Not Very Good at Zazen

[Ishin]

As some of you know, I hurt my shoulder pretty badly recently. ( It's getting better so no worries needed) In addition to the pain, the position of sitting in Zazen made it hurt more making it awfully difficult to sit. I quit sitting for awhile and now that I am back sitting a little, it still is very frustrating.

While away on a small vacation this week, I took some time to listen to some Dharma Talks and I stumbled on this one by Greg Fain. In my opinion a good Dharma talk.


http://sfzc.org/not-very-good-at-zazen

To paraphrase he talks about sitting with or without goals. The Goal-less goal as we sometimes talk about around here. Then he talks about Mr. Rodgers, discussing drawing with crayons on his show to kids. How he enjoys drawing with crayons, but he never was any good at it. But that doesn't matter.

A light-bulb went off. I have become frustrated with Zazen, because I wanted to be GOOD at doing Zazen, or I was trying to get somewhere doing Zazen, which is really BAD Zazen. Hurting or not, I sit now. It isn't easy, but showing up to do it is what is important. Returning to regular sitting, even if I can't sit "well".

Anyone else caught trying to be really GOOD at Zazen?

Gassho
Ishin
Sat Today

[derek12261984]

When I first started meditation I often felt a sense of frustration, not due to any injury, but because I couldn't for the life of me stop the onslaught of thoughts. I thought that good meditation meant stopping all thoughts and a clearing of the mind. I have come to realize though that's it's not about "stopping thought" but avoiding attachment to said thoughts. I know our situations are quite different in one respect, but I can appreciate the "trying to be good at" meditation. I think that many of us that have discovered Zen tend to be perfectionists and we have a hard time letting go of control and just sitting. Since discovering Shikantaza this fight has become much easier for me. Good luck to you in your practice and also I hope you are pain free very soon.

Gassho
Derek
#sat2day

[Taiyo]

I went through that stage of getting better at Zazen, never being satisfied with the way I was sitting, the thoughts in my head, etc.

In my case, being a perfectionist as well, this dissatisfaction came from reading some books where I got the idea that, unless your posture was perfect, you were doing it wrong and you wouldn't get anywhere.

Thanks to Shikantaza practice I came to terms with the idea that I didn't actually need to get anywhere and, as Jundo says in his sit-along videos, there's not bad Zazen, even the "bad" Zazen. Now I sit with that idea, better, without any ideas or getting better and the practice became completely different.

I hope your shoulder will feel better very soon.

Gassho,
Andoitz

Sat Today

[Myosha]

Hello,

Can't stop breathing. Won't stop sitting. Let it be easy.


Gassho
Myosha
sat today

[Jika]

Ishin,

thanks for posting this.

I'm getting caught all the time.
When I started sitting without knowing anything, I sat. Surprised what my mind and body would come up with.
Now I know there are the videos here, and there is fukanzazengi etc.
And I should be LEARNING to sit.
My sits often carry thoughts why I can't understand "non-thinking".
And why everything has to be so complicated.
I sit half-lotus, and I can't do the mudra correctly, because I have nothing to rest my right hand on.
Oh, Zen pun.
Well, I need to hold my right hand with my left, otherwise it will either drop or go in spastic cramps.
Taigu's towel-method does not work for me.

So, imagine spending half the time with the come-and-go thought "My mudra is wrong, too tight, too loose, I'm not doing Shikantaza!".
Second arrow: "This thought is ridiculous."
Third arrow: "I'm having ridiculous thoughts, so I'm not doing Zazen."
Fourth: "Oh, my, how long have I spent thinking now again? Let's start over..."

Myosha, the "letting" part is my problem.
Sometimes the sitting does the sitting, but I can't make it.

Gassho
Jika
#wrongmudratoday

[Myosha]

spastic cramps. (My band's name in the 'Eighties')


"Myosha, the "letting" part is my problem."

Hello beautiful.

Just a suggestion: Let go of "letting go". It's just verbiage.


Gassho
Myosha
sat today

[Bokusei]

It can be hard to shake ideas of improvement. I greatly appreciated Jundo's teaching on this and try to apply the non gaining, no bad zazen principle. But it would be dishonest to pretend it doesn't constantly peak in.

Part of the problem for me is that I came to meditation and zen from martial arts and with that discipline the whole time I was training to improve, working on weak points of technique etc... Now, letting go of that mindset is hard.

