Spacing out...

[dharmasponge]

Hi all,

How can we differentiate between a pleasant spaced out feeling that offers little but a break from the other 'stuff' that might be going on in our lives; and a more valid (for want of a better word) result of Zazen?

Thanks...

[Rich]

Welcome the other stuff and deal with it. Then sit some more. It doesn't matter if there is a result to zazen. In fact there is no result other than a total letting go and doing of nothing IE non doing. Imo

Kind regards. /\

[Kyonin]

Hi,

Why look for a difference? Just keep on sitting.

Answers will come in time. Or maybe not.

But just sit.

Gassho,

Kyonin

[Jishin]

How?

How. That's how. Don't split heavens from earth by creating differentiation.

Gassho, Jishin

[Oheso]

I'm not sure if you're referring to "a pleasant spaced out feeling" experienced on the cushion or not but I think that feeling is not compatible with a mind of clear alertness (not) sought after in shikantaza. I think that any experience experienced during meditation might not be rightly thought of as a "result of zazen", in any sense, really. Teacher?

gassho, oheso

[Jishin]

I think that if we don't make a pleasant spaced out feeling on the cushion nor a mind of clear alertness, then everything is just as it is. The sky is blue. The grass is green. The clouds come and go. Then, with a clear eye the next right thing is done, the thing that is ahead of us. It's all good practice.

Gassho, Jishin

[Joyo]

Well, a wise person has told me over and over again to not over think things. So, now I will give the same advice to you, from one who overthinks. Just be with whatever is there, and sit

Gassho,
Joyo

[Byokan]

Hi dharmasponge,

the world is full of horrible suffering. Enjoy the pleasant spaced out feeling, you deserve a break today. Zazen will take care of itself.

Gassho
Lisa

[dharmasponge]

...ust to clarify, I was referring to pleasant feelings in the session. After the body sensation has disappeared.

[alan.r]

...ust to clarify, I was referring to pleasant feelings in the session. After the body sensation has disappeared.

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.

Gassho

ps: this is just my two cents and from my experience. Jishin says it well.

[dharmasponge]

What is it you guys know that I don't?

What is it that's clicked with you that evades me?

What is it you get, that I don't?

(No 'nothing to gets' please )

[alan.r]

What is it you guys know that I don't?

What is it that's clicked with you that evades me?

What is it you get, that I don't?

(No 'nothing to gets' please )

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.

Gassho

Also, I'm a baby and I'm with you, so that's why I share this; pls listen to the novice priests and Jundo and Taigu.

[Kokuu]

Hi all

Alan puts it perfectly (to my also baby mind anyway). Many of us have struggled with this and eventually we gave up trying to get it. Not so much nothing to get but giving up trying to get anything and just trusting the practice as it is.

We are not used to having to trust without completely understanding something first. A Tibetan teacher of mine spent a large part of a three year retreat pscyhologically taking apart tantric practice so he could understand what it was doing and why it worked. When he achieved this, it made no difference whatsoever to his practice. Practice doesn't need understanding, it just needs to be done.

Søren Kierkegaard once said something that resonated greatly with me on this: "Life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be experienced."

Gassho
Kokuu

[dharmasponge]

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?

You know those scenes in a film when someone is saying something to someone who doesn't want to hear it, the hearer sticks their fingers in their ears whistling or singing something in order to ignore the other. That's how I am interpreting the idea of just being ok with every in.

I think it was Pope John Paul II who called it "perfected indifference".

What do you think?

[Sekishi]

Apologies for this short reply, I'm on my way out the door, but I would like to quickly say 1) there is a lot of wisdom in this thread, thank you all, and 2) Nothing about this practice is "perfected indifference" (or "quietism", or "nihilism", or any other "ism" really). When Gautama Buddha saw through the great matter of life and death and was free of suffering, did he simply remain under the Bodhi tree basking in this great realization, indifferent to the suffering of others? No, he got up and spent the rest of his life teaching others, beginning a tradition of thousands of years of carrying others to the other shore. The same is true of Dogen, Bodhidharma, etc.

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.

Incidentally, I believe that in some stories, Buddha actually did decide to just stay under the tree until he was goaded into teaching by Brahma. But that is another story.

Gassho,
Sekishi / Eric