Two streams of thought?

[Water]

When I sit zazen, I noticed something that I wasn't quite sure if it was normal or not. I find it really easy to separate my thoughts. Like, my usual chatter is separated from my relaxed self. As if I literally step out of my own head for zazen, and sit in this calm place where I just watch my thoughts flow. Does anybody else experience this?

Gassho,
Taylor

#willsitinlessthen30minutes

[Anshu Bryson]

Absolutely not...!

Gassho,

Bryson

sat today

[Jundo]

Hi Water,

That doesn't sound bad at all. Just let that stream of thoughts go on by without grabbing on. I am not sure about the "stepping out of my own head", but just see the chatter like you describe. Sounds good. Let things roll on past. If grabbing on, just let go again. Repeat as needed.

Gassho, Jundo

PS - Better than "willsitinlessthan30minutes", please sit then write here after. We can wait.

[shikantazen]

hey jundo, you forgot sattoday!

Gassho,
Sam
Sat Today

[Mp]

hey jundo, you forgot sattoday!

Gassho,
Sam
Sat Today

Actually Sam ... he did! =)

Gassho
Shingen

SatToday

[Byokan]

Hi Taylor,

If I'm understanding you, I think this may be what's often referred to as The Watcher, which is a sense of yourself watching yourself.

Before we go any further, what I'm talking about is not shikantaza! I would say that it is just further division and distinction, in fact kind of the opposite of shikantaza which is more about realizing no-division and wholeness. Everyone please correct me on that if I'm not saying it right.

But it is a common experience in meditation. In other practices it can even be a goal that people work toward, to cultivate this sense of self-outside-of-self. It's tricksy and kind of fun; you can play around with it (not during zazen, please!) and take it out further so that you are watching yourself watching yourself watching yourself, etc. Some people think the further you go out with this, the closer you are getting to your True Self. I do not agree. I think this is not shikantaza but can be interesting psychologically and even useful in some situations, for instance when emotions and drama are running high, you can step out a level or two until you are no longer so 'caught up' but in a calmer state, watching. It's an interesting phenomenon but of course we don't strive for special mental states in zazen.

Anyway if your thoughts aren't torturing you and you feel calm, that's a nice thing, just sit with what is, it's really neither good nor bad; don't attach and don't push away. Just sit!

Gassho
Lisa
sat today

p.s. Also please notice that I am new here too, so don't listen too much to my rambling!

[Taylor D]

Hi Lisa,

This really struck home with me. I thought you were responding to me for a minute and I was looking for where I posted in this thread!

As I am sitting and trying to not try, I often find myself in this mental state. It is so difficult not to discriminate and let go of thoughts as they come, I thought that higher level of awareness was a good sign even as I knew thinking that was simply further discrimination! I'm still moving through the beginner talks so if this is basic, forgive my ignorance. I struggle with wanting to set my self aside so badly that I really get in my own way. I know I should just sit but I can't help feeling as though I have the wrong effort.

Edit: I thought of a passage from the final chapter of Opening the Hand of Thought that summarizes my feelings."Study and practice the buddhadharma only for the sake of the buddhadharma, not for the sake of emotions or worldly ideas." I cannot help but feel that I practice for egotistical or worldly reasons and it is very difficult to let go.

Gassho, Taylor

sat today

[alan.r]

Hi Taylor,

If I'm understanding you, I think this may be what's often referred to as The Watcher, which is a sense of yourself watching yourself.

Before we go any further, what I'm talking about is not shikantaza! I would say that it is just further division and distinction, in fact kind of the opposite of shikantaza which is more about realizing no-division and wholeness. Everyone please correct me on that if I'm not saying it right.

Hi Lisa. I generally agree, but I'd make one small adjustment: if "the watcher" is one's goal, then that is not shikantaza. However, and this is for both Taylors, if you're sitting and you're suddenly aware you're watching your thoughts, no problem. There's no need to feel you're doing anything wrong here (that goes for both Taylors here). Just let go, both of the thoughts and of watching them. Weird, strange, boring, ordinary, all kinds of things happen during zazen - all is okay as long as we're earnestly sitting. This is all completely normal, and I'm with Jundo: sounds like you're on the right track, just let things go, and don't get wrapped up in the idea that you should be "watching" yourself or anything like that. Sometimes the sensation of being outside your body might happen; sometimes you'll be just a swirl of thoughts; sometimes you'll be all divided up with worry and anxiety; sometimes there will be complete stillness - all is shikantaza, wholeness shining through all, and you'll feel that deep in your bones the more you sit.

As for Taylor D, it's normal to be a little conflicted about practice or sitting zazen at first. It's normal to question if you're doing it for egotistical reasons. We've been trained, literally trained, by society, culture, other people, school, to be, basically, selfish and always out for the self, always looking for a way for our self to win. Of course, you're going to bring that to sitting - that's okay! You're aware of that. Just knowing that is an important thing. That's part of the practice. I would say here: don't forget to bring your zazen with you when you leave the cushion - that's where the practice of letting go of selfishness will be most noticeable.

Gassho,
Alan
sattoday

[Jundo]

Alan took the words right out of my mouth. What he said.

We are not about "Watcher".

Gassho, J

SatToday

[Byokan]

Hi Alan,

yes, exactly, very well said!

Gassho
Lisa, watching myself reply, watching myself watching myself reply, watching the watcher who is watching myself watching oh never mind
sat today

[Kyonin]

Hi Taylor,

In my little experience, people can see and feel different things while in zazen. Some people would see colors or experience thoughts flying by, for instance.

Some others might have a sense of unity. Some others might have a sense of watching life from outside to then morph into it.

