Thoughts and not thoughts…

[Kokuu]

Tony,

Zazen is, to the best of my knowledge, a generic term referring to meditation in Zen traditions. At Treeleaf, zazen = shikantaza. Other traditions vary.

Even in Sōtō Zen there are forms of zazen associated with breathing awareness. In Rinzai Zen, zazen tends to refer to either breath awareness or koan practice.

Bringing other forms of zazen into a discussion of shikantaza is probably confusing to many, although I am sure it was not meant in that way.

Gassho
Kokuu
#sattoday

[dharmasponge]

Tony,

Zazen is, to the best of my knowledge, a generic term referring to meditation in Zen traditions. At Treeleaf, zazen = shikantaza. Other traditions vary.

Even in Sōtō Zen there are forms of zazen associated with breathing awareness. In Rinzai Zen, zazen tends to refer to either breath awareness or koan practice.

Bringing other forms of zazen into a discussion of shikantaza is probably confusing to many, although I am sure it was not meant in that way.

Gassho
Kokuu
#sattoday

Ah, see thats me with me black and white thinking again!

Sat Today

[Nameless]

Yes, it seems zazen usually refers to Shikantaza when we Soto Zennies say it. Though it could meam different things depending on your practice I guess. On another note, seems there are a lot of psychologists here. Be done with the undergrad program for psychology in June. Coincidence that so many who are interested in the mind are drawn to Zen?

Gassho, John
Sat today

[Kokuu]

Tony, I don't think it is your fault. Here people tend to use zazen and shikantaza interchangably as that is the Treeleaf practice.

Gassho
K

[Jishin]

Ah, see thats me with me black and white thinking again!

Sat Today

As the mountain sits, clouds come and go.
As the clouds sit, mountains come and go.
Sometimes I am the mountain sitting.
Sometimes I am the clouds sitting.
Sometimes I am both or neither.

I been told to not judge my Zazen and just sit.

How about a pint at the local pub after just sitting Tony? Cheers!

Gassho, Jishin, _/st\_

[Jinyo]

Tony, I don't think it is your fault. Here people tend to use zazen and shikantaza interchangably as that is the Treeleaf practice.

Gassho
K

Definitely not your fault Tony - after three years here I hadn't quite grasped that zazen incorporates other modes of meditation .

Probably some inattention on my part.

Thanks for the clarification Kokuu

Gassho

Willow

Sat today

[Jundo]

Here is why, in no uncertain terms, "Just Sitting" is the short road to Buddha.

Simply, the Buddha spoke of suffering and delusion as embodied in human greed, anger and deluded, divisive thinking.

Greed, anger and divisive thinking all arise from human desire for circumstances to be different: We become greedy for something when we feel lack, we become angry that something does not go as we want, we are filled with "us against the world" divisive thoughts.

Sitting in the "nothing lacking" wholeness, "just as it is" dropping of the "me versus the rest of life" frictions, the self-fulfilling one-thing-to-do that is Shikantaza. sitting radically free of all desire for change, thus causes all Dukkha to resolve and wash away. There is thus no greed as there is no felt lack, no anger as no felt lack, no divisions for no felt lack.

Yes, sometimes making progress on the road to Buddha happens just by being very still and opening one's eyes. Just because we sit with "nothing to gain" don't mean we don't gain a treasure by giving up the hunger for gain!

Tony said ...

I sat this morning and I became aware of the process of sitting in a way that felt like everything was happening around me – there was a sort of calm amidst the storm of the birds tweeting and the leaves in the tress – in fact the more noise the better it seemed. I heard the boiler come on and that made that inner calm more palpable. I felt body awareness fall away and just sat in that wider peripheral inner space………

This sounds like lovely Shikantaza. Wonderful!

Just know, of course, that we also consider it "lovely Shikantaza" even when things don't feel so calm and peaceful. In the total acceptance of Shikantaza (as the Xin Xin Ming declares, "The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences"), even not so centered and peaceful Shikantaza is part of the trip, also "lovely Shikantaza". Nonetheless, the calm and centered times like you describe are precious. It is rather like saying that the sun is always present on both sunny days and cloudy. We must learn to know the sun which shines both through clear and cloudy. The sun that only shines on sunny days is not so powerful as the sun seen to shine right through even the darkest!

