Dropping body and mind ?

[Ugrok]

Hello !

How do you guys understand this famous Dogen quote about "dropping body and mind" ?

I'm quite confused about it. In my practice i feel like "dropping the mind" is just letting the thoughts be and coming back to the posture and the sitting, again and again. This i quite "see".

But "dropping the body" escapes my understanding. How do you drop the body ? For me, bodily sensations are always there, sometimes scary, sometimes not, but how can you "drop the body" ?

I know Dogen says that in fact, the practice of zazen IS in itself the whole dropping of the body and mind. But for me it does not feel like that, hahaha...

Thanks in advance !

Gassho,

Uggy
Sat Today

[Seishin]

Uggy

From my very limited knowledge and thinking about past and recent experiences, there have been times when I just lose all consciousness of my body. Contact with the zafu zabuton and even my breath just seems to "drop" away. As for the mind it always seems to be there but I guest it drops when the sky is blue. Thats how I've always seen it from the limitation of the books I read years ago. I'm sure more wiser folk will have a better view or answer if indeed there is one.

[Jishin]

Original face, the one that drags your corpse around, beyond the Big Bang, god, beyond the sea and the wave, Mu!, sound of one hand clapping, who am I?, don't know, boundless beyond boundless, no Buddha, beyond mind, Heart Sutra,
etc etc...

I prefer Bodhidharma's don't know.

That said, chopping wood and fetching water for the benefit of others may work best.

Who knows?

My 2 cents.

Gasho, Jishin, _/st\_

[Ongen]

Hi Uggy,

An honest question:
Why do you need to understand the dropping of body and mind?

Zen nun Chiyono wrote this poem:

In this way and that I tried to save the old pail
Since the bamboo strip was weakening and about to break
Until at last the bottom fell out.
No more water in the pail!
No more moon in the water!

Gassho
Ongen

Sat Today

[Ugrok]

Hi !

Because my body and mind make me suffer.

Gassho,

Uggy,
Sat today

[Jundo]

Hi Ugrok,

The above folks have provided some very wise and kind responses. Here is my simple description as I understand and have experienced.

The little personal "self" is filled with experiences in the mental world (mind) of this and that, based on categories and names which it affixes on the world which it experiences as apart from itself, judgments of aversion and attraction it imposes on all that, and a basic sense of separation and friction between it"self" and what it perceives as everything apart, "not the self." It fears for it own death, as you described in a separate thread.

The human body likewise has its needs and sensations, and a sense of separation and friction with all it considers outside and apart from the body. (We actually say "body-mind" as one thing, so it is probably best to say "body-mind dropped away.")

In Zazen, the hard mental borders and frictions of the mind which perceive "itself" and all the rest of the world as separate and in some tension, soften and sometimes fully drop away. Suddenly, there is but Wholeness. Likewise, sometimes the body can be forgotten, or there is a sense of harmony and oneness in which the body and everything "not the body" are no longer apart or in conflict. (Nishijima sometimes said it is like the body being "in the zone" of a runner, which he was in his youth). Life and death are no longer questions, as beginning and end are not the hard borders they once seemed. All is translucent, clear, unbroken, flowing whole ...

It is simply when the hard borders of self and other drop away, even labels and divisions like "self" and "other" drop away, and the war is over.

In an essay, I described it this way ... and Shikantaza as the lamp of realization ...

A VITAL REMINDER ON ZAZEN

Master Dogen often spoke about Zazen as "itself body-mind dropped off". I have this little way of explaining "Zazen is in itself body-mind dropped off":

Our small self, the body-mind, is always filled with countless desires ... the desire to be somewhere else, be getting somewhere, achieving some prize, some distant goal. Our body-mind is always judging this or that as somehow inadequate to what the body-mind wants, its likes and dislikes, needs, regrets and dreams.

