Spacing out...

[Meishin]

Being with all things, just as they are, and then getting up and working with hands, heart, and entire body to bring compassion to those around you is not the contradiction it might seem to be.

Hi all,

Thank you for this thread. Much to consider. I say the four vows before beginning work. Particularly the vow to "save all sentient beings, though beings numberless." Truly we are numberless. But it's okay, in my limited understanding, just to attend to the being sitting there. Then the next. Then, etc. Course it doesn't work like that because there's nobody to be saved on either side of the room. But that's a bit of a stretch during a long work day.

Gassho
John

[Kokuu]

I guess maybe it's the way I see the universe and my place in it. It doesn't sound like you think there is a problem or something to fix. I hear you when you say there is nothing to fix. But the fact remains our perception of 'reality' is fundamentally floored. Does Dogen for example suggest just sitting with that knowledge and not making any efforts to attain liberation from this suffering, this Dukkha?

Shikantaza is the practice of becoming intimate with life. In sitting, the concept of reality often drops away leaving things just as they are.

Sitting is the very essence of practice but the more we weave thoughts and questions around it the more we are stuck with our ideas of reality rather than reality itself. Drop the questions and see what is here now. It is that simple.

Gassho
Kokuu, a novice on the path

[Jundo]

Just don't worry about it. You're sitting in a room. So sit in a room.

Are you pleasantly spaced? Are you relaxed? Are you anxious? Are you thinking? Are you feeling a lot of emotions? Does your knee hurt? Are you doing it right? Are you highly alert? Are you concentrated? Are you foggy and slow?

All of this is judgment. Instead of figuring it out and of constantly trying to "see" your meditation, your practice, just do it. Just doing it, there is no separation. Watching it and judging it, there is separation. Whatever happens, that's okay. You're sitting in a room, just sitting there. Sit in a room. Wholly and completely, sit there.

...

Don't put too much pressure on yourself. We don't get anything. I mean, we all go through the same struggle. The am I doing it right kind of thing. Happens to me all the time. Look, from my perspective, you're trying to "figure it out." Me too. But at some point you get so sick of trying to figure it out that you end up just sitting in a room. It's a giving up, a letting go, a surrendering - doesn't "work" all the time. Sometimes you sit there and go, Wait, what am I doing? All fine. That's the thing, sit with it. It's so simple, but we're not used to simplicity. Be patient. Ups and downs, all okay, sit through them and let them sit you.

Sorry to be late to the party, as a little busy on this trip. The folks with insights such as the above pretty much speak my mind.

I guess maybe it's the way I see the universe and my place in it. It doesn't sound like you think there is a problem or something to fix. I hear you when you say there is nothing to fix. But the fact remains our perception of 'reality' is fundamentally floored. Does Dogen for example suggest just sitting with that knowledge and not making any efforts to attain liberation from this suffering, this Dukkha?

What makes you believe that what is being described is anything but liberation from Dukkha? It is the desire, the chasing, the judging that is the source of Dukkha. The way to attain liberation is to realize that liberation cannot and need not be attained. Thus liberation is attained. By realizing there is no place to go, we finally get someplace! Trying to get someplace means it is ever distant, like the donkey and the carrot ... or the dog chasing its own tail ...

Gassho, J

[dharmasponge]

"The way to attain liberation is to realize that liberation cannot and need not be attained. Thus liberation is attained. By realizing there is no place to go, we finally get someplace!"

So there is a subtle, very subtle, carrot on the end of the Zazen stick. By doing not doing liberation will be revealed?

[Kokuu]

So there is a subtle, very subtle, carrot on the end of the Zazen stick. By doing not doing liberation will be revealed?

I wouldn't say it is exactly subtle. To quote Dogen:

"Even though it may be merely for a moment, when someone, whilst sitting upright in meditation, puts the mark of the Buddha seal upon his three types of volitional actions— namely, those of body, speech and thought — the whole physical universe and everything in it becomes and is the Buddha seal; all of space, throughout, becomes and is enlightenment." (Bendowa 'On the Endeavour of the Way', Hubert Nearman translation)

More simply (as this novice understands it at least) Zazen is liberation.

Gassho
Kokuu

[Jinyo]

"The way to attain liberation is to realize that liberation cannot and need not be attained. Thus liberation is attained. By realizing there is no place to go, we finally get someplace!"

So there is a subtle, very subtle, carrot on the end of the Zazen stick. By doing not doing liberation will be revealed?

Hi dharmasponge,

IMHO if you focus on sticks and carrots you may still miss the point.

Words easily make us stumble and my understanding is that 'realization' here does not involve an action in the way we normally think of action. Non action (not doing) isn't a volitional act - it's a realization - and that awareness/realization isn't necessarily tied to a specific act.

You could spin the words around and argue that 'resting' (non - doing - to 'just be') is a specific act but I see it more as a dissolving. If the conditions are right a block of ice will dissolve - it's a natural occurence - no effort is required. Is the human mind any different?

Zazen is an actualization but Dogen also throws the net wide - some are awoken by the natural world -trees, rivers and mountains.