Michael said ...

dharma - According to my observation there is no consensus on what constitutes Shikantaza.

There are as many teachers trying to express Zazen in their personal way as there are chefs showing how to make chicken soup. Some ways are tastier and more nutritious than others.

Nevertheless, I don't discount the more proactive approaches of relentlessly refocusing on a point/subject such as a koan. Breath practice, be it so simple, definitely has real promise too. Whatever, I feel that the 'just sit' approach is most appropriate for beginners.

I see things quite to the contrary. The most advanced practice perhaps is to put down the targets and crutches ... the breath, the Koans, the mantras, the running after and chasing one's tail ... all to radically Just Sit. If someone thinks "just sitting" is for beginners then they do not get what is radical, in the marrow "Just Sitting"!

Sam said ...

I sat the below way for a few months and really liked it. "Simply sitting, non-doing, allowing everything; "whatever happens is ok" kind of attitude. I don't explicitly have a goal to keep waking up from thoughts but when it happens it is fine. The only rule is this: I don't sit there and purposefully try to think about something. Other than that understanding, I have nothing else to do with thoughts (or waking up from them). Yet despite this, in practice I found I was waking up from thought quite a number of times"

This strikes me as a lovely way to sit. However, I will emphasize again that one must sit, radically and to the marrow, tasting Zazen as a the one act to do and one place to be in the whole universe in that moment, a sacred act, Buddha sitting. Why?

Simply, for the reason I described above: We rarely if ever encounter life in such way, resulting in feelings of lack, disappointment, wishing for "something else" and the ignorance which accompanies that.

I cannot emphasize this enough and, unfortunately, I think many modern Shikantaza teachers do not underline this aspect sufficiently. In fact, all of Dogen's writings may be seen as page after page of description of Zazen and all daily actions as sacred acts.

I don't like (for lack of a better word) adding a rule that we need to keep waking up from thought. Just to clarify, I do wake up from thought (by myself) when I simply sit too; quite frequently in fact. I just don’t like it as an explicit rule or it being part of the instruction for Zazen. That one instruction kills the entire beauty of shikantaza for me. ... The "sitting as wholeness" will then become just a conceptual overlay; I am anyway sitting in wholeness, of what use is it to make it explicit? Why is that even needed? Why not simply wake up from thoughts as described in "Opening the hand of thought"? Or keep returning using an object (breath/sounds/palm)?

Get over it. If you are bothered, it is you bothering yourself. Nothing kills the beauty unless your small self's judgments pull the trigger. It is vital to sit Zazen as a sacred doing. I mean, Dogen was not prone to understatement about this ... as here in Shobogenzo Zazenshin

Know this, that it is the seated buddha that buddha after buddha and ancestor after ancestor have taken as their essential function. Those who are buddhas and ancestors have employed this essential function, while those who are not have never even dreamt of it. To say that the buddha dharma has been transmitted from the Western Heavens to the Eastern Earth implies the transmission of the seated buddha, for it is the essential function. And where the buddha dharma is not transmitted, neither is seated meditation. What has been inherited by successor after successor [in this transmission] is just this essential message of seated meditation; one who does not participate in the single transmission of this essential message is not a buddha or an ancestor. When one is not clear about this one dharma, one is not clear about the ten thousand dharmas, not clear about the ten thousand practices. And without being clear about each dharma, one cannot be said to have a clear eye. One has not attained the way; how could he represent the present or past [in the lineage] of the buddhas and ancestors? By this, then, we should be firmly convinced that the buddhas and ancestors always singly transmit seated meditation.

Gassho, Jundo

Ps - If I am not around, just listen to Kokuu. He seems to have a real knack for explaining these things recently.

[Ishin]

Here is why, in no uncertain terms, "Just Sitting" is the short road to Buddha.

This is gonna be good!!!


And it was, I just want to express that there seems something odd to me with the phrase "ruins the entire beauty of Shikantaza for me" Though we do sit AS a sacred act; isn't this kind of preference for how Shikantaza should be, the very thing that we are attempting to be liberated from?


Gassho
Ishin

Sat Today

[Anshu Bryson]

"Leave your front door and your back door open.
Allow your thoughts to come and go.
Just don't serve them tea..." - Shunryu Suzuki

[shikantazen]

I just want to express that there seems something odd to me with the phrase "ruins the entire beauty of Shikantaza for me" Though we do sit AS a sacred act; isn't this kind of preference for how Shikantaza should be, the very thing that we are attempting to be liberated from?

