"Is Zen About Doing Things Slowly One At A Time?" - From Wohl Sensei and SweepingZen

[alan.r]

Great video and great words, Jundo. Not a function of pace, but an immersion in the activity - he says something like that. Thank you for directing us to this.

Gassho

[Meikyo]

Thank you all!

Gassho

[Kyotai]

Thank you

Gassho, Shawn

[Sekishi]

The crass "mantra" that sums this up for me is Hagbard Celine's "Never Whistle While You're Pissing." Do what you do fully and without reservation.

Robert Anton Wilson anyone? Anyone?

I'll just let myself out...

Gassho,
Sekishi

[Kaishin]

The crass "mantra" that sums this up for me is Hagbard Celine's "Never Whistle While You're Pissing." Do what you do fully and without reservation.

Robert Anton Wilson anyone? Anyone?

I'll just let myself out...

Gassho,
Sekishi

But if you do whistle while you piss, just whistle and piss.

[Myosha]

Hello,

The web of life is a beautiful and meaningless dance.
The web of life is a process with a moving goal.
The web of life is a perfectly finished work of art right where I am sitting now. - Robert Anton Wilson


Gassho,
Myosha

[Heishu]

Jundo, thank you for sharing this teaching. Now I must attend to the practice of this teaching.

Gassho,
Heishu

[Water]

I've been reading your teachings avidly, thus far, and I've already attempted to practice this teaching in my day to day activities. It's... quite harder then it looks to "just drink tea", because my mind wants to drink tea, contemplate the homework, think about somebody important to me, worry that I didn't change the cat litter, and run off on many other tangents about some subject irrelevant to the moment, until I'm in a thought death spiral (metaphorically speaking, of course).

[Jundo]

I've been reading your teachings avidly, thus far, and I've already attempted to practice this teaching in my day to day activities. It's... quite harder then it looks to "just drink tea", because my mind wants to drink tea, contemplate the homework, think about somebody important to me, worry that I didn't change the cat litter, and run off on many other tangents about some subject irrelevant to the moment, until I'm in a thought death spiral (metaphorically speaking, of course).

Yes, this is why the Practice of "When drinking tea, just drink tea" or "when changing cat box, just change cat box" is so important. It removes us from the "death spiral" (so beautifully put). It also reminds us of the sacredness and wholeness of "just this" and "just this moment". Truly, as we drink tea the tea drinkings us ... as we change the cat box, the cat box changes us (also removing a lot of poop from our heads! ) ... and the whole universe is just drinking drinks drinking, changing changing changing. Even changing the cat box is an amazing thing to be alive to do, a kind of sacred ritual when we realize such as so.

But at other (most) times in life, just drink your tea while doing your homework.

Gassho, J

[Jishin]

"Is Zen About Doing Things Slowly One At A Time?" - From Wohl Sensei and Swee...

Seung Sahn would say, "When you eat, just eat. When you read the newspaper, just read the newspaper. Don't do anything other than what you are doing.

Thanks for the quote Kaishin.I like Seung San very much.

Gassho, Jishin

[jeff_u]

Cutting and sewing my rakusu panels yesterday I had a thought that I wanted to share that seemed relevant to this topic:


Sewing has been humbling (as well as painful for my fingertips ), but I've found that pure mindful concentration on just a single stitch is not enough . If my mind is one-hundred percent focused on just the current stitch or laser-focused on the cutting edge of the scissors, I tend to deviate from the cutting/sewing line without realizing it.


Being mindful of the stitch or cut, one-by-one is a very important, but the line should be kept in mind too. Keeping the line in mind is not the same as looking to finish, or hoping to be done (when is it truly done anyways?). Each stitch is timeless and without lacking, but without direction or bearing, you're going to end up sewing your pins into your seam, having unruly knots, or have crazy uneven lines.


Following the line though has its own problems though. For me I always get a small sense of vertigo trying to line up the needle, my eye, and the line. But I've found that it is much like following through on a golf swing or baseball pitch. In a way, you just have to keep one eye on the needle and the other on the line and have faith that your needle will follow. With practice and patience it will. Following-through (or motioning towards the direction) while being mindful of the right here (the needle and hole) is a great reflection of this practice. Taking refuge in the Buddha is in many ways following through, keeping our eye on the line, having faith that we'll get to the placeless place that we're heading to.


Silly thoughts, now I need to undo a wild curvy seam.


