I am Shunryo's Pig

[Kantai]

My aikido-sensei use to say: "In Aikido there are no problems, only challenges."
Goes for life to doesn´t it?

Gassho
Kantai

[RichardH]

I do not understand why there can't just be a problem sometimes?. If the sewer line breaks and pours sewage into my home, it is a problem. Why spin it otherwise? I know that it is possible to indulge in having "problems", but denying that there are problems seems a bit one sided.. The only way I have ever known freedom within a problem is to just have a problem. It is the same the whole range of ordinary ups and downs. The whole ordinary spectrum of human experience.

Obviously this is just one person's view... Daizan

[Jishin]

No need to make anything. If don't make problem then there is no problem. :-)

Gassho, Jishin

[Ishin]

If I may

Having bad teeth is a problem. Being afraid of dentists is a problem. But both can be no problem, in the midst of the problem. So they are problems-no-problems. It isn't that one is trying to spin problems into something other than problems. Pipes burst;kids get sick. It is how you are experiencing the "problem", which makes it also no problem. This isn't just a philosophical turn;it is actual realization. If you can't find your peace in the middle of the battlefield, then you can turn your problem into someone else's problem. Then it and you are the problem. Experiencing life with the big Buddha Life we are at no problem in the midst of problems, and then the problem becomes something else.

Problems are inescapable. Heck life is a problem. What am I doing here stuck in this body in time and space? is a problem. The problem is us wanting life to be other than just is. So we stop. We stop evaluating, judging, competing, analyzing, improving, grasping etc. and we sit. Hopefully then in the midst of problems there is also the other eye looking at the same time seeing that there is no problem, but also no lack of problem. No loss or gain. Do we really know?

The problem is that some people read too much and after a caffeine high regurgitate too much.

Gassho
C

[Jundo]

This just slapped me in the face! Many thanks, Jundo, for the teaching! I am an odontophobe (afraid of the dentist) of Biblical magnitude. The mere thought of going to the dentist makes me break out into a cold sweat. I'd rather fight a MMA champion than go to the dentist (which is funny, because I'd most likely lose some teeth doing so!), and I will not go alone. I have made and cancelled so many appointments that the dentist will not schedule me anymore. It really is sad.

However, what you have written helps a little (yes, just a little...I feel that my fear may never completely leave) to understand that it just is. My teeth are not going to get any better sitting around wishing for them to, and I know that I need the work to be done. This is not a problem or a no-problem...it's just a situation. There is no good or bad in it. It just is...and I need to focus on this and accept that my mind is creating the "bad".

Gassho,
Tim

Hi Tim,

Shikantaza can, in my experience, be a big help with phobias (often the only needed cure, as we leave thoughts and fears aside) ... but can also go hand in hand with many of the other fine treatments out there these days. I speak as a guy who has crossed the Pacific about 75 times, but is still afraid of flying. Years ago, I took a free course put on by an airline. It helped! So does Shikantaza when the turbulents hit! Both can go hand in hand. As I sometimes say ...

Zazen is -NOT- a cure for many things ... it will not fix a bad tooth (just allow you to be present with the toothache ... you had better see a dentist, not a Zen teacher), cure cancer (although it may have some healthful effects and make one more attune to the process of chemotherapy and/or dying), etc. Zen practice will not cure your acne on your face, or fix your flat tire. All it will do is let one "be at one, and whole" ... TRULY ONE ... with one's pimples and punctured wheel, accepting and embracing of each, WHOLLY WHOLE with/as each one. There are many psychological problems or psycho/medical problems such as alcoholism that may require other therapies, although Zen can be part of the total treatment.

I would look into some counseling on that, talk to a phobia professional, and get those teeth fixed before they fall out. (I also hate dentists, and find the dentist's chair an EXCELLENT place for Shikantaza ).

I do not understand why there can't just be a problem sometimes?. If the sewer line breaks and pours sewage into my home, it is a problem. Why spin it otherwise? I know that it is possible to indulge in having "problems", but denying that there are problems seems a bit one sided.. The only way I have ever known freedom within a problem is to just have a problem. It is the same the whole range of ordinary ups and downs. The whole ordinary spectrum of human experience.

