Why do you (as in you personally) do zazen

[Bansho]

Re: Why do you (as in you personally) do zazen

The Buddha-Dharma can only be brought into existence through realization. Apart from sincere practice, there is no Buddha-Dharma. That is why I practice Zazen.

Gassho
Ken

[will]

Re: Why do you (as in you personally) do zazen

I'm also learning little by little, there's much I don't know or understand. Which is preferable.

W

[will]

Re: Why do you (as in you personally) do zazen

Well, I used to have all kinds of reasons.

This guy says to me "I should go sit." You know this guy tells me a lot of things, gives me lots of reasons. I don't listen to him as much anymore.

Sit to sit.

You just know. You know that you can't chase after it, but you should be doing it, as Dogen might say "Often".

Probably during a sesshin (I've never done one) you might ask yourself just that question. "Why in the H*** am I doing this?"

But we keep sitting.

I get up, take a shower, then sit (usually in that order). As time goes on, I find I'm sitting more often. But I don't contemplate why I brush my teeth.

Actualizing the depth of wordless words spoken by countless Zen teachers could be a reason. Actualizing the Shobogenzo could be a reason. However, I read them very little now. I think Dogen would have preferred it if we didn't have to read the Shobogenzo.

G,W

[Keishin]

Re: Why do you (as in you personally) do zazen

Because a day without zazen is a day without zazen

[undeceivable]

Re: Why do you (as in you personally) do zazen

Nice question and nice answers too.

I started doing Zazen about 7 years ago because I guess I admired people who were calm, relaxed, friendly, kind and open. More than admired, I thought they were cool. Like super-heroes, to me. And I did yoga at uni and the teacher was nice. When I met Zen priests or saw them in the street in Tokyo, I wanted to be like them. I stayed a day at Eiheiji and met a really nice monk who just seemed to me to be everything that was good in this world and even though he wasn't remarkable in any way apart from being nice and easy-going, this seemed enough...I visited lots of temples and sat with lots of groups and it just suited me. The smell, the free green tea, the Japanese sweets
Now I guess I do it pretty much for the same reasons: To keep calm, be happy and be nice to people. Probably not the right reasons, but if I'm honest that's why I do it.

Hmm.
:P

[Longdog]

Re: Why do you (as in you personally) do zazen

I don't really know anymore :lol: It just seems a good thing to do :wink:

Following Buddhism also seems a good thing to do.

In gassho, Kev

[CharlesC]

Re: Why do you (as in you personally) do zazen

.

[TracyF]

Re: Why do you (as in you personally) do zazen

I take the Bodhisattva Vow quite seriously. I could not translate that vow from Idea to Action if it weren't for zazen.

Yep. Same here.

My reason for zazen is very simple. It's part of my practice to help me be a more compassionate person (mettamettamettamettametta). I didn't even think about it until, about a year ago, my husband said I lack empathy. It really surprised me because I enjoy life and I like people. Then I realized that he's right! Since I'm pretty even-steven (like Seinfeld), I don't understand sad people. When someone tells me something that's bothering them, I immediately want to fix it. Little did I know that I've been annoying the heck out of people. They don't want me to fix it. They want me to just listen and understand. Well, that's just hard, dang it! Sort of embarrassing to realize that I get on everyone's nerves. ops:

According to my Mom, husband and daughter, I'm getting better. I think I've been a better professor too. I have much fewer fantasies of strangling my colleagues and students ( :mrgreen: ) even though our school is going through some serious changes and my career is very fragile right now.

I think I've mentioned all this twice before but, you know, writing it down is a good reminder for me.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed reading this thread. Thanks for starting it, Aswini.

Re: Why do you (as in you personally) do zazen

Refuge from the horrors of the world;
Refuge from the horrors of my mind.

What joy to realize that I can let go of it all.

I might have ended up in a psych ward, on drugs, or dead, if it weren't for zazen.

But thanks to the power of ZazenTM, instead of suffering from insanity, I can enjoy it :wink:

I can also try to do something productive with it. I take the Bodhisattva Vow quite seriously. I could not translate that vow from Idea to Action if it weren't for zazen.

So--yay for zazen

[Aswini]

Re: Why do you (as in you personally) do zazen

Hmm.......thanx everyone. Wow, so many great answers. Don't want to point out any response because each one has been helpful or opens up another point of view.

