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  • alan.r
    Member
    • Jan 2012
    • 546

    #46
    Enjoyed reading this thread. What Kokuu and Daizan say seem to go to it. Hi Tony. My thoughts on this aren't worth a whole lot, but from your recent posts I'd say you're thinking too much about Zen, about sitting, about Buddhism, about Dharma, about enlightenment, about gaining or not, about big spiritual things. My advice would be just do something you enjoy. Maybe go for a walk in the woods or even the city and just go for a walk. See what happens. It's like this: when you go for a walk do you think: "geez, am I walking right? Am I truly enjoying nature? Am I really this nature? Or am I separate from nature? Is nature me? What is that squirrel over there and is that tree a spiritual thing and do I really understand that tree? Do I really get that tree? Do I really understand this walk? What am I doing here, I better stop walking and before I finish this walk, I better figure it out."

    I hope you don't do this on a walk. I hope that on a walk you just go on a walk and maybe you say hello to someone you pass and they smile at you or not and maybe the trees are full of leaves and maybe the sky is blue and has some clouds in it and maybe you hear insects and birds and cars going somewhere and a river, maybe there's a river just going where it goes, a little trash near the river, the sound of water over stones, the sound of wind, loving all things, caring for all things.

    Gassho
    Shōmon

    Comment

    • Daitetsu
      Member
      • Oct 2012
      • 1154

      #47
      Lovely, Alan!


      Gassho,

      Daitetsu
      no thing needs to be added

      Comment

      • dharmasponge
        Member
        • Oct 2013
        • 278

        #48
        Alan, pretty much summed up a good walk for me! :/
        Sat today

        Comment

        • Ugrok
          Member
          • Sep 2014
          • 323

          #49
          Hello dharmasponge ! You happen to exactly describe how i was. The walk full of thoughts that Alan described was me as well. I'm not like that anymore, thanks to therapy and sitting. Sometimes, i get all anxious again and overthink stuff, but this, also, passes.
          You need stupid, dumb and stubborn trust. Just sit everyday, whatever happens. Just do it. Practice evolves. It's also about patience. You cannot control your mind but you can sit with it in every single aspects of it. And it really helps with the anxiety to know experientially that you can stay with it and its no problem. Changes perspective.

          Also, what i found the most cool attitude in dealing with anxiety, on the cushion or off it (harder to do off the cushion) is to really allow it to be there. Not adding thoughts, not removing thoughts, just feeling what is felt, letting it go its course (let it go worse if it has to go worse).

          To offer you a bit of hopeless hope, when i started practicing, i was at the worst anxiety wise. Full of thoughts, full of grief, full of anxiety. It took at least one year of daily practice to just be able to see when i was fooling myself and when i was not, to just be able to see what was thought, what was not, what was linked to what, and to feel it, not to "think" it. Now i begin to be able to see it and drop it - still fooling myself of course, but i feel things are getting a bit clearer ; theres more trust in what i feel. I'm doing far better anxiety wise and have no strong hindrances anymore (i can go wherever i want and enjoy whatever i want - which was far from being the case before). I still fall in old traps from time to time but i can see it more easily. And when i'm in bad shape, i just can be in bad shape. It doesn't destroy me like it did before. I'm with it. I'm it. It's not fun but it's not the end of the world. So really, even if you feel this practice is a waste of time, just do it, for the sake of it.
          Don't be in a hurry to fix everything would be my small deluded advice, and don't hate yourself for overthinking or for anything really.

          Maybe, and i don't know if it really fits in proper "goalless" practice but it's an idea, it would be good to approach practice as not something that is made to "fix problems" (it does not) but as something that may teach you to enjoy things, as they are, even when painful.

          Good sitting !

          Pierre/ugrok
          Last edited by Ugrok; 09-15-2014, 09:53 AM.

          Comment

          • Ed
            Member
            • Nov 2012
            • 223

            #50
            In a pickle.

            Originally posted by dharmasponge
            Hello everyone...

            I am getting really concerned that the time I am spending 'just sitting' is a waste of time and effort.

            Effort in the sense that I dedicate time each morning before dawn to train. As 'just sitting' is so radical a practice from what I have become accustomed to I often ruminate about whether its really the way to go!

            Don't get me wrong, I seem to be getting insight(s) of sorts - though not seeking them. Like I am getting a sense of late that I am experiencing the obvious - does that at all make sense to anyone?? Rev Jiyu Kennetts books are helping...

            But there is still that concern that I am not following what I always thought were the words of the Buddha - for instance the Satipattana Sutta and the Abidhamma.

            Yet, still something compels me to just sit?!

            Who said: "You are not truly doing zazen unless your are in a pickle?"
            We are cooking, man, constantly. Zazen is a quick bake oven.
            In gassho.
            "Know that the practice of zazen is the complete path of buddha-dharma and nothing can be compared to it....it is not the practice of one or two buddhas but all the buddha ancestors practice this way."
            Dogen zenji in Bendowa





            Comment

            • dharmasponge
              Member
              • Oct 2013
              • 278

              #51
              Huh?

              Anyway, maybe it's Dogen I can't get my head around and not Zazen...? Maybe it's Dogens interpretation of the Buddhas teachings that I find unecessarily nebulous :/
              Sat today

              Comment

              • Ugrok
                Member
                • Sep 2014
                • 323

                #52
                But, at the same time, is there anything in the world that cannot be considered nebulous when you think about it ? As Jundo said to me in another thread, even getting up to shop is an incredibly complex task if you try to think about it and understand it ; even breathing is a completely dazzling thing to observe ! I think this is part of what Dogen tries to convey. Like poetry, it is an illustration of the fact that thoughts and language cannot process everything. Yet, at the same time, they are part of human life, they are part of the "everything" they cannot process, and so they are not to be rejected and are as beautiful as everything else. When reading Dogen, i feel that a lot of the philosophy he teaches is in fact in the poetry of the word themselves. He combines descriptive language (language as a tool to define things, and to define the world) AND language which is pure action (as in poetry, for example). This is why it's nebulous. It's nebulous because it has to show what is nebulous. Well, this is how i read it nowadays anyway, i might be wrong...