I reckon when the mind dissolves the questions dissolve with it - when the mind is clear it gravitates to the right course of action when required (no nihilism here).

I'm sorry for my clumsy metaphors/words,

a stumbling beginner,



Willow

[Byokan]

So grateful to you all for sharing your wisdom and insight.

Gassho
Lisa

[Daitetsu]

Hi Tony,

"The way to attain liberation is to realize that liberation cannot and need not be attained. Thus liberation is attained. By realizing there is no place to go, we finally get someplace!"

So there is a subtle, very subtle, carrot on the end of the Zazen stick. By doing not doing liberation will be revealed?

Any carrot during Zazen completely misses the point IMAO.
Because Zazen is probably the only thing and time in our busy lives that we don't want to achieve anything and where there are no carrots at all, for we are the carrot ourselves.
Normally, everything we do has a purpose: to get a job done, to feel nice, to be entertained, to feel alive, to get money, to socialise, etc.
Zazen is the absence of a purpose and/or use.
If you do zazen in order to feel better, to have important insights, to be more calm, to be more relaxed, you miss the point.
Yes, you will have all that, but it should not be your purpose.

Zazen is useless (in a way). Zazen is the time to (finally) simply be yourself (fully) without any plans in the back of your head.
Just be. Just exist. Nothing else.

If you feel spaced-out, you feel spaced-out. Move on.
If you feel shitty, you feel shitty. Move on.
If you feel blissful, you feel blissful. Move on.
If you have kensho, you have kensho. Move on.
Just don't get attached to anything of this. Don't judge the practice.

And then you realise you ARE the carrot.

Gassho,

Daitetsu

[Jundo]

What the above guys all said! I dare not add a word.



Gassho, J

[Sekishi]

I don't want to beat the carrot to death (eek!) but I was reading some words from Kodo Sawaki tonight and thought this passage was quite apropos to the discussion here:

When peace of mind only means your personal satisfaction, then it's got nothing to do with the buddha-dharma.

The buddha-dharma teaches limitlessness. That which is measureless has to be accepted without complaint.

You lack peace of mind because you're running after an idea of total peace of mind. That's backwards. Be attentive to your mind in each moment, no matter how unpeaceful it might seem to be. Great peace of mind is realized only in the practice within this unpeaceful mind. It arises out of the interplay between peaceful and unpeaceful mind.

A peace of mind that is totally at peace would be nothing more than something ready made. Real peace of mind only exists within unpeaceful mind.

When dissatisfaction is finally accepted as dissatisfaction, peace of mind reigns. It's the mind of a person who had been deaf to criticism when he finally listens to others talking about his mistakes. It's the mind of a person who, naked and begging for his life, suddenly dies peacefully. It's the mind of a person who has suddenly lost the beggar who had been pulling at his sleeve, relentlessly following him around everywhere,. It's the mind after the flood in which the make-up of piety has washed away.

Gassho,
Sekishi

[dharmasponge]

There's that carrot on the end of the stick again "...when dissatisfaction is finally accepted as dissatisfaction [doing] peace of mind reigns" [goal].

So again, I'm confused as to the common zen stance of just sit in a room with nothing else doing nothing else.

There is clearly much going on. There is a agenda to accept all states of mind as merely states of mind with out attaching to them. Out of this state of watching but not engaging with thoughts, pleasant or otherwise, the prize of peace of kind arises.

I see nothing uniquely 'Zen' about this. It sounds like how the Theravadins teach Vipassana.

Forgive me but I'm just trying to reconcile the 'not doing, nothing to gain, no purpose' advice with clear prescriptions to 'do Zazen, as you may gain peace of mind, which is the purpose of accepting all thoughts'.

[Kokuu]

I see nothing uniquely 'Zen' about this. It sounds like how the Theravadins teach Vipassana.

Indeed. There are differences but the purpose is pretty much the same. As Ajahn Chah said, meditation is like sitting on a chair in the middle of a room and seeing who comes to visit.

The purpose is not to create a kind of peace, although that sometimes happens, but to be with how things are, right here, right now.

You know the famous koan about the sound of one hand clapping? Our suffering comes from comparing how things are to how we think they should be. What happens if we are just with how things are with no comparing?

So here is the difference - set out with an objective, a something to gain and you already have thoughts of what you want things to be like and have that tension between how things are and how they should be. Sit with nothing to gain and that drops away.

It might sound like a paradox but as several people have said, the idea is to have a space in life in which you are not trying to achieve something and make things into how you want them to be but see how they actually are.

We spend most of our life chasing after things we want and pushing away things we don't. Zazen is a place to drop all of this. This is the beauty of sitting.

If teachers tell you there is something to gain from practice you are going to start looking for it and comparing. Say 'Zazen is useless' and the mind drops all notion of that and just looks with curiosity. Which one do you think is more helpful practice advice?