Thus, when there is sat an instant of Zazen as wholeness in just sitting, the only place to be and act to do in that instant, in all of reality, to fulfill life as life ... the Buddha and all the Ancestors just sitting in that instant of sitting, no other thing to attain or which ever can be attained ... no other place to go or in need of going ... all holes filled, whether full or empty or in between ... all lack and excess resolved in that one sitting, with not one thing to add or take away ... judgments dropped away, "likes and dislikes" put aside ... nothing missing from Zazen (even when we might feel that "something is missing", for one can be fully content with the feeling of lack!) ... the sitting of Zazen and all life experienced as complete and whole as just the sitting of Zazen ... the entire universe manifesting itself on the Zafu at that moment ...

... in other words, when the "little self" is thereby put out of a job by the experience of "just sitting" as whole and complete with nothing more to be desired or needed ... then the hard borders between the "little self" and the "not the self" (which is usually being judged and "bumped into" and divided into pieces) thus naturally soften, fully fade away ... only the wholeness of the dance remaining ...

... then "Zazen is in itself body-mind dropped off".

http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?7605-A-vital-reminder-on-zazen

When the war is over, when the frictions and divisions are gone, and there is just interflowing Wholeness ... well, one knows.

In the Koan I posted today, Yamada Roshi had a lovely way to put it ...

... If the gate of the tower is opened ... It means that, everywhere and at all times, it is perfect and complete. ... It means to truly realize and grasp your own true self, the true universe. ... You realize that there is nothing missing.

http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?15025-BOOK-OF-EQUANIMITY-Case-74

Gassho, J

SatToday

[themonk614]

Hi, Ugrok,

From my perspective, it is simply:

"To study the Way is to study the self.
To study the self is to forget the self.
To forget the self is to be enlightened by the ten thousand things."

-- Dogen Zenji

To forget the self is to allow the ego to drop away. To allow the ego to drop away is to realize our intimacy with all things. To realize our intimacy with all things is to realize that we are One with the universe.

Not only that we are One with the universe, but we are the universe!

In the words of the Sufi mystic, Rumi:

"You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the ocean in a drop."

Simply put: it is to sit with our inherent Wholeness...

Gassho,
Matt

SatToday

[Jundo]

Lovely.

[Ugrok]

Thanks for the answers !

Simple, but not easy, especially when things don't go our way. I don't know if Dogen speaks about us being the whole universe or other "lsd stuff" haha, it seemed to me that he did not reject our "little self", but instead invited to realize that little self and "big self" are not different in the end.

Gassho,

Uggy, sat today

[Jundo]

it seemed to me that he did not reject our "little self", but instead invited to realize that little self and "big self" are not different in the end.

That is correct. However, in this Practice it is very important to sometimes experience the softening of small self, as well as all the interpenetrating (for want of a better word as ultimately all is not two) of each and both at once as one. Dropping is also wonderful too.

In our way of Kensho, sometimes just experiencing the softening and interpentrating is enough as Kensho, rather than the very complete droppings that some Zen Teachers emphasize (especially in Kensho centered Zazen, as the "Three Pillars of Zen" book seemed to emphasize).

http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?15013-Zen-dharma-books&p=192066&viewfull=1#post192066

Gassho, J

SatToday

[Shoki]

Ugrok,
"Not easy especially when things don't go our way." A big lightning bolt for me was when I realized how much time I spent suffering because things and people don't turn out the way I think they should. I can look at myself as a separate thing that other things bounce off of and I react positively or negatively from my self concept. I don't have time for that silly stuff anymore. Mind, body, stop with the dividing and categorizing already and just sit. (Don't forget to breathe).
Gassho
Sat Today
James

[MyoHo]

Hi guys,

dropping in a bit late but the question you ask Ugrok, is one that is often on my mind too. Keeping one eye on Jundo to see what he thinks of it, this is what I came up with so far:

Reading Dogen my first reaction is often " yeah sure, thats a lot of BS about something simple. Ill just take a good sleeping pill or a tall glass of Jonny Walker and Ill show you " dropping body and mind" allright! Just go to sleep is all. Well, no, not so simple at all since during sleep our mind goes wild telling stories and making plots or assumptions all coming from...dukha. Our desires and all measuring and choosing between this is good and this is not good. I want food, money, a career, be a better person or a better Zen student. Be a crack at everything! Always in the past or in the future.