                Gassho,

                Ugrok

                Comment

                • Nindo

                  #53
                  Originally posted by Ugrok
                  Hello dharmasponge ! You happen to exactly describe how i was. The walk full of thoughts that Alan described was me as well. I'm not like that anymore, thanks to therapy and sitting. Sometimes, i get all anxious again and overthink stuff, but this, also, passes.
                  You need stupid, dumb and stubborn trust. Just sit everyday, whatever happens. Just do it. Practice evolves. It's also about patience. You cannot control your mind but you can sit with it in every single aspects of it. And it really helps with the anxiety to know experientially that you can stay with it and its no problem. Changes perspective.

                  Also, what i found the most cool attitude in dealing with anxiety, on the cushion or off it (harder to do off the cushion) is to really allow it to be there. Not adding thoughts, not removing thoughts, just feeling what is felt, letting it go its course (let it go worse if it has to go worse).

                  To offer you a bit of hopeless hope, when i started practicing, i was at the worst anxiety wise. Full of thoughts, full of grief, full of anxiety. It took at least one year of daily practice to just be able to see when i was fooling myself and when i was not, to just be able to see what was thought, what was not, what was linked to what, and to feel it, not to "think" it. Now i begin to be able to see it and drop it - still fooling myself of course, but i feel things are getting a bit clearer ; theres more trust in what i feel. I'm doing far better anxiety wise and have no strong hindrances anymore (i can go wherever i want and enjoy whatever i want - which was far from being the case before). I still fall in old traps from time to time but i can see it more easily. And when i'm in bad shape, i just can be in bad shape. It doesn't destroy me like it did before. I'm with it. I'm it. It's not fun but it's not the end of the world. So really, even if you feel this practice is a waste of time, just do it, for the sake of it.
                  Don't be in a hurry to fix everything would be my small deluded advice, and don't hate yourself for overthinking or for anything really.

                  Maybe, and i don't know if it really fits in proper "goalless" practice but it's an idea, it would be good to approach practice as not something that is made to "fix problems" (it does not) but as something that may teach you to enjoy things, as they are, even when painful.

                  Good sitting !

                  Pierre/ugrok
                  Pierre, merci beaucoup!
                  Now I can explain this to somebody who is struggling with anxiety.

                  Gassho,
                  Nindo

                  Comment

                  • Rich
                    Member
                    • Apr 2009
                    • 2615

                    #54
                    Thanks, Pierre. That really explained things well.

                    Kind regards. /\
                    _/_
                    Rich
                    MUHYO
                    無 (MU, Emptiness) and 氷 (HYO, Ice) ... Emptiness Ice ...

                    https://instagram.com/notmovingmind

                    Comment

                    • dharmasponge
                      Member
                      • Oct 2013
                      • 278

                      #55
                      Thanks Pierre, nice description
                      Sat today

                      Comment

                      • Ugrok
                        Member
                        • Sep 2014
                        • 323

                        #56
                        You're welcome ! I've been struggling with anxiety most of my life, and at the same time it has been the thing that pushed me researching and trying to find ways out of it (which is how i came to practice zazen a few years ago). So i read and practiced a lot around this theme, which makes me a bit of an expert on this subject. Which is a bit pathetic, ahahahah, but oh well. I found out that i could not get "out of it", at least not in the sense that i had at the beginning (i wanted to get rid of it at all cost - which is really counterproductive) as it is a part of being human, but i also found how to live my life. Am still exploring, though. Jundo is spot on when he says that therapy and zazen go well together, this is what i did and i found it really interesting because practice unveiled things that i could talk about, and talking also allowed me to practice more freely. Everyone has to find its own way, though. But that's another topic...

                        Gassho

                        Pierre / Ugrok
                        Last edited by Ugrok; 09-15-2014, 09:17 PM.

                        Comment

                        • Ongen
                          Member
                          • Jan 2014
                          • 786

                          #57
                          Dear Tony,

                          Originally posted by dharmasponge
                          Anyway, maybe it's Dogen I can't get my head around and not Zazen...? Maybe it's Dogens interpretation of the Buddhas teachings that I find unecessarily nebulous :/
                          For what it's worth: I think I can safely say that all of us here know what you're going through to a certain level. Just don't try get your head around it... I know that everyone says this over and over again and it can be quite irritating, but it's true -> Just sit with patience and trust. The mist will clear eventually.

                          Originally posted by alan.r
                          when you go for a walk do you think: "geez, am I walking right? Am I truly enjoying nature? Am I really this nature? Or am I separate from nature? Is nature me? What is that squirrel over there and is that tree a spiritual thing and do I really understand that tree? Do I really get that tree? Do I really understand this walk? What am I doing here, I better stop walking and before I finish this walk, I better figure it out.
                          Yes! Haha! *Dances* Just walk

                          Gassho
                          Vincent
                          Ongen (音源) - Sound Source

                          Comment

                          • Koshin
                            Member
                            • Feb 2012
                            • 938

                            #58
                            Thank you all. This is awesome

                            Gassho
                            Thank you for your practice

                            Comment

                            • Meikyo
                              Member
                              • Jun 2014
                              • 197

                              #59
                              Thank you all!

                              Gassho
                              ~ Please remember that I am very fallible.

                              Gassho
                              Meikyo

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