For me having an instruction to wake up from thoughts, seems to be like a preference for how Shikantaza should be. Why are we okay with everything in shikantaza but not with being distracted? by the way I am not saying we should be distracted or should purposefully think something during shikantaza. We wake up when we wake up and we are okay with distraction; why isn't that enough?

Anyway too much confusion for me. I wasted past 2 years going back and forth between various methods of shikantaza as I understood them. I take the whole responsibility for my confusion and made a commitment that going forward I would be sitting with focus on an object for the next few years without jumping around.

I just wanted to make sure Lisa, ugrok and others understood what Jundo is saying; it felt from their posts that they could be sitting how I sat earlier (the wrong way)

Gassho,
Sam
Sat Today

[Kokuu]

Hi Sam

It sounds like you have really got your head around shikantaza now but I wouldn't worry about how other people understand it. Just focus on your own practice. I'm sure that Jundo will correct any errors in understanding that appear on the forum.

I don't think that those two years was time wasted. You seem to have learned a lot from the process and used that to clarify what shikantaza is and is not for you. In time it may well stand you in good stead in teaching meditation to others. People who have had to struggle often make far better teachers than those who take to sitting straight away with no problems. I am really grateful to you for asking so many questions during that period as the discussions that developed greatly helped me, and I am sure others, understand shikantaza better. It is a true act of generosity to ask those kinds of questions as many other people probably have them but they are not as prepared to go public about their sitting problems.


Kokuu
#sattoday

[Byokan]

Hi Sam,

Kokuu took the words right out of my mouth, I was about to say the same thing about not wasting time. And I am also grateful for your questioning. The questions help everyone to clarify what they are thinking and doing, and help Jundo to help us too. Said it before and I will say it again, I am so grateful for this Sangha...

Gassho
Lisa
sat today

[Kyonin]

Hi guys,

I just sat today and the mind was a whirlwind. It threw a lot of memories, fantasies, plans and what not. All this while the baby upstairs cried, trucks of a nearby construction passed on the street and my cat demanded me to play ball.

At the last minutes of the session, there was this moment where it all made sense. There was no external noise, no thought tornado, no cat. There was just ONE.

Then the bell rang and I went for coffee.

And I agree with Jundo. Sitting zazen is not boring. One just bores oneself because of our own expectations and desires. If I seek for illumination or ultimate inner peace, guess what? I will only get frustrated.

Shikantaza is about sitting with what is without worrying on what others think... and even better, without worrying on what one thinks.

We just sit and that's it.

But then again, I could be totally wrong.

Gassho,

Kyonin
#SatToday

[RichardH]

Here is why, in no uncertain terms, "Just Sitting" is the short road to Buddha.

Simply, the Buddha spoke of suffering and delusion as embodied in human greed, anger and deluded, divisive thinking.

Greed, anger and divisive thinking all arise from human desire for circumstances to be different: We become greedy for something when we feel lack, we become angry that something does not go as we want, we are filled with "us against the world" divisive thoughts.

Sitting in the "nothing lacking" wholeness, "just as it is" dropping of the "me versus the rest of life" frictions, the self-fulfilling one-thing-to-do that is Shikantaza. sitting radically free of all desire for change, thus causes all Dukkha to resolve and wash away. There is thus no greed as there is no felt lack, no anger as no felt lack, no divisions for no felt lack.

Hi Jundo. I just read this to Jen over breakfast, and she says to say thank you. We are printing it off for her to take to work with her.

The beautiful straightforward Buddha way.

Gassho
Daizan

sat today

[Ernstguitar]

Thank you Kokuu,

People who have had to struggle often make far better teachers than those who take to sitting straight away with no problems.

I think it was Suzuki or so, who said:" A bad horse is better than a good horse. The bad horse works harder and longer…. the good horse dies earlier." (I hope, that this makes sense in english. I read it in german)
In my understanding it is true, that what goes easy is very often not so appreciated. And….working hard sounds like it is negative, but for me it is more evolvement.
Wonderful thread, thank you all.

Gassho
Ernst

p.s.: The more I sit, the more it makes sense what Jundo said about zazen. There is a connection between experiencing and understanding.

Sat today