Its Moving!!!

[dharmasponge]

Hey everyone,

Cold and frosty here in the UK! I recall the first time I took control of a car....I remember thinking "...its moving its moving..." and feeling uncomfortable with the fact I now had control of this thing!

I didn't sit this morning, been suffering from the annual winter lurgy I am afraid. So apologies there, I did want to ask you all a question though if I may(?)

You might recall my long intellectual battles regarding Shikantaza, we had many a long thread develop as a result. However, over the last year or so it 'clicked' if you like. I began to get it. I dropped all the trying and shut the F up and just sat.

Experiencing the wholeness and simplicity in putting everything into just sitting helped it all fall into place. So, whats the problem eh?

I am still aware that Shikantaza is so very different from my other experiences with sitting in the Theravadin tradition for years. I am now worried that I might be getting 'good' (as it were) at something that isn't necessarily Buddhist.

I see so many discussions in here and the odd reference to Dogen and other more contemporary teachers but so few mentions of the Suttas or Agamas....

I hope that makes sense.....its a sense of feeling ill at ease I guess with the ease at which I am now 'Just Sitting'.

Tony

[Mp]

I am now 'Just Sitting'.

Very nice Tony ... =)

Gassho
Shingen

s@today

[dharmasponge]

Very nice Tony ... =)

Gassho
Shingen

s@today

...But...

[Mp]

...But...

Why would you think there is a but Tony? Remember, don't over think, just be. =)

Gassho
Shingen

s@today

[dharmasponge]

Thanks..

You know the metaphor of being in the cave of ghosts on the dark side of the mountain?

I am sitting. Just sitting. Its comfortable and spacious, sometimes almost blissful....but the more #OK# it feels and the more I seem to fit into that groove the more apprehensive I feel off the cushion. I might be wallowing in some solitary practice of blissing out without going any way toward reconciling the Great Matter?

[Mp]

Again Tony, please remember that when we sit Shikantaza we are not trying to gain anything nor trying to push anything away, we are just sitting, just being with whatever arises or with whatever falls away.

Even on the dark side of the mountain there is bliss, just as there is bliss in the spacious and comfortable. Make sense?

Gassho
Shingen

s@today

Thanks..

You know the metaphor of being in the cave of ghosts on the dark side of the mountain?

I am sitting. Just sitting. Its comfortable and spacious, sometimes almost blissful....but the more #OK# it feels, the more I seem to fit into that groove the more apprehensive I feel off the cushion. I might be wallowing in some solitary practice of blissing out without going any way toward reconciling the Great Matter?

[dharmasponge]

But we sit for a reason (we have been here before )

Regardless how subtle it is...there is a rationale and reason if no agenda.

I need to know what I am doing is valid and a legitimate practice in line with what the Buddha taught - not just Dogen et al.

[Mp]

But we sit for a reason (we have been here before )

Regardless how subtle it is...there is a rationale and reason if no agenda.

I need to know what I am doing is valid and a legitimate practice in line with what the Buddha taught - not just Dogen et al.

Hey Tony,

Well, tell me why you sit? What is your rationale for it?

For me sitting is just sitting and yet sitting allows me to see life and all it encompasses just as it is ... even though there may be something that is in need of changing I still need to accept it just as it is, if I don't, then what is there to change?

As for your practice to be valid and legitimate ... only you can tell whether that is true or not, it is not for anyone to say. Practice in my view is more then just sitting on your cushion ... it is about going out into the world and DOING that state of BEING! Sitting and thinking about sitting is not sitting at all, it is resting. This stillness, wholeness, completeness that you experience on the cushion do you take it out into the world, share it with the one's you love? With the neighbour down the street? To the stressed out mother in the store? To the man begging for food? This for me is practice and this practice does come partly from sitting on the cushion, but also from doing/engaging in the world.

Just some thoughts. =)

Gassho
Shingen

s@today

[Jakuden]

Hey everyone,

Cold and frosty here in the UK! I recall the first time I took control of a car....I remember thinking "...its moving its moving..." and feeling uncomfortable with the fact I now had control of this thing!

I didn't sit this morning, been suffering from the annual winter lurgy I am afraid. So apologies there, I did want to ask you all a question though if I may(?)

You might recall my long intellectual battles regarding Shikantaza, we had many a long thread develop as a result. However, over the last year or so it 'clicked' if you like. I began to get it. I dropped all the trying and shut the F up and just sat.

Experiencing the wholeness and simplicity in putting everything into just sitting helped it all fall into place. So, whats the problem eh?

I am still aware that Shikantaza is so very different from my other experiences with sitting in the Theravadin tradition for years. I am now worried that I might be getting 'good' (as it were) at something that isn't necessarily Buddhist.

I see so many discussions in here and the odd reference to Dogen and other more contemporary teachers but so few mentions of the Suttas or Agamas....