But yes, whenever we begin we have these kind of feeling... even the ones that have been sitting for years! We are always beginners!

Whatever the feeling is, just let it all drop and be with what is.


Gassho,

Kyonin
#SatToday

[Byrne]

Taylor,

I do experience that "watcher" perspective. Your description wasI have a nuerolgical condition called Complex Motor Stereotypy. If I get lost in thought over anything emotionally extreme, whether positive or negative, my mind will start to hallucinate vividly. To the outside world, muscles in my arms and face start convulsing and it looks very bizarre and sometimes frightening. A stereotypy is a repetitive movement or tick. In CMS, the movements follow more random patterns. As opposed to Tourette's where the repetetive ticks are simple and easy to define. All I need is a little nudge from someone else and I snap out of it, my wife does it all the time, but it can get intense. I have calluses on the sides of my fingers from the random movements. Though I've never had any stereotypys while sitting zazen.

The condition gave me a highly visual mind. Its a rare condition but Internet has brought me in contact with others like me as well as the parents of young children with it. We all hallucinate with relative ease. There's a very unique understanding amongst us.

Do you have a highly visual mind? Whatever your experiencing has a lot to do with how your brain is wired. Everyone has different wiring. Some people have whole chunks of their minds literally missing. But Buddhism teaches us that we all have Buddha nature. The fact that I don't lose control and stereotypy while sitting is a constant reminder that what is important is beyond the circumstantial nuts and bolts of the brain I was born with.

Gassho

Sat Today

[Jundo]

The brain-mind is amazing! Thank you for relating your story, Byrne.

The reasons we do not emphasize the "Watcher" in this little corner of Zen Buddhism are like this:

First, the emphasis here is not on any unusual, strange, extraordinary experiences during Zazen. Better said, the emphasis is on realizing just how miraculous, wondrous, extraordinary is this most "ordinary" world when we open our eyes to such fact. It is rather like the story that Okumura Roshi tells of "dogberries" in an essay on another thread, a most ordinary and unwanted kind of weed until he also sees each simultaneously as a shining jewel (simultaneously weed and shining jewel), its own place in the sun. One might even say that each common "dogberry" of life holds all the universe. Still, it is just a bitter dogberry.

By the way, strange, unusual, extraordinary states will arise in Zazen too. That is fine, and neither do we push them away. We learn from them, experience and move on. I have written about this a little more regarding the Shikantaza view of "Kensho" ...

http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?12641-Faces-in-the-carpet&p=134787&viewfull=1#post134787

I have told other folks with profound visual experiences to just grab the popcorn and enjoy the show. However, that same thread also discusses some tricks and experiences of the mind common during Zazen ... such as optical illusions, sudden paranoia, old memories surfacing. We observe those, and move on.

Next, the reason we do not emphasize a "watcher" is something like saying that the emphasis in Zen is not on attaining some "Cosmic Consciousness" that is "Truth" hidden from this ordinary world of delusion which we must strip completely away to reach. I would say what Zennies are pursuing is much more subtle. In Zen, we also believe that there is a Truth and Wholeness which exists when the mind is free of judgments, frictions, divisions and the "subject-object" split. We seek to know that such exists too. However, we encounter that such exists both when the "judgments, frictions, divisions and the "subject-object" split" fully drop from mind (see Kensho discussion above), BUT ALSO right in and as this world of "judgments, frictions, divisions and the "subject-object" split". In other words, we find it right in and as the dogberries.

How to explain?

On another thread, I gave the example of blank, white, boundless, pristine paper. Maybe we could say that all the divisions, beauty and ugliness, love and hate, birth and death, war and peace of this world is like drawings, scribbles and stories that we make and write on the paper.

http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?13147-Our-way&p=147316&viewfull=1#post147316

Now, some might think that the purpose of meditation is to grab an eraser and strip away all the "lies and delusions" of these drawings and stories that are on the paper, because when we do that and all that remains is the "empty paper" that is Truth! We obtain some "Cosmic Consciousness", "the Watcher" or the like. Well, Dogen's way is more about knowing that the shining, pristine, whole Truth of the paper is fully present both on the blank page and in all the drawing and stories that we write there. It is present in stories and pictures of beauty and ugliness, love and hate, war and peace. (But, although that is so, and "Buddha" shines through each ... please try to draw pictures and make a story of beauty, love and peace as you can. In fact, making a picture of ugliness and hate will hide the Wholeness and Goodness from our eyes).

Sometimes we talk of "mirror mind". The mirror reflects all appearing in the mirror without judgement, rejecting none of it, beautiful or ugly. If one is merely experiencing some "Watcher" seeing the "things in the mirror", it seems like a great division. In fact, the mirror and all that appears in the mirror glass are one. Mirror and beauty and ugliness, love and hate, birth and death, war and peace, dogberries and blueberries are one. Nevertheless, as we can, we pick the blueberries of life, avoid the war and other dogberries.

I don't know if I did a very good job of explaining this without clouding things, but something like that.

Gassho, J

SatToday

[Jundo]

Anyway, let me just say this so it does not get lost in all the descriptions ...

Just sit, don't grab on or get tangled in thoughts and runaway emotions. Sit as the one thing to be done in that moment, a whole and sacred action. Taste the equanimity of the mirror.

Find the light which shines through and as blueberries and dogberries.

That is enough.

Gassho, J

[Ernstguitar]

Hi Jundo,

I don't know if I did a very good job of explaining this without clouding things, but something like that.

I do not know, if you really asked. But for me it was very clear again. Thank you.

Gassho, Ernst
SAT TODAY