VR not as a way to 'sit together in a shared virtual space' but as 'playing games to shut down the ordinary mind'. https://tricycle.org/trikedaily/can-...enlightenment/
Gassho,
Roland
SatToday
VR not as a way to 'sit together in a shared virtual space' but as 'playing games to shut down the ordinary mind'. https://tricycle.org/trikedaily/can-...enlightenment/
Gassho,
Roland
SatToday
Hi Roland,
The VR project was inspired by an acid trip. There are people who believe that smoking weed has the same effect as meditation too. The main problem I see is that they are focusing on a mental state and there's no wisdom. Traditional spirituality is a mental state leading to wisdom. If there's a one having such an experience, there's still a one. There's no unity with the surroundings.
Don't get stuck in any state as nothing is permanent.
Gassho,
Geerish.
ST.
Hi,
I have read about this too. Looks iffy at best. People here in our western culture are always trying to get peace of mind the fast way. Whether is'ts by apps, drugs, video games, music... we want to be at peace and enlightened in 10 minutes or less.
But all those are shortcuts that stray away from a deep and disciplined spiritual practice.
Would I try the VR thingy? Sure, looks fun. But to me, Dogen and all our Teachers were not mistaken. Zazen is our supreme practice because it's not fast, not easy and you simply don't achieve anything with it
Gassho,
Kyonin
Sat/LAH
Hondō Kyōnin
奔道 協忍
Interesting. But then again, one can imagine using VR or drugs in a similar mindset of 'achieving nothing'. As the post explains, there are Buddhist traditions which incorporate focus on images, so it's not such a big jump to turn those images into VR-images.Originally Posted by Kyonin
Hi,
I have read about this too. Looks iffy at best. People here in our western culture are always trying to get peace of mind the fast way. Whether is'ts by apps, drugs, video games, music... we want to be at peace and enlightened in 10 minutes or less.
But all those are shortcuts that stray away from a deep and disciplined spiritual practice.
Would I try the VR thingy? Sure, looks fun. But to me, Dogen and all our Teachers were not mistaken. Zazen is our supreme practice because it's not fast, not easy and you simply don't achieve anything with it
Gassho,
Kyonin
Sat/LAH
Is it bad to be at peace in a faster way? Not necessarily, I think. Maybe ´just sitting' does not want to achieve being somehow at peace, but even in this Sangha I feel we're rather happy encountering some 'blue sky' every now and then, even when we also acknowledge ´the clouds'.
I also think that there are good and bad ways to enhance meditation with ´special means' - I don't feel inclined to use drugs, but I'd love to experiment with VR. If ever there were healthy and legal drugs in this context, I'd try those too.
Gassho
Roland
SatToday/LAH
Last edited by Roland; 07-24-2017 at 10:50 PM.
The issue I see with this is that zazen is about experiencing the moment in our perceived reality. Using VR to mimic a meditative state removes the experiencing our percieved reality portion of it. Any state you "achieve" would be short lived. It would also likely create dependency. As in "I can not reach this state without the VR."
This being said I would surely try it once.
James
SAT
Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
Hi Roland,
I read the article and your comment but don't understand the point you are making. Can you tell me more?
Thanks.
Gasho, Jishin, _/st\_
I read this earlier today. I've made my entire career in the high tech industry. I've been on the bleeding edge of many trends but I am getting tired of technology. It is a tool at best but if this is the direction that Zazen/meditation is going then I'll get off the bus here. One of the aspects of Zazen I enjoy and appreciate is its simplicity. Zen without toys!
Gassho
Warren
Sat today
Not reallyMy only point is that I'd love to try it out. Until now I thought VR would ´just' be a way to share a same space, say Jundo's Zendo, in a virtual way - it could enable us to immerse ourselves in that place rather than just seeing it in 2D on a flat screen.
The article (and some experiences I already had with VR) made me realize yet another application: being immersed in abstract geometrical patterns and maybe sounds inducing you into a meditation-like state.
Gassho
SatToday
Roland
I fully get your point. Simplicity is what I love. But then again, while sitting I still wear my glasses as I'm very near-sighted. What would be the difference if these would be light-weight goggles? Still very simple, if the tech evolves enough into that direction - which it does.
Gassho
Roland
SatToday (without goggles)
My first impression is that this is precisely why Shikantaza is -not- meditation.
In "meditation," one typically seeks to obtain some special state, such as a feeling of peace (I recommend valium as quicker), visions, energies, deep deep concentrated states of transcendence or god or cosmic unity.
Shikantaza radically seeks nothing.
