The point of zazen

Maybe the point of zazen is this: you sit immobile, facing a wall, being bored, and you do it for years, until you finally realize that there's no point to zazen, there never was, and you finally just give up and accept that what you are, at that moment, is what you are. That if you thought there was a goal to seek, you finally realize that it was there all along. That you don't even have to click your heels three times to get home because you've never left. And that there is no home, and there is no elsewhere, there is only



Gassho,

Kirk


(Posted from my iPhone; please excuse any typos or brevity.)

Thanks Kirk, that sounds right to ... "there's no place home, there's no place like home". =)

Gassho
Shingen

Kirk,

I'm not so sure about that. Just because you don't have a goal doesn't mean you don't go anywhere. There should be no goal in zazen, but if I stop to think (not while sitting!) I can come up with a number of ways it has changed me.

I suppose it could be so for some, but I would tend think it an excuse NOT to allow things to influence you and thus be cold and heartless to those around you.

Just my opinion of course as a priest in training, which would appear to be a goal. But is it? Whoa! ;)

Gassho,
Dosho

I don't suppose I'll ever know the point of Zazen. I'm just learning to watch those clicking heels, whether they do anything or not.

Gassho, Entai

Sounds about right, and I want to experience that 'realization', maybe I need to sit.

Rinzai said :
Followers of the Way, do you want to attain this Dharma? Then it is indeed necessary to become a man who has nothing further to seek .

When we do zazen we seek nothing and we will attain this Dharma :)

Gassho _/|\_

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kirkmc

Maybe the point of zazen is this: you sit immobile, facing a wall, being bored, and you do it for years, until you finally realize that there's no point to zazen, there never was, and you finally just give up and accept that what you are, at that moment, is what you are. That if you thought there was a goal to seek, you finally realize that it was there all along. That you don't even have to click your heels three times to get home because you've never left. And that there is no home, and there is no elsewhere, there is only

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Hmmm.

There is a difference in Zazen between sitting in bored, thumb-twiddling, resigned or numb complacency and sitting AS WHOLENESS. What makes the difference? Only one's own attitude baby! gassho2[claps]

I sometimes write this ... see if it makes a crazy-wise sense ...

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SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: WHOLLY HOLY WHOLE

I came across a discussion on the internet this week about "how to Shikantaza" ... and much good and solid advice was given. Some folks follow the breath, some "Just Sit" in boundless spaciousness, some advised this or that on the posture and letting thoughts go. All wise and good, and talk of posture, focus and such are all a necessary setting of the stage.

However, in my view (and that is all it is, and hopefully a viewless view too) SOMETHING VITAL WAS LACKING AND LEFT OUT OF THE CONVERSATION, something without which Zazen is perhaps left incomplete and lacking ...

... TO WIT, THAT NOTHING IS EVER LACKING, EVER MISSING, EVER INCOMPLETE, EVER NOT FULLY HELD AND FULLY REALIZED IN A MOMENT OF ZAZEN! A moment of sitting is THE BUDDHA, THE PURE LAND, NIRVANA ATTAINED! Each instant of Zazen is the only act, the only place to be, in and holding all time and space in that moment!

The meaning of that may confuse some folks ... but those who don't get it JUST DON'T GET IT (in my view and viewless anyway)!

What don't they get?

That to realize that one is never, from the outset, in need of change is an earthshaking CHANGE! There is absolutely nothing about you and the universe (not two) to add or take away, and tasting that there is "nothing to add" is an vital addition! Just Sitting to-the-marrow, radically dropping all goals, judgments, dropping all desire to get somewhere and attain a realization ... gets one somewhere, and a revolutionary realization! Truly understanding that everything is completely beyond need for change is a complete change, and finding that there was never a place to get to is finally getting somewhere. [scared]

More here:

http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showt...LLY-HOLY-WHOLE

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A VITAL REMINDER ON ZAZEN -- by Jundo (please read)

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 ... http://www.zenforuminternational.org...lies/yahoo.gif

... 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".

Human beings simply do not know how to act an action pierced as naturally complete just by the act of the action itself, how to live life that is whole just by the act of living life.

This is not sitting 'on one's complacent rump like a bump on a log', but is instead whole ... vibrant ... alive ... fulfilled sitting.

Then, rising up from the Zafu to our day to day lives ... we realizes that there is no place to go, even as we have so many places to go ... no holes in need of filling, even as we grab a shovel and get to work to filling holes ... nothing to fix in life, even as we try to fix what can be fixed ... no life or death or disease to cure, even as we take our medicine ... aversions and attractions dropped away, even as we lightly hold onto those aversions and attractions necessary to ordinary human life ... nothing to attain, even as we follow the Precepts to keep a healthy and balanced life, manifesting the Teachings in each moment and choice ... fully knowing that each step of life's path is a total arriving, sacred in itself, even as we seek to choose the path to a balanced and loving life (and to avoid the paths which lead off the cliff!)