I hope that makes sense.....its a sense of feeling ill at ease I guess with the ease at which I am now 'Just Sitting'.

Tony

Yes. The mind rambles on. Mine looks for reasons not to be comfortable "just sitting " also. Silly really!!!
Gassho
Jakuden
SatToday


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[dharmasponge]

Hey Tony,

Well, tell me why you sit? What is your rationale for it? .......

Just some thoughts. =) ..........

Gassho
Shingen

s@today

Thanks Shingen, thoughts for me to ponder.

Regarding why I sit; its a deep conviction that there is something fundamentally amiss with my perception of 'reality'. Its far too muddied with 'me' and me ego states colour and stain it. As a result I instinctively feel that sitting might go some way to remove these clouds and offer up a clarity.

[Jishin]

Hi Tony,

You are bored and dropped in to say hello. It's good to hear from you. Drop in more often. We miss you! :-)

Gasho, Jishin, _/st\_

[dharmasponge]

Bored....???

How on earth did you deduce that???

Anyway............................................ ..................................

You see? This is what worries me about the practice.

Ok, I can see where this is heading!

[Jishin]

Hi Tony,

I am just projecting.

Gasho, Jishin, _/st\_

[Jundo]

Hi Tony,

Good to hear from you.

Your understanding of Buddhist history may have some gaps. The Mahayana always saw itself as a later, more sophisticated Teaching of the Buddha, with the early Teachings lesser. That is no longer fashionable to say, and rather ridiculous (although I do personally feel that the Mahayana improved on aspects of the Southern formulation in some ways), so it is more acceptable to say these days that they are two beautiful branches of the same tree. The Northern Buddhist, Zen and Southern Traditions are all later human variations and modifications on Buddhist themes. In fact, do you know that much of what is the modern "Theravada" and most of the Suttas are younger than the Mahayana Sutras, and also much of the Theravada tradition is a 19th Century and later development? It is true. "Theravada" and commentary interpretations of the Suttas' purported meanings developed centuries after the time of Buddha. More on that here, if you are interested ...

http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?13433-Satipatthana-Sutta-Theravada-Suttas-and-Mahayana-followers-development-into-Zen&p=153794&viewfull=1#post153794

We know, and have known for some time, that the Pali canon as we have it -- and it is generally conceded to be our oldest source -- cannot be taken back further than the last quarter of the first century B.C.E, the date of the Alu-vihara redaction ... In fact, it is not until the time of the commentaries of Buddhaghosa, Dhammapala, and others -- that is to say, the fifth to sixth centuries C.E. -- that we can know anything definite about the actual contents of this canon. ...

and here, on the creation of modern Theravada in rather recent times ...

http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/B/bo16744419.html

But another interesting fact concerns the Fourth Jhana of the old Suttas, once considered the Buddha's highest Teaching on meditation. Before commentators went mucking about with it, imposing some rather extreme and artificial interpretations on what it signifies, it resounded of the simple equanimity and openness of something very much close to Shikantaza. That fact is missed by many folks ...

The Fourth Jhana in the Pali Suttas was considered the 'summit' of Jhana practice (as the higher Jhana, No. 5 to 8, were not encouraged as a kind of otherworldly 'dead end', even a later addition imposed under the influence of Brahmanism) and [was described as] "an abandoning of pleasure, pain, attractions/aversions, a dropping of both joy and grief", a dropping away of both rapture and bliss states, resulting in a "purity of mindfulness" and "equanimity". Combine this with the fact that, more than a "one pointed mind absorbed into a particular object", there is a "unification of mind" (described as a broader awareness around the object of meditation ... whereby the "mind itself becomes collected and unmoving, but not the objects of awareness, as mindfulness becomes lucid, effortless and unbroken"

More here [written to you in fact on a previous visit] ...

http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showt...l=1#post155140

That means that the earliest, most common description in the old Suttas of what the Buddha meant as the goal of meditation describes a kind of non-judgemental, equanimous, non-pondering, non-bliss seeking sitting centered on wholeness that is very much of the flavor of Shikantaza.

I am also sorry to say that you still seem to miss the point of Shikantaza. It is to sit in the power and totally fulfilled vibrancy and completeness in the act itself, without one other thing in lack, all the world shimmering in its Wholeness. How is that "sitting in a ghost cave"? It is also not about blissing out (although sometimes there might be bliss, as in the lesser Jhanas).

Anyway, Tony, it seems you still have a bit to learn.

Gassho, Jundo

SatToday

[Kaishin]

Tony,

What's so important about being a "proper Buddhist?" There's no such thing! It's all made up!

Do you want to be a "good Buddhist" or do you want to clarify your life?

Every sect has the true teaching while simultaneously disagreeing with everyone else ;-)