Thoughts and not thoughts…

[Jundo]

To "ungrab" your thoughts, you first have to notice that you are caught in thoughts. Maybe the question should be "how do you notice ?" and / or "do YOU really notice ?". Or even "Is there someone who notices ?" What i mean is that the noticing of "us being caught in thoughts", cannot be a result of intention. It's not something of our doing. The noticing just happens, the train of thoughts just stops as everything else in our experience that just comes and goes, and then we believe WE "got out". But we did not : it just happens ! So, as the noticing is, anyway, totally beyond our conscious intention, there should be no intention at all regarding thoughts while sitting. Or we can believe there is intention, if we want, but this does not change a thing. So why bother, ahah !

... But without intention (and/or an object) it seems the noticing will be much lesser. We might think we are noticing and coming back fine but in reality we are moving from one thought-chain to another without really letting go ... I feel you cannot do both. Sit non-judgmentally, non-manipulatively and then have a slight rule not to grab on (or ungrab when caught up). They both are conflicting in my view. I either have to sit with clear intent to return and be busy with that OR I sit non-judgmentally (not worry about getting caught up too as mentioned in "alternate" instruction as noticing happens anyway).

To much analysis!

Just ungrab the thoughts, sit Zazen as a Complete Action.

A bit like debating "do I smell that flower, how do I smell the flower, or do YOU smell the flower, is there an intention to smell the flower, is it nonjudgemental smelling, is there a conflict in smelling the flower ... ??"

Just smell the flower. This instant of smelling the flower is a Complete Action.

Gassho, J

[Jundo]

Hi Sam,

I think you don't get the lovely game here. Let me try again:

Thanks Jundo

In essence it is a non-manipulative, non-judgmental, no-expectations sitting. Whatever happens in sitting is okay (Non-Judgmental) and we get nothing from sitting (no expectations).

Yes, this is so. Yet when we truly sit free of judgment and expectation, something WONDERFUL is found and EVERYTHING is ours. In fact, you can most definitely count on that. anticipate it, plan and work for it and take it to the bank: namely, this wonderful treasure realized through dropping judgments, desires and expectations.

Yes, "whatever happens is okay". that is absolutely true. However, that DOES NOT mean that "whatever happens is okay", because sitting in "whatever happens is okay complacency" is NOT ok, and neither is it okay to judge "ok vs. not ok". Judging "ok vs not ok" is NOT ok! What is truly "okay" is only to radically sit beyond and right through "okay vs. not okay" until a "Big O" Okay manifests which swallows whole and spits out all the things of this world that are okay and not okay.

Okay?

We are introducing rules now. Something that is supposed to happen (and not supposed to happen) during Zazen. Manipulating our Zazen slightly. Redirecting it gently from the "natural" course to what we want it to be.

There ARE rules and proper methods to Zazen. The rules are to not get caught up in thoughts, to sit as the one perfect action in that moment, and to drop all thoughts of "rules and methods" to non-attain Buddha Mirrormind (called "non-attain" because present all along, so no reason or path to attain it). Why? Because the mirror has no "method" to be the mirror, but just sits as mirror. The mirror does not have a method or goal to become the mirror. Thus, our "method" is to sit dropping all methods and goals. If we have a method or goal to become mirrorlike, we make it as if we are standing apart from the mirror (we are never in actuality, although we feel so). Thus, the "method" is that there is no "method".

The "rule" is to drop all thought of "right Zazen" or "wrong Zazen". However, that does NOT mean that all Zazen is "right Zazen". Why? Sitting while judging "right vs. wrong Zazen" is wrong Zazen. Also, sitting while tangled up in thoughts and wallowing in emotions (especially of greed, anger and division) is wrong. A key part of not getting tangled up and wallowing, however, is to drop all thought of "right Zazen vs. wrong". Doing so is "right Zazen"!

"don't grab on to thoughts. if you find yourself caught up then ungrab". don't you think adding a rule like this adds judgments to the non-judgmental sitting? whether we want it or not isn't there a judgment when we grab on (oh this is not supposed to happen). "Whatever happens in sitting is okay" has now become "Whatever happens in sitting is okay except getting caught up".

Zazen is sitting "free of judgement". Yes, that is a judgement ... and it is also a judgment that the best way to sit "free of judgments" is to drop all judgments.

However, "dropping judgments" and sitting in a Buddha's Radical Acceptance of this beautiful-ugly world MUST NOT be confused with complacency or tired resignation. Don't think that sitting "free of judgement" is sitting "free of judgement". Far from it. When I drop all judgements, beyond right and wrong, I taste a world in which there is no father who killed his child, no child to suffer and no death. At the same time, I am filled with the judgement that these events were a sad tragedy and my heart breaks. Therefore, I might say I that I sit in radical Buddha "Non-Judgement" which simultaneously allows me, as a human being, to be filled with judgements, a kind of Judgementless-judgement.

