Relative virtues of eyes open or closed...

[dharmasponge]

Hi everyone,

I sat for years with eyes closed. Since practicing Shikantaza (well I think I am anyway ) I have struggled little with open eyes. Not open wide of course. I seem inadvertently to seek something to look at at times. My gaze also drifts off to the left.... However, as someone pointed out recently, I do feel oddly more connected with them open.

Eyes open or closed?

_/|\_

Sat_today

[dharmasponge]

Just seen this....

http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?t=13320

Will read. Still interested in your thoughts on this though




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[Jishin]

Hi Tony,

I have thoughts with eyes closed and I have thoughts with eyes open.

Gasho, Jishin, _/st\_

[Myosha]

Hello,

Eyes half-open /half-closed at a 45° angle, so there's no sight.


Gassho
Myosha
sat today

[Jundo]

Just seen this....

http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?t=13320

Will read. Still interested in your thoughts on this though




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Ah, you found the thread I was going to link to!

We keep eyes open about 1/3. and face the wall, to reduce sensory input but not shut out the world. We experience that outside and inside are not two. Furthermore, as described at the link, the eyes may rest on this or that ... a spot on the wall or an object if facing into the room ... but we just don't grab on and wallow in chains of thoughts about the thing upon which the eyes rest (e.g., "nice spot, looks like my mother-in-law's nose, I like my mother-in-law's nose, I like my mother-in-law, need to send her a mother's day card, wonder how much they cost, do they make Happy Mother's Day cards, there is a mall across town with cards, need to pick up the dry cleaning while there ... etc. etc." ). Spot is just spot.

In fact, the expression "face the wall" may actually be a misinterpretation of the original Chinese which reads more like "sit like a wall" ... i.e., unperturbed, in equanimity. So, I encourage facing the wall, but I leave it to folks. To make a long story short ... it is Soto tradition to sit Zazen facing a wall, as this is said to be how Master Bodhidharma sat ...



But some recent historical research indicates that this may be a mistranslation, and the actual phrase in the old teachings may be closer to "sit like a wall", i.e., sit with your senses and mind as firm and steady as a wall, no matter what comes.

Also, a few years ago I conducted an informal survey of members on the list-serve for the Soto Zen Buddhist Association (the association of Soto Zen teachers in North America), and I was very surprised to find that many many teachers are breaking tradition, and have folks sit facing into the room all or half of the time. (One reason is probably the influence of the Maezumi Roshi lineage, which is a mix of Rinzai and Soto practice.)

... the historical reason may be a mistranslation of Bodhidharma, regarded as the First Patriarch of Ch'an or the Zen tradition, and a writing long attributed to him (The Two Entrances and Four Practices) that used the term in Chinese "biguan/pi-kuan". Historian Heinrich Dumoulin discusses Bodhidharma's wall-contemplation.

"In an ancient text ascribed to Bodhidharma, his way of meditation is characterized by the Chinese word pi-kuan, literally wall-gazing or wall-contemplation. Except for the word pi-kuan, the same passage is found in a Mahayana sutra; it reads: "When one, abandoning the false and embracing the true, in simplicity of thought abides in pi-kuan, one finds that there is neither selfhood nor otherness, that ordinary men (prthagjana) and saints (arya) are of one essence." (Zen Enlightenment, p. 38).

The actual meaning of "wall gazing" may not be a literal "sit while gazing at a wall", but closer to "sit as if a wall seeing". Nobody really knows what the term originally meant however. The great Zen Historian Yanagida Seizan has (ala Shikantaza) interpreted the term to denote a sort of witnessing of the world with the steadfast detachment of a wall in which one “gazes intently at a vibrantly alive śunyatā (emptiness).”

So, whether facing the wall, or away from the wall ... just sit, without thought of inside or out.

Anyway, I do not care so much now which way people sit. If they sit facing into the room, their eyes should still be aimed downward at the floor, about a metre or so in front of their legs. So, it is really about the same thing as staring at the wall. We are open to the world, and our eyes are open about 2/3rds. But we are not thinking about what we are looking at, and are seeing everything without focusing on or pondering anything in particular.

Gassho, Jundo

SatToday

[Jakuden]

Interesting, thank you Jundo. I noticed at ZMM, mixed Soto and Rinzai as you know, they had us sit half the time facing the wall and half the time facing the center of the room. For me, it doesn't seem to change Zazen either way except when I am sitting in a messy room of my house the mess sometimes does cause distraction... Unfortunately I don't always have a choice so I just call it good practice...
Gassho
Jakuden
SatToday


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[Jundo]

Interesting, thank you Jundo. I noticed at ZMM, mixed Soto and Rinzai as you know, they had us sit half the time facing the wall and half the time facing the center of the room. For me, it doesn't seem to change Zazen either way except when I am sitting in a messy room of my house the mess sometimes does cause distraction... Unfortunately I don't always have a choice so I just call it good practice...
Gassho
Jakuden
SatToday


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There is no messy distraction except as the messy mind reacts ... even the ugliest site is not cause for alarm unless one thinks "clean" or "dirty" ... all is just as it is, nothing to think or ponder or plan to clean up ... as one sits, just let it be ... every piece of scrap paper and old gum wrapper is a shiny jewel in Indra's Net, sacred and just where it is to found, it's own place in the universal tapestry ...