It is then seen as --all-- the wholeness of the dance.

Something like that. It's not rocket science. Please sit and live in such way.

Gassho, Jundo

Ruby Red, Ruby Red, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore Toto !
Just sit and forget the drama/ not Dharma

gassho, Shokai, still learning the way and knowing nothing.

A VITAL REMINDER ON ZAZEN -- by Jundo (please read)

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 ... http://www.zenforuminternational.org...lies/yahoo.gif

Gassho _/|\_

Hello,

Hakuin's Song of Zazen (an excerpt)

To praise and embrace it, to practice its Wisdom,
brings unending blessings. bring mountains of merit.
And if we turn inward and prove our True Nature, that
True Self is no-self, our own self is no-self, we go beyond ego and past clever words.
Then the gate to the oneness of cause-and-effect is thrown open.
Not two and not three, straight ahead runs the Way.
Our form now being no-form, in going and returning we never leave home.
Our thought now being no-thought, our dancing and songs are the Voice of the Dharma.
How vast is the heaven of boundless Samadhi!
How bright and transparent the moonlight of wisdom!
What is there outside us? What is there we lack?
Nirvana is openly shown to our eyes.
This earth where we stand is the pure lotus land!
And this very body, the body of Buddha.

translation Hsu Yun


Gassho,
Myosha

The purpose of Zazen is something that is ephemeral and elusive. The only think I can do in zazen is be with the moment as it is, dropping judgements (such as joyful and sad), and manifesting completeness.

Gassho,
Heion

Hard to say what the point of zazen is. Maybe:

dusty deluded mirror

cleaned by zazen

off the cushion reflecting reality

as is

like my shiny bald head :-)

Gassho, Jishin

Letting go of all views does mean sinking into boredom...maybe it is something that escapes Brad postmodern punkish take on the whole trip...Wonder. And not packing it, boxing it, and see for yourself and non-self what happens!

and again it is beyond the beyond that is to say here and now!

gassho

Taigu

Bro. Brad Warner penned this famous essay. I cannot find the original now, so this will have to do. Lovely.

I also say, Zazen is "Big B Boringwondrous" ... right through small human boring or not boring!

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ZEN IS BORING

Let's face it. Zen is boring. You couldn't find a duller, more tedious practice than Zazen. The philosophy is dry and unexciting. It's amazing to me anyone reads this page at all. Don't you people know you could be playing Tetris, right now? That there are a million free porno sites out there? Get a life, why don't you?!

Joshu Sasaki, a Zen teacher from the Rinzai Sect, once said that Buddhist teachers always try to make students long for the Buddha World, but that if the students knew how really dry and tasteless the Buddha World actually was, they'd never want to go. He's right. Look at Zen teachers. Not a one of them has any sense of fashion. They sit around staring at blank walls. Ask them about levitation, they won't tell you. Ask them about life after death, they change the subject. Ask them about miracles and they start spouting nonsense about carrying buckets of water and chopping up fire wood. They go to bed early and wake up early. Zen is a philosophy for nerds.

Boredom is important. Most of your life is dull, tasteless and boring. If you practice Zazen, you learn a lot about boredom. I remember the first time I sat Zazen, I was real excited. I figured I'd be seeing visions of four armed Krishnas descending from the Heavens, or I'd be fading into The Void just like the old Beatles song, or reach Nirvana (whatever that was) or some great wonderful thing. But the clock just ticked away, my legs started aching, and stupid thoughts kept drifting by. Maybe I wasn't doing it right, I thought. But no, year after year it was the same. Boring, boring, boring. After almost 20 years it's still boring as Hell.

People hate their ordinary lives. We want something better. This, our day to day life of drudgery and work, is boring, dull and ordinary, we think. But someday, someday... There's an episode of The Monkees* where Mike Nesmith says that when he was in high school he used to walk out on the school's empty stage with a guitar in his hands thinking "Someday, someday." Then he said that now (now being 1967, at the height of the Monkees fame) he walks out on stage in front of thousands of fans and thinks "Someday, someday." That's the way life is. It's never going to be perfect. Whatever "someday" you imagine, it will ever come. Never. No matter what it is. No matter how well you build your fantasy or how carefully you follow all the steps necessary to achieve it. Even if it comes true exactly the way you planned, you'll end up just like Mike Nesmith. Someday, someday... I guarantee you.