Gassho,
Jeff

[Ryumon]

I'm late to this party, but I wanted to add a few thoughts:

I understand that we should do things slowly, deliberately, and completely, one thing at a time.

This, in my opinion, is derived from the Thich Nhat Hahn type of "mindfulness," which makes you think that you have to be a sort of automaton, fully absorbed in everything you do. I recall reading some books on Buddhism back in the early days - in the 90s - where I had this impression, and you can see these videos of TNH and his people doing their walking meditation, where it looks like they are numb to the world. (Not criticizing, here, just stating how it looks from the outside.)

I think the later mindfulness movement has exacerbated this idea that we can only do things right if we do them slowly.

To paraphrase Jundo, if you're Xing, just X. But that doesn't mean that you're only doing one thing; the body is a constant symphony of movement, even for the slowest, subtlest movement. You can't move without breathing; you can't breathe without your heart beating; your heart can't beat without your brain working; and so on.

I think it's more about intention; the same way that Dogen says that the intention of zazen is enlightenment (or something like that). But even the intention to, say, eat and read the paper at the same time, is there anything wrong with that? I must disagree with those schools of Buddhism that think so. Because you can just eat and read the paper, the same as you can just eat and just read the paper. I don't think there's anything useful in making the mind a slave to forced mindfulness; it's more about learning to do things wholly, with intention, than falsely slowing things down and paying too much attention to them.

My 2 pence...

Gassho,

Kirk

[Daijo]

I believe this is one of the reasons Zen originally resonated with me. Before I had ever known anything about zen I picked up this ability to just say "this is what is". I think it may have come from living on the streets when I was a teenager. You sort of get faced with the realization that if it's cold, it's cold and to survive you have to slip into a mindset that understands it wont be cold forever, but right now it is, and all the wanting it to be warm wont make it so. It doesn't mean I got comfortable with being uncomfortable, it just means I was able to accept the reality and the impermanence of a given situation.

Coming to zen later in life I was able to realize what I had learned back then. At least that's what I think is going on. lol On any account, I don't recommend being homeless. It was often cold.

[jphiled]

Hello Reverend,

Yes, I believe that there are times to be "mindful" ... and there are times not. Sometimes when I eat, I just eat ... when I sip tea, I just sip tea ... when bowing, just bowing ... fully absorbed in that action. A wonderful, insightful practice. When doing one thing, just do one thing with all one's body-and-mind.

At other times, I just grab a sandwich and a coke while reading the newspaper and thinking about the job I have to do. That's life too. Nothing wrong with it.

I'm really glad you clarified this. Before coming to Treeleaf, I dabbled in mindfulness practices since it's pretty universal in Buddhism anyway (including PL), but I used to get really frustrated with myself and think I was being a really lousy Buddhist for not being more attentive all the time. I could keep it up for a bit, but like you, sometimes I was in a hurry at work and would stuff my face. Not to mention I used to work a pretty fast-paced environment where I was oncall and dealing with lots of hectic, high-severity issues. It was just impossible to keep that up. Nevertheless I punished myself for it, and looking back it was unnecessary.

Another, rather different meaning of "mindful" often found in Buddhism is to develop awareness of the "mind theatre" running constantly in our heads (developing the ability to identify the thoughts and emotions that play through our heads, and how they create our experience of "reality" ... e.g., "now I am temporarily sad" "now I am reacting with anger") That is a wonderful, insightful practice too ... very very important ... but I caution against thinking that you must or can do that 24/7.

Indeed. This is the subject of a well-known sutra called the Satipatthana Sutta (Four Frames of Reference) found here:

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai/lee/frames.html

But as you can see form the context, it's intended mostly for a dedicated practice time where you can sit down in meditation, etc. Still, I found it helpful when I am angry, hungry, etc, to just recognize the "mind theatre" at play. Doing that, I found the angry drifts away. It's helped when I get scolded for something, or get annoyed at someone on the street. It's a lifetime practice, that's for sure.

[jphiled]

This, in my opinion, is derived from the Thich Nhat Hahn type of "mindfulness," which makes you think that you have to be a sort of automaton, fully absorbed in everything you do. I recall reading some books on Buddhism back in the early days - in the 90s - where I had this impression, and you can see these videos of TNH and his people doing their walking meditation, where it looks like they are numb to the world. (Not criticizing, here, just stating how it looks from the outside.)

That's a good observation. I've noticed that TNH's books tend to be often poetic (romantic in the literature sense), which I am not sure is due to translation or just his style. I could see how someone could confuse that.