark, I think I see what you mean by this, but disagree somewhat. Although sitting can enable us to see 'deeper' truths about the nature of self and experience, ultimately we sit just to sit. Even after his awakening, the Buddha still sat, so did Dogen.

Gassho
Andy

Agreed Andy. I guess I was more commenting on the practice of sitting versus some other way of realization. Though for me to say that there is no "reason" we sit seems to be a bit of an oxymoron. I know that we are not sitting in an effort to "gain" anything. And yet, is not this practice, Zazen and otherwise, an effort to end suffering? I agree that the practice of sitting itself is sitting to just sit. But realistically it seems to me there is a purpose to the practice as a whole.

Not arguing with anyone here, just tyring to make sure I understand it.. lol

anyone?

Gassho
C

[Andrea1974]

I agree Clark (yet, I do not disagree with Andy). It seems to me that what it is gained while sitting is a gradual loss of most delusions. Purposeless purpose I guess...

A.

[Fugu]

>>I know that we are not sitting in an effort to "gain" anything<<

I thought we were sitting to lose something......

Gassho,

Lee

[Taigu]

If you don't mind the old fool jumping in like a noisy French frog...
Well, remember and practice and forget that this sitting is useless. USELESS.

Nothing to gain, fix, repair, loose, agree or disgree with or anything of the kind.

Holidays , timeless holidays from all the agendas, hidden or shown.

Take great care of your Original Self.

Gassho

T.

[Jundo]

Perhaps the hardest thing for folks to get into their heads is that Zen is a finding by radically giving up the search (much as the eye finds the eye by ceasing to search around the scene for the eye, thus does Buddha "find" Buddha), a resolution of questions by abandoning many questions (much as one finds the "answer" to whether "unicorns are hollow or filled with gold" by transcending the silly questions). So it is with our way of attaining and endless pursuit of our small self and "who am I?"

One of the most famous Zen Koans ...

Hui Ko asked Bodhidharma to accept him as a disciple, but was refused. Hui Ko waited outside the door in a snowy day. After a long time, the snow was so heavy that it came up to the waist of Hui Ko. Bodhidharma saw that he was really sincere in the pursuit of the Buddhist way. Then he asked Hui Ko, "What have you come for?"

"My mind is not pacified. Please help me in pacifying my mind." Hui Ko replied.

"Bring me your mind, and I'll pacify it for you" shouted Bodhidharma.

"But I cannot find my mind." Hui Ko said.

"I have pacified your mind for you already!" said Bodhidharma.

Andrea wrote ...

When sitting and doing Zazen for awhile most thoughts settle down and the mind becomes quieter. Random ideas still "show up" but they just come and go. For a few moments there is just silence and pure stillness. Yet it seems to me that that stillness is very much alive and it is not just nothing. What is that stillness? Awareness? Consciousness? Is that what we are all trying the get more familiar with while doing Zazen to better "understand" ourselves? I would love to hear what your thoughts are.

So hard for us to realize that this is Buddha, that is Buddha, quiet is Buddha, noise is Buddha, coming is Buddha, going is Buddha, thoughts are Buddha, absence of thoughts are Buddha, peace is Buddha, anger is Buddha, stillness is Buddha, movement is Buddha, alive is Buddha, dead is Buddha. Buddha is not simply silence and stillness. We simply sit because, in the day to day clutter and confusion of our minds, a space for a bit of silence and stillness may help us better realize such fact when we drop all the cutter and confusion for a time. But the point is not that the silence and stillness of sitting is "where its at", because our way is to "non-find" (because always present in the bones even though rarely seen) a Silence and Stillness (Big "S") that --is-- and always has been the clutter and silence and peace and chaos and confusion and stillness. Both peace and anger are Buddha, but anger blinds us to such fact because so divisive! As well, peace can hide Buddha too if we think that is the only place Buddha is to be found.

The eye and everything the eye sees is Eye all along. True Peace is peace and tumult and all the round and sharp pieces of life.

There is a Flowing Wholeness of so-called "Emptiness" (a very misleading term because such is a Fullness that is both full and empty and all in between). Would you like to call it "Awareness" or "Buddha" or "Stanley" or "The Great Pumpkin"? How about don't call it, and just Flow Whole As The Whole Flowing?

More later ... the wife just called me out for Sunday pancakes with the kids. That is Silent Noisy Stillness Chaos Whole Flowing Stanley Great Pumpkin too.

Gassho, J