Your life will change. That's for sure. But it won't get any better and it won't get any worse. How can you compare now to the past? What do you know about the past? You don't have a clue! You have no idea at all what yesterday was really like, let alone last week or ten years ago. The future? Forget about it...

People long for big thrills. Peak experiences. Some people come to Zen expecting that Enlightenment will be the Ultimate Peak Experience. The Mother of All Peak Experiences. But real enlightenment is the most ordinary of the ordinary. Once I had an amazing vision. I saw myself transported through time and space. Millions, no, billions, trillions, Godzillions of years passed. Not figuratively, but literally. Whizzed by. I found myself at the very rim of time and space, a vast giant being composed of the living minds and bodies of every thing that ever was. It was an incredibly moving experience. Exhilarating. I was high for weeks. Finally I told Nishijima Sensei about it . He said it was nonsense. Just my imagination. I can't tell you how that made me feel. Imagination? This was as real an experience as any I've ever had. I just about cried. Later on that day I was eating a tangerine. I noticed how incredibly lovely a thing it was. So delicate. So amazingly orange. So very tasty. So I told Nishijima about that. That experience, he said, was enlightenment.

You need a teacher like that. The world needs lots more teachers like that. Countless teachers would have interpreted my experience as a merging of my Atman with God, as a portent of great and wonderful things, would have praised my spiritual growth and given me pointers on how to go even further. And I would have been suckered right in to that, let me tell you! Woulda fallen for it hook line and sinker, boy howdy. If a teacher doesn't shatter your illusions he's doing you no favors at all.

Boredom is what you need. Merging with the Mind of God at the Edge of the Universe, that's excitement. That's what we're all into this Zen thing for, right? Eating tangerines? Come on, dude! What could be more boring than eating a tangerine?

Some years ago some psychologists did a study in which they sat some Buddhists monks and some regular folks in a room and wired them up to EEG machines to record their brain activity. They told everyone to relax, then introduced a repetitive stimulus, a loudly ticking clock, into the room. The normal folks' EEG showed that their brains stopped reacting to the stimulus after a few seconds. But the Buddhists just kept on mentally registering the tick every time it happened. Psychologists and journalists never quite know how to interpret that finding, though it's often cited. It's a simple matter. Buddhists pay attention to their lives. Ordinary folks figure they have better things to think about.

If you really take a look at your ordinary boring life, you'll discover something truly wonderful. Our regular old pointless lives are incredibly joyful -- amazingly, astoundingly, relentlessly, mercilessly joyful. You don't need to do a damned thing to experience such joy either. People think they need big experiences, interesting experiences. And it's true that gigantic, traumatic experiences sometimes bring people, for a fleeting moment, into a kind of enlightened state. That's why such experiences are so desired. But it wears off fast and you're right back out there looking for the next thrill. You don't need to take drugs, blow up buildings, win the Indy 500 or walk on the moon. You don't need to go hang-gliding over the Himalayas, you don't need to screw your luscious and oh-so-willing secretary or party all night with the beautiful people. You don't need visions of merging with the totality of the Universe. Just be what you are, where you are. Clean the toilet. Walk the dog. Do your work. That's the most magical thing there is. If you really want to merge with God, that's the way to do it. This moment. You sitting there with your hand in your underwear and potato chip crumbs on your chin, scrolling down your computer screen thinking "This guy's out of his mind." This very moment is Enlightenment. This moment has never come before and once it's gone, it's gone forever. You are this moment. This moment is you. This very moment is you merging with the total Universe, with God Himself.

The life you're living right now has joys even God will never know.

Getting bored with something or not has to do with ones ability to pay attention. This, that, point or no point, ordinary life we don't pay much attention to or River of Diamonds?
What is the point? What is the Point!

Gassho

Myoho

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Heion

The purpose of Zazen is something that is ephemeral and elusive. The only think I can do in zazen is be with the moment as it is, dropping judgements (such as joyful and sad), and manifesting completeness.

Gassho,
Heion

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Nicely said Heion. =)

Gassho
Shingen

Jundo, thanks for posting. That is a wonderful article.

Gassho,
Joyo

Yea, brad is a great writer. The only thing I have in common with him is that we both sit at least twice a day. And that's Ok.

Kind regards. /\

Maybe there's something wrong with me.

I think being bored is a product of expecting to be entertained and having fun.

Zazen and zen are fascinating. Regarding books and reading, there's so much to learn! Yep, I'm such a nerd.

When I sit, sometimes my mind is a whirlwind of stuff. Sometimes it's quiet and still. Sometimes there's a song playing endlessly (usually metal [morehappy], which I like a lot). Sometimes I'm tired and little dreams happen.

Sometimes I sit and 40 minutes go away in a heartbeat.

How can I find time to get bored?

Gassho,

Kyonin