It certainly is interesting, because i don't clearly know why I sit zazen. Certainly as a means of regulation it is both very calming, peaceful, insightful and practicable in applying what you notice to daily life. At the same time I am wondering if there is a goal not that i am trying to achieve anything in a certain way. Because I can feel a tangible if subtle difference from when I sit for a consitent period of time (e.g. 10 days) compared to how I operate and feel when I have skipped entirely for say up to a week.

Yes, I do too do zazen just for zazen, just to sit. Yet something is on the edge of my knowing, not graspable, yet that is I know is there and perhaps important or perhaps just something imagined.

I personally do zazen because, in a way that I can't describe, I know I'm home.

That was nice, plenty of cool things from other ppl too.

And Jundo, yes.......

Go directly, intently, whole-heartedly and with complete determination ... directly to your Zafu ... and the Way of Not Going, Always Arriving, No Place to Go, Nothing in Need of Achieving, Nothing Lacking, Just Sitting.

Then leading your life, be a good husband, wife, father, mother, friend.

This always arriving, not going, just being and not being stuff is kind of beginning to become noticeable in some strange not experienced before way. It certainly is curious to see flashes of this every now and then. So it would seem to being to lead to being more wholesome when one begins to see what is what intrisically.

Anyways, thanks everyone. Will report back from the funny adventure called life and zazen should anything strike me.

Hehe.........Direction still not clear (me).

Mettha.

Aswini.

[Dojin]

Re: Why do you (as in you personally) do zazen

some time ago, about a year or so actually i felt i have come a point i cant go further with my practice alone and that i have hit a wall.
i reached a certain point that i could not move beyond. i had nothing to gain or to learn that i didnt know already. i thought that maybe i lost my love for zen and that it became so mundane for me that it didnt mean anything at all.

i know realize that it became such a part of me that no matter if i sit or dont it is rooted inside me. it is part of me no matter what i do. at this moment while i am writing this all i do is write this.
it is a very deep feeling i can not even begin to relate in to words. i guess i just do without thinking anymore why i do what i do, but just do it. yet i know what i do and i trust in what i do since it is generated by me.

i guess what i wanted to say is the same that everyone else...

I sit.
not even just sit.
I sit.

[Ryumon]

Re: Why do you (as in you personally) do zazen

I think that, after a while, we just internalize something about sitting, we find a way that is right, and the sitting seems right. I don't ask myself why I sit anymore, though sometimes I still have to prod myself to do so regularly.

Kirk

[Martin]

Re: Why do you (as in you personally) do zazen

Interesting question, Aswini.

Like others who have answered, I know (more or less) why I started sitting zazen. I read a book, and thought that I would get something out of doing it. Peace, insight, whatever. Now, I don't know why I sit. Sure, I sit to just sit, but, actually, why sit to just sit? I don't know. In the context of sitting, the question doesn't seem to have a lot of meaning. Which is a bit stupid, no? It's just that I can't imagine not doing it.

Gassho

Martin

[Ryumon]

Re: Why do you (as in you personally) do zazen

In my case, I started sitting about 20 years ago, after reading a book on Buddhism, which resonated deeply within me. I had actually read a couple of zen books 5 years earlier, inspired by John Cage, but didn't go any further at the time. One thing that led me in this direction was experiences I had from hallucinogenic (and other) drugs in the 1970s; I had many glimpses of emptiness back then, and just tasting that led me to want to get there again. It didn't take long for me to realize that this goal wouldn't get me anywhere, though.

After some time without sitting - many years - I started again about the time that Jundo set up this sangha, in part because I needed grounding, and in part because of health problems. My goals were both utilitarian and not. Now I understand that there is no goal, and I think that after all this time, I have reached the realization that I sit just to sit.

Kirk

[Alberto]

Re: Why do you (as in you personally) do zazen

The reason for asking this is what should the direction be?

The direction should be the cushion, shouldn't it? And a green zabuton if you can get it :wink: .

The direction should be just sitting. Abandoning directions. That should be the direction. The hard part is to get there, because we've been trained forever in the art of getting something in exchange for anything we do. So we start trying to have peace, control stress, cure depression, change things in our life that we perceive as shameful, and an endless list of conscious and unconscioud agendas. No problem with that, cause that's been our habit forever and pretending that we got rid of it would be a waste of time and energy. So we just sit, and if we think there is direction we just look at us trying to have direction, and if we think this is bull we look at ourselves thinking this is bull., and, without judging or making a big fuss, go back to just being there, sitting.

The direction should be realizing that zazen is good for nothing, so asking anything from it just ain't very bright.

But back to your original question: I personally do zazen because, in a way that I can't describe, I know I'm home.

Gassho, Alberto