My zazen is usually spent fighting sleep or disappearing off through the canopy with monkey mind. A long way away from the letting thoughts come and go without grabbing hold.

Maybe, if I try really hard I'll be able to stop trying so hard






Gassho

Bokusei

saTTodaY

[Jundo]

It is so very hard to be free of our human tendency to wish to attain, improve, win, get.

On the other hand, this Way is not about being complacent, self-satisfied, wallowing in our human thoughts and emotions.

So, what is our Practice?

One might say that we attain, improve at, win and get radically free of the human thirst to attain, improve at, win and get. This involves our learning how to stop running and chasing after things by thoroughly allowing and resting.

Furthermore, in order to attain and get good at this ability to be free of attaining and improving, we have to work at improving ourselves by being less imprisoned in runaway desires (knowing balance and healthy moderation and direction in our desires instead), improving our ability to be free of harmful emotions and thoughts of anger, jealousy and divisive judgments, learning not to wallow and be tangled in our memories, worries and dreams for the future and other wild thoughts. In other words, we need to improve and fix some failings in order to be able to taste that there was never a thing in this universe lacking, and nothing to improve and fix from the start! The person caught up in feelings of lack, frustration, anger, jealousy, runaway regrets and other thoughts/emotions and such is blinded to this "nothing to change" (kind of a Karmic Katch-22)

The hungry human being might be said to rediscover how to be like the mountains and rivers: A mountain does not hunger to be a better mountain, to be taller than its neighbors, does not measure its own imperfections, never worries about the future or regrets the past, and just sits. A river flows, its water adjusting to every shape and turn, without thought of where it came from or where it will go. But, actually, we learn to be "human mountains" and "living rivers", for as human beings we get up and walk (Dogen said that mountains and rivers walk too, but that is a story for another day). Thus, one might call a "trick" of this Practice our learning how to have balanced desires while simultaneously free of ALL desire (as if on two inner channels become one), seeking to better ourselves and improve this life and world all while simultaneously (on channel two-not-two) free of ALL needs to better and improve, working to fix our imperfections even as (yes, two-not-two) we know that there was NEVER ANY imperfection in this universe from the start. We flow without thought of the past or future even as, hand-in-hand, we live a life where we must recall and learn from the past and plan wisely for the future. We flow non-resisting every turn of life, even as we resist some turns of life and seek to head certain pleasing ways (resisting-non-resisting, not two). On two channels become one, as if seeing life one way out of one eye, from another angle out of our other eye ... the two open eyes together making the clarity of a Buddha Eye.

I have just added to our recommended reading list a book on the Xin Xin Ming, one of the earliest Zen poems attributed sometimes to our 3rd Ancestor in China (although the book can be a bit wordy and overly philosophical in analyzing this poem that is advising us to be free of words and excess philosophizing, and despite a few other quibbles, I find the book on the money nonetheless.)

Trust In Mind by Mu Soeng
http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showt...REELEAF-SANGHA
and
http://www.wisdompubs.org/book/trust-mind

The Xin Xin Ming recommends this strange course for our wising up and improvement (from one of several translations presented in the book) ...

The Great Way is effortless
for those who live in choiceless awareness.
To choose without preference
is to be clear.

Even the slightest personal preference
and your whole world becomes deluded.
...

Trying to still the mind
inhibits the experience of oneness,
for the very action of trying
is the busy mind at work.

Live in the Great Way
where action is stillness and silence pervades.
...

Not trying to go faster or slower,
be still, and let go.
Just let things be
for it is exactly as it should be.

The same from a more widely cited English translation:

The Great Way is not difficult
for those who have no preferences.
When love and hate are both absent
everything becomes clear and undisguised.
Make the smallest distinction, however,
and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.

If you wish to see the truth
then hold no opinions for or against anything.
To set up what you like against what you dislike
is the disease of the mind.

...

When you try to stop activity to achieve passivity
your very effort fills you with activity.
As long as you remain in one extreme or the other,
you will never know Oneness.

Those who do not live in the single Way
fail in both activity and passivity,
assertion and denial.

...

When the mind exists undisturbed in the Way,
nothing in the world can offend,
and when a thing can no longer offend,
it ceases to exist in the old way.

...

If you wish to move in the One Way
do not dislike even the world of senses and ideas.
Indeed, to accept them fully
is identical with true Enlightenment.