I would say that it is not an "either/or" question.

I also hate it when life's sewer lines break and dump a load of crap in my lap! These are REAL PROBLEMS! We can worry and sweat (like when our daughter was near death in the ICU a couple of years ago), we can cuss under our breath, we can be blue or frustrated. We can mumble and growl when we get that flat tire on a rainy day! I do sometimes. We can sweat and shake when the job is lost or the house burns down. Such is just to be human.

Yet, somehow through this Practice ... the crap is Golden, each and all Buddha Crap. NO PROBLEM, and never was from the start. Sacred Piles of Crap! One somehow transcends life and death ... and is "One with the Flat Tires of Life" at once!

I think Clark says it so well above.

By the way, did you ever look closely at the little piles of curls on the head of the Buddha? What do they remind you of?



Gassho, J

[Jishin]

I am Shunryo's Pig

Hi Tim,

By the way, did you ever look closely at the little piles of curls on the head of the Buddha? What do they remind you of?

Gassho, J

Buddha is a shithead? No problem. :-)

Gassho, Jishin

[Shokai]

Oink !!!!

gassho

gassho, Shokai, still learning the way and knowing nothing.

[AlanLa]

Situations are empty. Problems are form. There is no denying it, both have their place.

[RichardH]

Got a flat tire this morning! . That's kind of poetic. When was the last time we had a flat tire?

Was it a problem? Getting the car out of traffic and getting my hands dirty was not a problem.. it was a fun change of pace, but the little cascade of missed obligations and changed plans were problematic. Still, it was a problem for Parliament, not the Sovereign, who is never off kilter. .. or something.

Gassho, Daizan


The transport minister thinks those dinky little “spare tires” you get these days are crap.

[Ishin]

Got a flat tire this morning! . That's kind of poetic. When was the last time we had a flat tire?

Was it a problem? Getting the car out of traffic and getting my hands dirty was not a problem.. it was a fun change of pace, but the little cascade of missed obligations and changed plans were problematic. Still, it was a problem for Parliament, not the Sovereign, who is never off kilter. .. or something.

Gassho, Daizan


The transport minister thinks those dinky little “spare tires” you get these days are crap.

Chop wood, delay parliment.
Gassho
C

[AlanLa]

An empty situation for us can be a problem for others (Headline: Flat Tire Delays Parliament), so where is our no separation then?

[Matt]

To approach situations as problems seems a bit selfish to me now, because I somehow wanted the situation to be different, as if that's ever really an option.

I really identify with your comment, Alan. Recently, I have realized that so many of my problems arise because I, selfishly perhaps, want things to be different, just as you say. Sitting zazen, I have found, helps me accept things as they are.

As I have come to feel more a part of this sangha and wanted to better understand our origins and teachings, I have recently been reading some writings by Nishijima Roshi. He says that most religious traditions are based on some kind of idealism, whereas our practice is founded on accepting life as it is: "Buddhism is an affirmation of the real world, a deep acceptance of the world as it is."

Gassho,
Matt J

[RichardH]

Most of my problems these days are middle-class non-problems, or universals like sickness and death... no complaints. But I have also experienced real destitution, and the destitution and degrading death of a loved one. Even in these kinds of extremes there is no birth and death right in the middle of it, but I would be a smug solipsist to diminish or deny in any way the distress of other people in such situations. I can't help but be a little weary of that.

Gassho Daizan

[Jishin]

Once upon a time I was also destitute with one hundred dollars in my pocket and no money for rent, food and without a job. I called it a problem. So it was a problem. Looking back, I wish I had that situation at times and not the situation I have now. It's not a problem if it's not a problem. So I try not to make it a problem. :-)

Gassho, Jishin

[RichardH]

Once upon a time I was also destitute with one hundred dollars in my pocket and no money for rent, food and without a job. I called it a problem. So it was a problem. Looking back, I wish I had that situation at times and not the situation I have now. It's not a problem if it's not a problem. So I try not to make it a problem. :-)

Gassho, Jishin

Hi Jishin. My point is not that such a situation would be problem or not for me now, but whether I could say it is or not for someone else. I couldn't and wouldn't.

Gassho Daizan