Thoughts and not thoughts…

[alan.r]

I’m new, so corrections are welcome. Here’s my current understanding: shikantaza is not a thought-management technique. Shikantaza is not sitting and working with your thoughts. Shikantaza is not a method or process to achieve a “clear” mental state. Shikantaza is not about thoughts or mental states at all. Your thoughts are conditional, arising in a chain of causality; they may or may not describe reality but they are very limited representations of reality at best. When in shikantaza, don’t bother to attach to thoughts, or suppress thoughts, don’t concern yourself with thoughts at all. Shikantaza is surrendering all that. Just put it down for now. Shikantaza is resting in the natural, expansive, unconditional reality that is beyond the chain of cause-and-effect. It is the default setting. You do not get there by doing, but by undoing. Stop splashing around and yelling "I can't swim!" and just let yourself float. Just release. This is your natural home, so you don’t have to struggle to get there. You know your way home. Stop running in circles. Stop struggling and let your feet walk you home. Guess what, you never left. Sit, rest, and abide here a while.

Great expression of it, Lisa. Thank you.

I am more, awake, more self aware of what I am doing with and to myself and others, and maybe being a bit more anal about that isn't such a bad thing. At least that's what I think.

Me too, Clark.

Gassho,
Alan
sattoday

[shikantazen]

Shikantaza is not about thoughts or mental states at all. Your thoughts are conditional, arising in a chain of causality; they may or may not describe reality but they are very limited representations of reality at best. When in shikantaza, don’t bother to attach to thoughts, or suppress thoughts, don’t concern yourself with thoughts at all.

Shikantaza is about thoughts. Any meditation is about thoughts. When you realize you got caught up in thought, you immediately need to come back to your sitting. There is a clear, intentional, active coming back involved there. This is important. Lisa, what you and some others describe sounds to me like a "just sitting doing nothing" kind of sitting where you sit thinking that "whatever happens is fine" and believe that this trust and allowing is all shikantaza is about. That there is no need to bring the mind back or that the mind is anyway back when you wake up from the thought-chain.

But on the other hand if you are saying what I am saying, then shikantaza is definitely about thoughts. Take an ordinary person's mind who is sitting. Most of the time of sitting he is caught up in thought-chains. It is like a sequence. Aware,thought-chain, Aware, thought-chain, Aware and so on...; In fact, for the average person, there is more time he is caught in a thought-chain than he is aware. How is it Shikantaza not about thoughts then?

If you don't have an active intention to wake up from thought-chains, then your sitting is not correct. It is simply wasting time. There are many students who are wasting their time this way. Having an active intention to return (with or without an object) and then accepting however your sitting is going on (e.g., don't judge how long you are caught up or how many times you return etc...) is the correct direction.

Gassho,
Sam
Sat Today

[Byokan]

Hi Sam,

I get what you’re saying, but I don’t agree that shikantaza is about thoughts. I think if your meditation is about thoughts, you are doing more of a Vipassana practice, where you might practice labeling... for instance, when you become aware of thinking, you say to yourself “thinking” and then return to “mindfulness”.


I think it is possible to be “aware”, even as a thought chain is going on. It’s possible to let the thoughts do what they do, without being caught up in them. This is the difference: not attaching-to or being-caught-up-in the thought chain. This distinction of thinking vs. being aware is an illusion and a distraction. Shikantaza, as I understand it, is beyond these dualities and distinctions. We move beyond this either/or distinction-making. So we're not working with or managing our thoughts, but resting in the completeness that contains all, both and neither thinking/not thinking and/or awareness. This is definitely not just sitting doing nothing.

Hope that made some sense...

Gassho
Lisa
sat today

[Ernstguitar]

Hi Lisa,

just a question or continuing your description: ……...and the KOMYOZO shines through everything…. is this the mirror reflecting even the thoughts?
What do you say? Is this beyond the door to this light?

Gassho, Ernst
sat today

[Jishin]

No attaining with nothing to attain...

Gassho, Jishin, _/st\_

[Byokan]

Hi Ernst,


I’ve only just started studying the Komyozo, so I don’t know... but the image of the mirror reflecting thoughts (and non-thoughts) feels right to me. Of course, I'm no authority, I'm just sharing my personal experience.

Jundo recently posted this from the Komyozo:
Just with all the energy of your body and mind, throw them totally into Komyozo [the Great Treasury of Light] without looking back. Do not seek satori enlightenment. Do not try to hide or be rid of illusion. Do not hate the thoughts that arise, do not love them either and above all, do not nourish them [without aversion to the rising of thoughts, and yet without fondly continuing them]. In every way, you must practice the great sitting, here and now [Stably, calmly, practice shikantaza, just sitting]. If you do not nourish a thought, it will not come back by itself. If you abandon yourself to the exhalation and let your inhalation fill you in a harmonious coming and going, nothing remains but a zafu beneath the empty sky, the weight of a flame.