The wise man strives to no goals
but the foolish man fetters himself.

...

Rest and unrest derive from illusion;
with enlightenment there is no liking and disliking.
All dualities come from ignorant inference.
They are like dreams of flowers in air:
foolish to try to grasp them.
Gain and loss, right and wrong;
such thoughts must finally be abolished at once.

...

To come directly into harmony with this reality
just simply say when doubt arises, "Not two."
In this "not two" nothing is separate,
nothing is excluded.
No matter when or where,
enlightenment means entering this truth.

http://terebess.hu/english/hsin.html#3

But to be "free of preferences" can be attained even in a world of preferences! (We cannot be truly free of preferences, for otherwise we would stay in bed all day, never eat ... and mankind would still be in a cave, never having invented fire!). So, what the poem actually recommends is how to be totally free of preferences (channel not-one) while simultaneously possessing, lightly holding and working diligently and energetically for healthy preferences (channel not-two) all at once as one!

And to realize these seemingly opposite ways of being at once ... attaining non-attaining, preferring-without-preferring, stillness in motion, silence that is the greatest noise ...

... one sits Shikantaza which can never be wrong and is always right, beyond wrong and right ... even when sometimes wrong.

Gassho, J

SatToday

PS - For those who have not had their fill ... time again to repost:

Right Zazen and Wrong Zazen
http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showt...nd-Wrong-Zazen

[Ishin]

Thank you Jundo for taking the time to write this. I get all this intellectually, but every once in awhile can get caught up in the living it part. My preference is to live without preference even while preferring to improve myself in Zazen and in generally being a good person. All the while, trying to also remember that my preference and how things are supposed to be might prefer to just let things be too.

I really like and understand your comment about looking out of two eyes simultaneously. I guess for me it is important to be involved in the process, even if we are working really hard at getting no where special.

Gassho
Ishin

#Sat Today

[Bokusei]

Thank you for the teaching Jundo and thank you for creating the opportunity Ishin.


Gassho

Bokusei

saTTodaY

[Seido]

Thank you Jundo.

Gassho,
Seidō
SatToday

[Caisson]

Thank you for this thread!

Gassho,
Caisson
sattoday

[Cyd]

Thank You Jundo Great Thread


Gassho
Cyd
Sattoday

[Rich]

Accept the good and the bad and use them to make your way.

[Joyo]

Accept the good and the bad and use them to make your way.

Wonderful, so true.

Gassho,
Joyo
sat today

[Washin]

Thank you for the teaching, Jundo

Gassho
Washin
sat today

[robert]

Hello: this is slightly tangential to the OP but I was wondering if Rev. Jundo and/or others could help me clarify the distinction between shikantaza and what I do, which is basically a mix of breath meditation (focusing on the breath and counting breaths if needed in order to sustain focus) and noting/observing thoughts and sensations as they come and go.

In Dharma lingo this is basically samatha and vipasyana; I've heard some people say that shikantaza incorporates these, while others say it is something different. I understand that one attribute of shikantaza might be goal-lessness -- that is, there isn't an overt aim such as "calming the mind" or "achieving insight," whereas the terms samatha and vipasyana seem to imply some purpose. What I'm wondering about, though, is if there's any difference in terms of what we actually do on the cushion. If I sit this way, but without expectation that either calming or insight will occur, does it then become shikantaza?

Gassho,
Robert
//sat today

[Taiyo]

Hello, Robert:

I hope this will help. At least it helped me when I wasn't sure about the difference eiher:

http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showt...assana-v-Zazen
http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/archi...hp/t-6580.html

Gassho,
Andoitz

Sat Today

[DADOOM]

Very good thread - my thanks.

Gassho,
DADOOM

SatToday

[Ongen]

Hi Ishin,

Currently something is wrong with my ankle which makes it almost impossible to stand on it, additionally I gained a tennis elbow a few weeks back so zazen is interesting at the moment.
What works well in case of pain is not to fight it or 'whine' about it in your mind, but to dive in. Be the pain. Sit with the pain without judging it. It's there no matter what you think of it or feel about it. Just be with it.
Then eventually, it becomes Ok, it becomes something in the same category as the wall or the birds outside. (unless the sitting itself causes the pain, in that case you might want to change your posture)

Makes the sitting easier!

Gassho
Ongen

Sat today
With pain