So if its not to be found in sleep ( being unconcious in way) maybe we should be more like animals or a tree. They dont mind and live simple, straightforward lives not minding with seemingly " no mind" attitudes.
No big or small mind, Just this, perfectly in the right here and now. "MU!"

Wrong again right? Being an animal or a tree is ALL about desire and living according to instinct and lower, primitive urges. Slaves of the belly so to speak. That cant be it either. All about dukha again and leads from birth to death in a neverending cycle.

Maybe thats the thing. Dropping body and mind as described by Dogen can only be achieved while fully concious and awake, smack in the midle of all suffering. We humans are the ones who are or could be living a concious life. A form of existance that makes us able to sit and drop this body full of dukha and a mind full of self made suffering, as a concios act. Choosing to make this sacred efford to drop it. This is maybe why Dogen stresses us not to waste a single moment and at the same time talks about just going about our daily business and doing just that with " no mind" ? Dropping body and mind maybe is what we do the second our butt hits the zafu because you choose to do so, conciously and sit in the center of the wheel. Where there is silence in the middle of everything that goes on arround us. Like Jundo teaches us, not adding nor leaving anything out the Whole thing. A huge and precious gift that is not to be wasted.

Well, thats roughly my contribution to what all others above already said. Maybe you better listen to them he. ��

Gassho

MyoHo

sitting today

[Myosha]

Hello,

10+10+10 . . . the practice only stops with stopping the practice.

Reading a volume consumed with 'goals', comparisons, the "necessity" of duality, etc.

Just sit, dance, and laugh.

We're all bozos on this bus. ^^


Gassho
Myosha
sat today

[Jundo]

Hi guys,

dropping in a bit late but the question you ask Ugrok, is one that is often on my mind too. Keeping one eye on Jundo to see what he thinks of it, this is what I came up with so far:

Reading Dogen my first reaction is often " yeah sure, thats a lot of BS about something simple. Ill just take a good sleeping pill or a tall glass of Jonny Walker and Ill show you " dropping body and mind" allright! Just go to sleep is all. Well, no, not so simple at all since during sleep our mind goes wild telling stories and making plots or assumptions all coming from...dukha. Our desires and all measuring and choosing between this is good and this is not good. I want food, money, a career, be a better person or a better Zen student. Be a crack at everything! Always in the past or in the future.


So if its not to be found in sleep ( being unconcious in way) maybe we should be more like animals or a tree. They dont mind and live simple, straightforward lives not minding with seemingly " no mind" attitudes.
No big or small mind, Just this, perfectly in the right here and now. "MU!"

Wrong again right? Being an animal or a tree is ALL about desire and living according to instinct and lower, primitive urges. Slaves of the belly so to speak. That cant be it either. All about dukha again and leads from birth to death in a neverending cycle.

Maybe thats the thing. Dropping body and mind as described by Dogen can only be achieved while fully concious and awake, smack in the midle of all suffering. We humans are the ones who are or could be living a concious life. A form of existance that makes us able to sit and drop this body full of dukha and a mind full of self made suffering, as a concios act. Choosing to make this sacred efford to drop it. This is maybe why Dogen stresses us not to waste a single moment and at the same time talks about just going about our daily business and doing just that with " no mind" ? Dropping body and mind maybe is what we do the second our butt hits the zafu because you choose to do so, conciously and sit in the center of the wheel. Where there is silence in the middle of everything that goes on arround us. Like Jundo teaches us, not adding nor leaving anything out the Whole thing. A huge and precious gift that is not to be wasted.