Is this beyond the door to this light? Is there a door? Or is that another separation? What do you say, Ernst?

Gassho
Lisa
sat today

[Jinyo]

I think this thread is reaching the point where we're throwing in a lots of words trying to explain something that can't easily (if at all) be expressed in words.

Mentally/philosophically I agree with a lot of what's been said here but I could also quibble with some of it as well.

There is a question mark for me (regarding my own practice) as to whether the expression of all the 'correct words' (there are many - particularly to do with 'non-duality' - abiding in our 'true home- original face' etc) is any indication at all that I truly understand and EXPERIENCE/LIVE in this place of understanding.

I do agree there is great intention in our sitting - but we must simply aim and hope to hit the mark. If I start to analyse and break things down it's just more words and more concern as to whether what I'm doing is zazen, vipassana - this and that. Beyond a point this isn't helpful.

Whatever - most times my arrow of intention lies useless on the ground - but I learn a great deal from this 'uselessness'.

I dare say I'm a pretty poor student of sitting - but who is to judge? Whatever I write here is probably quite meaningless and not a good indicator.

I think we must recognise within our own hearts whether we're on track or not - all the words in the universe won't clarify this for us.

This is not meant to imply that we should not heed the very clear instructions that Jundo gives as to what is required at Tree Leaf

Gassho

Willow

Sat Today

[Ernstguitar]

Or is that another separation? What do you say, Ernst?

yes, Lisa, it is another separation. It is always, when we start to put things in words, I think.
But the question from Tony about thoughts is the reason,
why metaphors are working better than analytical discussions.
On the other side (again a separation) we have a brain and the ability to do philosophical buildings. ( I love (phil) the truth (sophia) )
For me both are important: the experiencing (zazen) and the philosophical (reading sutras and Dogens writings).
They go together for me - and I know, that there is a separation. I think, they come together during zazen. When the frame of my beliefs allows me to experience wholeness and "dropping body and mind". For me there is always a frame, which I enhance through dialogs like this.
I hope, that my kind of using words is not arrogant. I just try - as you do - to explain my experiences.

I hope also, that it is an excuse, Willow. I learn a lot doing that.

Gassho, Ernst
sat today

[dharmasponge]

Hi Tony,

We do not "witness thoughts", we do not "experience the thoughts". Please do not try to find "where they arise from or where they go". .....

SatToday

Love it...thanks so much Jundo - particularly the Bullshit kyōsaku...I respond well to that type of stick!!

Sat Today

[dharmasponge]

Tony, may I ask you a question? I get the impression that you are actually practicing another flavor of meditation (perhaps Chan or Dzogchen) as presented by some other teacher in a more analytical and "stage" oriented way. There are so many such kinds of meditation, many flavors of lovely fruit. Or, it may be what some Teacher is calling "Shikantaza", but it is actually very categorizing and stage oriented about the process. I get the impression that you may then be coming here for advice on that, although those apples may be a bit different from true Shikantaza non-oranges. Am I wrong?

Hi Jundo,

I can see why you would think that but no, I am genuinely trying to sit in Zazen and specifically Shikantaza. Why? because I instinctively feel the truth in what you, Dogen and others speak of. I can see there logically there is nothing outside of myself, nowhere to go and little to do as its all complete in a lovely big beautiful shitty whole.

I do however, come from many years of using the Tibetan approach of EXTREMELY analytical study, in particular the the pragmatic and logic of the Prasangika school and its study of Emptiness.

But as I say, I sit in 'Zazen' EVERY morning....I wouldn't waste anyone's time in here by digging for tips HAHA!

And for better or worse I look to you as a mentor!

Tony...

Sat Today

[Myosha]

Hear, hear!


Gassho,
Myosha sat today

[alan.r]

Hi Sam and Lisa (at the risk of what Willow said about just throwing more words out there),

Sam, you're right that there is a "method" taught in Opening the Hand of Thought that looks very much like "Aware, thought-chain, Aware, thought-chain" and that the message of that book is that we must actively come back to "awareness" (I've never particularly liked that book after trying very hard to like it b/c I think there is too clear a "method" or a machination, almost). I don't agree with Lisa that what you say is in any way like Vipassana - it is shikantaza highly, highly conceptualized, and that's why I don't find it terribly helpful. However, I think it's important to note that you're expression of it above is one that makes a clear duality of the process: "aware" is good and clear and all budda-y and "thought-chain" is bad and deluded and something to be woken from. But Opening the Hand of Thought never says that the "thought-chain" is bad or deluded.