Now, that being said, when the bell rings and one gets up from the cushion: GRAB A BROOM AND CLEAN UP THAT DIRTY ROOM! WHAT A MESS! (a koan)

Gassho, J

SatToday

[Joyo]

There is no messy distraction except as the messy mind reacts ... even the ugliest site is not cause for alarm unless one thinks "clean" or "dirty" ... all is just as it is, nothing to think or ponder or plan to clean up ... as one sits, just let it be ... every piece of scrap paper and old gum wrapper is a shiny jewel in Indra's Net, sacred and just where it is to found, it's own place in the universal tapestry ...

Now, that being said, when the bell rings and one gets up from the cushion: GRAB A BROOM AND CLEAN UP THAT DIRTY ROOM! WHAT A MESS! (a koan)

Gassho, J

SatToday

Thank you for sharing, Jakuden, and thank you for this response, Jundo. It helped me tremendously. My anxiety has been very bad over the last month or so, and when it is like this I become rather OCD about wanting to control something---that something being the state of my home. I need to sit and reflect on this for awhile to let it sink in.

Gassho,
Joyo
sat today

[Jundo]

Thank you for sharing, Jakuden, and thank you for this response, Jundo. It helped me tremendously. My anxiety has been very bad over the last month or so, and when it is like this I become rather OCD about wanting to control something---that something being the state of my home. I need to sit and reflect on this for awhile to let it sink in.

Gassho,
Joyo
sat today

And as I am writing this, my wife is mumbling at me to get away from the computer and do some vacuuming for our coming guests. No kidding.

Better follow my own advice!!!!

Gassho, J

SatToday, also vacuumed today.

[Joyo]

And as I am writing this, my wife is mumbling at me to get away from the computer and do some vacuuming for our coming guests. No kidding.

Better follow my own advice!!!!

Gassho, J

SatToday, also vacuumed today.

lol!! We have that same conversation in our house.

Gassho,
Joyo
sat today and nagged at my husband to get some housework done =)

[Eishuu]

Jundo, when you say we are have our eyes open but are not focused on anything, I understand we are not mentally focused on anything but are the eyes focused on the spot? When I try to sit with my eyes unfocused I tend to feel a bit dizzy and uncomfortable. Also sometimes if my eyes are open and I am looking at something I lose awareness of my body and it feels more outside than inside. Thanks.

Gassho
Lucy
Sat today

[Washin]

There is no messy distraction except as the messy mind reacts ... even the ugliest site is not cause for alarm unless one thinks "clean" or "dirty" ... all is just as it is, nothing to think or ponder or plan to clean up ... as one sits, just let it be ... every piece of scrap paper and old gum wrapper is a shiny jewel in Indra's Net, sacred and just where it is to found, it's own place in the universal tapestry ...

Thank you, Jundo

Gassho
Washin
sat today
(the eyes always half-opened)

[Jundo]

Jundo, when you say we are have our eyes open but are not focused on anything, I understand we are not mentally focused on anything but are the eyes focused on the spot? When I try to sit with my eyes unfocused I tend to feel a bit dizzy and uncomfortable. Also sometimes if my eyes are open and I am looking at something I lose awareness of my body and it feels more outside than inside. Thanks.

Gassho
Lucy
Sat today

Hi Lucy,

I mean that the mind should not be thinking about what you are looking at particularly, not that the eyes should go fuzzy. One should not be becoming dizzy and uncomfortable. You are looking at this or resting on that ... but just not caught in long considerations of this and that. I discuss this in the link thread that was posted above, and the two photos there ...

http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?13320-My-Eyes&p=151338&viewfull=1#post151338

Gassho, Jundo

[Eishuu]

Thanks Jundo.

Gassho
Lucy
Sat today

[Jundo]

And as I am writing this, my wife is mumbling at me to get away from the computer and do some vacuuming for our coming guests. No kidding.

Better follow my own advice!!!!

Gassho, J

SatToday, also vacuumed today.

Happened to offer a little talk today (when my wife wasn't looking) on this ...

SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: ENGAGED ENERGY

http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?14624-SIT-A-LONG-with-JUNDO-ENGAGED-ENERGY&p=182432#post182432

Gassho, J

SatToday