As stated above, saying "whatever happens is okay" does not mean that "whatever crap happens is okay". The only "Truly Okay" is a radical affirmation of this life-self-world as fundamentally being "whatever happens is okay, beyond and right through the happy and the crappy without a gappy, as the light shines though". Nonetheless, sad crap happens, and that IS NOT okay! So, we have Okay-not-Okay at once!

Instead of the above ungrab instruction, why not this "alternate" instruction/non-instruction: "In sitting, getting caught up and coming back to awareness happens by itself. don't worry about either. we don't sit and try to intentionally/purposefully think about something. Other than that whatever "getting caught up and coming back" that is naturally happening is fine. we don't judge or worry about it."

I don't think it happens by itself, and I do worry about being caught up in thoughts/emotions and I do try to be free of thoughts. Did you believe I was saying otherwise?

However (and this is the trick) the only way to stop being "caught up in thoughts" is to stop thinking about the thoughts, being "caught up" or "not caught up" and anything else. The best way to be free of emotions is to stop emoting, including the worry about the emotions. The best way to be "free of thoughts" is to stop trying to be free, to stop chasing freedom ... and just to rest free. In other words, the best way to be free of the annoying drip drip drip is not to try to stop thinking about the drip, but just to drop the drip. One sits with the intent to sit sincerely and with dedication, beyond having intent or no intent.

I feel you cannot do both. Sit non-judgmentally, non-manipulatively and then have a slight rule not to grab on (or ungrab when caught up). They both are conflicting. I either have to sit with clear intent to return and be busy with that OR I sit non-judgmentally (not worry about getting caught up too as mentioned in "alternate" instruction)

This is why you do not get it perhaps. You keep thinking in an "either/or alternative" way. Can you taste how one must sit TRANSCENDING judgments and nonjudgement, manipulation and nonmanipulation, thought and no thought, intent or no intent, etc.?

Such is what so many of the old, classic Koans are on about.

Momonkan Case 9

興陽讓和尚、因僧問、大通智勝佛、十劫坐道場、佛法不現前、不得成佛道時如何。
A monk asked Kõyõ Seijõ, "Daitsû Chishõ Buddha sat in zazen for ten kalpas and could not attain Buddhahood. He did not become a Buddha. How could this be?"
讓曰、其問甚諦當。
Seijõ said, "Your question is quite self-explanatory."
僧云、既是坐道場、爲甚麼不得成佛道。
The monk asked, "He meditated so long; why could he not attain Buddhahood?"
讓曰、爲伊不成佛。
Seijõ said, "Because he did not become a Buddha."

I mean, what is there to attain if already in hand, how does one "become" Buddha? Thus, kinda good policy to stop trying to "attain" and quit striving "to become". However, that does not mean we stop trying to attain and become! Far from it, we are striving to attain non-attaining, trying to become non-becoming. The only way to "attain non-attaining" and to "become non-becoming" is to radically, to the marrow, drop all need to attain and become, realizing that which cannot be attained and ceaselessly becomes without becoming.

This is also the reason that Sekkei Harada Roshi, in that book you pointed out Sam, is so seemingly caught in contradictions page after page, talking out of both sides of his no sided mouth. On the one hand, he says,

These days, expressions like "making a great effort" or "wholehearted devotion" are nearly dead. The people who wrote down these records (earlier he was talking about Blue Cliff koan record) did so as a result of really grinding their bodies into powder as they exerted themselves to the utmost. Only as a result of that effort were they able to write that the self and the Dharma are one.

but

I made every effort, always trying to be one with my sitting. I sat so single-mindedly that even in the winter I would be bathed in sweat, clenching my teeth. But I gradually realized that ... because of trying to do my best and myself and always thinking that I had to do it, there was actually a gap between Zazen and my method of sitting.

Just a bundle of seeming contraditions that ain't.

Gassho, J

SatToday

[Troy]

Thoughts and not thoughts…

The sitting is easy. Capturing it in words.... there lies the problem!

Don't let all of the flowery language around shikantaza make you think it is something complex. It really isn't.
The mind, however, can often make it seem so.

Gassho
Kokuu
#sattoday

Yes, my thoughts too.

Tony,

Just let it happen. Don't try to figure it out for a while. It will reveal itself to you overtime. Little by little for as long as you practice. From my experience, there is no limit what it will reveal.


_|sat2day|_

[Ugrok]

Okay, i understand better what you're saying !

Or maybe zen teachers just want to give us ways to be less prisoners of thoughts, because, mostly, thoughts make us suffer. In the end they do not matter, but maybe we are and feel better when we think less. The focusing techniques sure help to "think" less. Maybe it's their only purpose, which has not to be confused with zazen itself ?

But anyway, this stuff must be highly paradoxical, as always in zen. Maybe if we people did not think so much, zen teachers would teach us to think more. Apparently Suzuki once said to a student that was confronting him on the questions of sameness and difference : "You guys are stuck on the difference side, so i teach sameness. If you would be stuck on the sameness side, i would teach difference".

Maybe our zazen should not be "this" OR "that" and we should not come to it with premade ideas but only with very simple instructions. The instructions, as given by Jundo for example, seem clear and simple enough to me : sit, and when you notice you are caught, then ungrab. Period. No big deal and no problem with that. No matter if it happens by itself or not, no matter if you question it or not. It maybe goes beyond our trying to understand ?