Lovely. I feel this is right on the money. Not asleep or unconscious or in a trance (although sometimes one may experience moments of very deep concentrated Samadhi on the cushion, or other unusual mind states, that is not our main goal in this Practice) not dead or insentient like a stone ...

... but rather alert, awake, aware with the borders, separations and borders softened, sometimes fully dropped away. All Whole and interflowing, the war over.

Sometimes I like to say that we do discover our inner rock or tree or mountain in this Practice, as those just sit and do and be without mentally questioning or judging or regretting or worrying and all the mental hoo hah we add to life (and Dogen and some others said they too are "sentient beings") ... however, you are right that in reality, being a sentient human being is most unique and special, with all that gray matter between the ears both the source of the problem and the key to awakening.

Lovely.

By the way, if anyone would like to read more ramblings on what is "Kensho" (Seeing One's Nature) in Soto Zen, and the role of very deep passing "dropping" and other experiences, another old essay ... Nice place to visit, would not and could not live there ... not really even necessary so long as that softening and interflowing happens ...

These experiences can be light and deep and beyond light or deep. They can be most profound and enveloping .... HOWEVER, that does not matter because, generally in Soto, we consider all such experiences as passing scenery ... just a visit to the wonders of the Grand Canyon. One cannot stay there, as lovely as it is. Nice and educational place to visit ... would not, should not, could not truly live there. One can even live perfectly well never having visited the vast Canyon at all. The most important thing is to get on the bus, get on with the trip, get on with life from there. In our Soto Way, the WHOLE TRIP is Enlightenment when realized as such (that is the True "Kensho"!) ... not some momentary stop or passing scene or some final destination. ...

For Soto Folks, when we realize such ... every moment of the Buddha-Bus trip, the scenery out the windows (both what we encounter as beautiful and what appears ugly), the moments of good health and moments of passing illness, the highway, the seats and windows, all the other passengers on the Bus who appear to be riding with us, when we board and someday when we are let off ... the whole Trip ... is all the Buddha-Bus, all Enlightenment and Kensho, all the "destination" beyond "coming" or "going" or "getting there", when realized as such (Kensho). This ride is what we make it.

In a nutshell, a wondrous and important experience perhaps, but in "Zen Enlightenment" one comes to realize that even this ordinary, dusty, confining, sometimes joyous and sometimes ugly world is just as miraculous, wondrous, and "holy" as anything like that. ...


In the violence, ugliness, anger, greed and clutching, divisive thoughts and frictions of the world, this fact can be hidden, so hard to see. Thus, a key aspect of our Practice is to see and live free of the violence, anger, greed, clutching and all the rest to see this fact more clearly ... and even to realize it was there all along, though so hidden by the storm. ...

... The “ordinary and mundane” is never ordinary. Every moment and any encounter, each breeze and blade of grass is special, sacred, a jewel in Indra’s Net. Thus, I do not mean to lower the import of Kensho in the least, but just to RAISE UP all of life, and every instant of practice, to one and the same par with Kensho, for such is the wholeness, intimacy, unity that is KENSHO’d in KENSHO.
.
Realizing that fact – that the most “ordinary” is sacred and whole and unbroken – is at the heart of Kensho! Failing to see Kensho as extraordinary insight into the extra-ordinariness and sacredness of both the sacred and ordinary is not to see “Kensho.”

More here ...

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

Gassho, J

[Mp]

Sometimes I like to say that we do discover our inner rock or tree or mountain in this Practice, as those just sit and do and be without mentally questioning or judging or regretting or worrying and all the mental hoo hah we add to life (and Dogen and some others said they too are "sentient beings") ... however, you are right that in reality, being a sentient human being is most unique and special, with all that gray matter between the ears both the source of the problem and the key to awakening.

Lovely.

I like this Jundo ... thank you!

And thank you all, some great and wise reflections here. =)

Gassho
Shingen

s@today