Gassho
Kokuu

[Ernstguitar]

Hi dharmasponge,


I think, sometimes there is also a little desire to be a unique person or "If I would be better, I could do better this or that." The lack we feel is a real lack. And the desire to fill the hole in us is becourse that. If we distinquish good zazen and pleasant spaced out state I think we have the idea of "Doing it right means filling the hole in us" versus "doing it wrong I will continue the suffering.....
I do not know, if we can ever solve this either / or -Problem of "everything is o.k." versus "I have to help the world"
There is no possibility to test the idea of zazen before we do it. And then there are some paradox or maybe wise statements (you can not evaluate them, becourse when you hear them first, you didn´t begin with zazen still). And some make sense (but just in our brain) and others sound strange or a little silly (for example that you should do zazen without a purpose). The question is still in my feelings: "What is with my desire??!!!!!"
IMO we have to do both: thinking about this things AND sit zazen. Just one of both I think would miss the human needs. And then I can see that the hole in me is my creation. The "mindtheater" is real but also the creator of many, many stories, very similar to holywood. So, the hole does not need to be filled. There is no judgement, which can judge the self. There are no Parameters for that. And that is the holy part, maybe.

sorry for my bad english....
gassho
Ernst

[Jundo]

Indeed. There are differences but the purpose is pretty much the same. As Ajahn Chah said, meditation is like sitting on a chair in the middle of a room and seeing who comes to visit.

The purpose is not to create a kind of peace, although that sometimes happens, but to be with how things are, right here, right now.

You know the famous koan about the sound of one hand clapping? Our suffering comes from comparing how things are to how we think they should be. What happens if we are just with how things are with no comparing?

So here is the difference - set out with an objective, a something to gain and you already have thoughts of what you want things to be like and have that tension between how things are and how they should be. Sit with nothing to gain and that drops away.

It might sound like a paradox but as several people have said, the idea is to have a space in life in which you are not trying to achieve something and make things into how you want them to be but see how they actually are.

We spend most of our life chasing after things we want and pushing away things we don't. Zazen is a place to drop all of this. This is the beauty of sitting.

If teachers tell you there is something to gain from practice you are going to start looking for it and comparing. Say 'Zazen is useless' and the mind drops all notion of that and just looks with curiosity. Which one do you think is more helpful practice advice?

Gassho
Kokuu

Lovely.

Hi dharmasponge,


I think, sometimes there is also a little desire to be a unique person or "If I would be better, I could do better this or that." The lack we feel is a real lack. And the desire to fill the hole in us is becourse that. If we distinquish good zazen and pleasant spaced out state I think we have the idea of "Doing it right means filling the hole in us" versus "doing it wrong I will continue the suffering.....
I do not know, if we can ever solve this either / or -Problem of "everything is o.k." versus "I have to help the world"

Oh, there is nothing and much to solve for the Zen fellow. Rising from the cushion, one finds that there is nothing to fix ... and many things in need of fixing AT ONCE, AS ONE, the Whole "NIRVANA is SAMSARA" thingy. The mirror is PURE without a place for dust to alight from the start .,. yet best to keep it well dusted. From the startless start, we and the whole wide world are Buddha from the headless head to the toeless toe, yet Greed, Anger and divisive thoughts of Ignorance hide such fact.

Gassho, J

[alan.r]

There's that carrot on the end of the stick again "...when dissatisfaction is finally accepted as dissatisfaction [doing] peace of mind reigns" [goal].

So again, I'm confused as to the common zen stance of just sit in a room with nothing else doing nothing else.

There is clearly much going on. There is a agenda to accept all states of mind as merely states of mind with out attaching to them. Out of this state of watching but not engaging with thoughts, pleasant or otherwise, the prize of peace of kind arises.

I see nothing uniquely 'Zen' about this. It sounds like how the Theravadins teach Vipassana.

Forgive me but I'm just trying to reconcile the 'not doing, nothing to gain, no purpose' advice with clear prescriptions to 'do Zazen, as you may gain peace of mind, which is the purpose of accepting all thoughts'.

I like what Kokuu said. I will add the following: so what if it sounds like vipassana? So what? Does that keep you from sitting? Watch out for the boxes. Careful of the boxes. Zazen is abiding beyond the box. Sure, yeah, all buddhist traditions have their own form of vipassana and so they can be pretty similar. No big deal. So what if you see nothing uniquely zen here - this is such a constructed problem. Look, to me, you're making little constructions, neat little thought problems that fit into neat little boxes. When you stop doing that, then you'll be sitting. Maybe it'll have the flavor of Theravada with a dash of zen - I don't know. What I do know is that you are a unique person and you're practice, in some way, will be part of what you are.

Look at this: this shouldn't make sense. It shouldn't make sense. It can't make sense until it is an experiential thing. Look, somebody can tell you different ways to surf and you can go round and round going: "but I don't get it, what does it mean to "pop up," how do I "pop up," do I "pop up" just by standing up or do I jump up, or do I carefully stand, how do i stand on water, does the board support me, or do I keep the board from getting away." But you won't know a thing until you do it.

A hiker or a runner will often say there is no goal except the hike or run itself, and yet, they keep time and they finish their hikes or runs.

Drop the boxes.

Gassho