[shikantazen]

What i mean is that the noticing of "us being caught in thoughts", cannot be a result of intention. It's not something of our doing. The noticing just happens, the train of thoughts just stops as everything else in our experience that just comes and goes, and then we believe WE "got out". But we did not : it just happens ! So, as the noticing is, anyway, totally beyond our conscious intention, there should be no intention at all regarding thoughts while sitting.

Well put ugrok; Those were exactly my thoughts till a few months back. But without intention (and/or an object) it seems the noticing will be much lesser. We might think we are noticing and coming back fine but in reality we are moving from one thought-chain to another without really letting go (just like what Bryson says). My alternate instruction is exactly what you are describing. I am asking noticing happens anyway, why have an additional instruction to ungrab or let go? But Zen teachers seem to think otherwise and I believe they must be correct


With this new rule, it has become difficult for me to sit non-judgmentally. I feel you cannot do both. Sit non-judgmentally, non-manipulatively and then have a slight rule not to grab on (or ungrab when caught up). They both are conflicting in my view. I either have to sit with clear intent to return and be busy with that OR I sit non-judgmentally (not worry about getting caught up too as mentioned in "alternate" instruction as noticing happens anyway).


Gassho,
Sam
Sat Today

[Kokuu]

There must be something hard about all this, otherwise it would be simple and this thread would not be as long as it is

The sitting is easy. Capturing it in words.... there lies the problem!

Don't let all of the flowery language around shikantaza make you think it is something complex. It really isn't.
The mind, however, can often make it seem so.

Gassho
Kokuu
#sattoday

[Jishin]

Nah, doesn't work Jishin.....sorry - I by far prefer Jundo's (and others) insight and patience!

...here, let me save you the time


No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.........................

I am off for a pint ....simple!

Yes!

Gassho, Jishin, _/st\_

[dharmasponge]

No. No. No. No. No...

Gassho, Jishin, _/st\_

Nah, doesn't work Jishin.....sorry - I by far prefer Jundo's (and others) insight and patience!

...here, let me save you the time


No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.........................

I am off for a pint ....simple!

[Jishin]

Thoughts and not thoughts…

...and there you have it...I rest my case!


Sat Today

No. No. No. No. No...

Gassho, Jishin, _/st\_

[dharmasponge]

...and there you have it...I rest my case!


Sat Today

[Jishin]

...hmmm....clearly there is thought Jishin - LOTS of discussion about this extremely simple thing.

I (sometimes) can appreciate your salient replies - but sometimes the reality outweighs them

"...follow your breath and when the mind strays return to it again and again..." = Simple

"...sit and don't think about your thoughts....don't not think about them either....don't allow them to distract you (from what?)...just sit and be present....don't...don't...don't...don't........." = IMO Extremely complex

No.

Gassho, Jishin, _/st\_

[dharmasponge]

No.

Gassho, Jishin, _/st\_

...hmmm....clearly there is thought Jishin - LOTS of discussion about this extremely simple thing.

I (sometimes) can appreciate your salient replies - but sometimes the reality outweighs them

"...follow your breath and when the mind strays return to it again and again..." = Simple

"...sit and don't think about your thoughts....don't not think about them either....don't allow them to distract you (from what?)...just sit and be present....don't...don't...don't...don't........." = IMO Extremely complex

[Jishin]

There must be something hard about all this, otherwise it would be simple and this thread would not be as long as it is

Sat Today

No.

Gassho, Jishin, _/st\_

[Ugrok]

Thanks Jundo, Sam and everyone for the further input. There is something i'd like to talk about, as it seems to happen for me this way during sitting :

To "ungrab" your thoughts, you first have to notice that you are caught in thoughts. Maybe the question should be "how do you notice ?" and / or "do YOU really notice ?". Or even "Is there someone who notices ?" What i mean is that the noticing of "us being caught in thoughts", cannot be a result of intention. It's not something of our doing. The noticing just happens, the train of thoughts just stops as everything else in our experience that just comes and goes, and then we believe WE "got out". But we did not : it just happens ! So, as the noticing is, anyway, totally beyond our conscious intention, there should be no intention at all regarding thoughts while sitting. Or we can believe there is intention, if we want, but this does not change a thing. So why bother, ahah !

Gassho,

Ugrok
Sat today

[Anshu Bryson]

"Instead of the above ungrab instruction, why not this "alternate" instruction/non-instruction: "In sitting, getting caught up and coming back to awareness happens by itself. don't worry about either..."

Gassho,
Sam
Sat Today

Sam,

For me, this is seldom the case. "In sitting, getting caught up and coming back to awareness" does NOT happen by itself. Oftentimes, 'getting caught up' simply leads into getting caught up further. A thought 'seeds' itself, then takes root, then an internal conversation begins. All of this leading back to 'self'. I need to have that mechanism of ungrasping or letting go of the thought. But that's just me; we all have our own experiences...

Gassho,

Bryson

sat today