Let me guess here, Sam: I think what you are trying to say is that we don't just sit on a cushion and hope that hopping on there is going to do anything and that we can just think about whatever, work tomorrow, what I have to do, oh wow I have so much work, it's so great I'm sitting here, oh no I forgot to pay those bills, oh great now meditation is over. So, if this is what you're saying Sam, I think you're right, that we don't just hop on a cushion and let ourselves think whatever we want. At the same time, what I think Lisa's trying to say is what Jundo stresses so much: that we must sit with an attitude that all is whole and complete. We must sit this way every day, until it penetrates into our being, until we feel it is exactly what we are. When we sit with this attitude, that is when "thought-chains" and equally "awareness" do not matter. When we sit in this way, balanced in body-mind, open to everything, everything sitting with and as us, then there is no difference between a "thought-chain" and "awareness" because we don't identify with either. We don't identify, and then awareness and thought-chains come and go like waves on the ocean, and we are the ocean, which nothing can disturb. Sitting in this way is sitting emptied out of our little self and little anxieties - those things might pop up and thoughts about our little self might come, but with this sitting as the universe itself, there is no concern, no identification with those little thoughts, and those thoughts spray out, small waves on the shore, and are absorbed in our sitting as everything, with everything, as no one at all. It's not that shikantaza is not about thoughts; it's that our concern is "larger" than thoughts, is the complete act of the universe itself acting just as it is, being just what it is, and that has nothing to do with "awareness" or great clarity but just completely and wholly allowing and emptying out of what we believe we are.

Gassho,
Alan
sattoday

[Jundo]

Thank you, Lisa, for the quote from Master Ejo's Komyozo ...

Just with all the energy of your body and mind, throw them totally into Komyozo [the Great Treasury of Light] without looking back. Do not seek satori enlightenment. Do not try to hide or be rid of illusion. Do not hate the thoughts that arise, do not love them either and above all, do not nourish them [without aversion to the rising of thoughts, and yet without fondly continuing them]. In every way, you must practice the great sitting, here and now [Stably, calmly, practice shikantaza, just sitting]. If you do not nourish a thought, it will not come back by itself. If you abandon yourself to the exhalation and let your inhalation fill you in a harmonious coming and going, nothing remains but a zafu beneath the empty sky, the weight of a flame.

Yes.

Is Shikantaza "about thoughts"? Is Shikantaza "not about thoughts"? I don't know or care. I simply sit, not grabbing onto thoughts nor chasing them away, "paying no never mind". A light of clarity then shines through both thoughts or silence, the mirror holds all of life in wholeness without resistance.

This "Just Sitting" is anything but "sitting doing nothing", because one realizes this "in the doing, no thing that is each and every thing". It is not "whatever happens is fine" because, sitting in the radical allowing of "no need to change things, all just what it is", the delusions drop away and thus ignorance changes to Wisdom. Everything changes. All Is Just What It Is, which ain't what it seemed before.

Gassho, J

SatToday!

[shikantazen]

I think it is possible to be “aware”, even as a thought chain is going on.

I know what you are saying, I fooled myself that way and there are many others who are still doing that way. You are either "Aware" or "Caught up". There is no both. Zazen is not thinking. Period. Of course this doesn't mean you should worry about getting lost in thought-chains. We do our best to wake-up from them yet accepting however the sitting is going on without judging the outcome. Without a clear intention to return, you might feel you are still aware and doing fine but that is only fooling ourselves. Zazen is hardwork. The undoing happens with a lot of doing.

Take any good Zen teacher and look at their method. No good teacher tells you to simply sit (you can add all the phrases "sitting in wholeness", "one with the activity", "Whatever happens is ok", "complete trust and allowance" but essentially you are sitting doing nothing if you don't have an object and/or a clear intention to return).

Here is a quote from the book "Unfathomable Depths" by Sekkei Harada Roshi

"Some people say that when it comes to shikantaza nothing must be sought for and nothing attained. It is fine just to sit. But that is only true from the perspective of the dharma. From the perspective of the person, it can never be accepted that someone has realized his or her true nature by just sitting in the proper position, however much they do that. Nevertheless, if someone with a big title or a well-known name tells us that it is fine just to sit, we accept that and do it. We think that this is the final point of the Buddha's way.
....
....
a few pages later
.....
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."

Gassho,
Sam
Sat Today

[Jishin]

Hi,

Whatever I say, that's not it. Even when I say that's not it, that's not it. Having said that...

Gassho, Jishin, _/st\_