One simply sits, radically to the marrow seeking nothing apart from the wholeness and fulfillment of all desires which is sitting itself.
In doing so, a funny thing happens however:
One thus comes to embody a Peace which holds all of life's feelings of peace and conflict, and is thus much more profound then simply feeling peaceful when one feels "peaceful". (Hard to describe, but it is a Big P Peace so Peaceful that one does not even need to feel peaceful to have it. It is present even when, in life, one feels anything but ordinary valium "peaceful". It is somehow present on the battlefield or in the surgical waiting room when one is feeling anything but content and peaceful. To wish to feel human small "p" peaceful all the time, 24/7, is a fool's errand and dead end away from life ... seriously, just try heroine if that is what one wants (many do).
Anything that seeks merely to feel "peaceful" is a child's toy or a narcotic. Much of Buddhism and other Eastern Practices chases enlightenment far ... sometimes lifetimes ... away because folks do not sit in the wholeness and completion of this. They seek "peace", but fail to know the Peace of not seeking and no need to seek.
Without need for any visions, deep states or experiences of transcendence, senations of the sacred, magical or miraculous ... BECAUSE of the very dropping of all hunting and search for such thrills ... one comes to know a Transcendence by which the so-called "ordinary" is most Sacred and Magical and Miraculous without any fireworks or hollywood special effects. I do not know if this is "God", right in in the tables, flat tires, stubbed toes and medical traumas of life ... but in my bone, if there is a God and "cosmic unity", such cannot be but so.
Would you like to make a VR machine that teaches such profound lesson ... a VR machine that does not simply continue to feed our present modern hunger for flashing effects and electronic thrills and brain stimulation? ...
... Then simply unplug the VR machine and "Just Sit". Truly nothing more is needed (and the more one thinks that "something more is needed", then the more that one is distant due to that very hunger and need).
Our way is also the Greatest Game & Joke!
Gassho, J
SatTodayLAH
Last edited by Jundo; 07-25-2017 at 12:37 PM.
ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE
Thanks for the explanation. The kids have a VR set at home for video games that is a lot of fun but they still prefer 2D video games. Punks!Not really
The article (and some experiences I already had with VR) made me realize yet another application: being immersed in abstract geometrical patterns and maybe sounds inducing you into a meditation-like state.
Gassho
SatToday
Roland
Gasho, Jishin, _/st\_
Thank you Jundo. I will plug out, but only to plug in again. If ever I get deep insights in those artificial paradises, you guys will be the first to know.My first impression is that this is precisely why Shikantaza is -not- meditation.
In "meditation," one typically seeks to obtain some special state, such as a feeling of peace (I recommend valium as quicker), visions, energies, deep deep concentrated states of transcendence or god or cosmic unity.
Shikantaza radically seeks nothing.
One simply sits, radically to the marrow seeking nothing apart from the wholeness and fulfillment of all desires which is sitting itself.
In doing so, a funny thing happens however:
One thus comes to embody a Peace which holds all of life's feelings of peace and conflict, and is thus much more profound then simply feeling peaceful when one feels "peaceful". (Hard to describe, but it is a Big P Peace so Peaceful that one does not even need to feel peaceful to have it. It is present even when, in life, one feels anything but ordinary valium "peaceful". It is somehow present on the battlefield or in the surgical waiting room when one is feeling anything but content and peaceful. To wish to feel human small "p" peaceful all the time, 24/7, is a fool's errand and dead end away from life ... seriously, just try heroine if that is what one wants (many do).
Anything that seeks merely to feel "peaceful" is a child's toy or a narcotic. Much of Buddhism and other Eastern Practices chases enlightenment far ... sometimes lifetimes ... away because folks do not sit in the wholeness and completion of this. They seek "peace", but fail to know the Peace of not seeking and no need to seek.
Without need for any visions, deep states or experiences of transcendence, senations of the sacred, magical or miraculous ... BECAUSE of the very dropping of all hunting and search for such thrills ... one comes to know a Transcendence by which the so-called "ordinary" is most Sacred and Magical and Miraculous without any fireworks or hollywood special effects. I do not know if this is "God", right in in the tables, flat tires, stubbed toes and medical traumas of life ... but in my bone, if there is a God and "cosmic unity", such cannot be but so.
Would you like to make a VR machine that teaches such profound lesson ... a VR machine that does not simply continue to feed our present modern hunger for flashing effects and electronic thrills and brain stimulation? ...
... Then simply unplug the VR machine and "Just Sit". Truly nothing more is needed (and the more one thinks that "something more is needed", then the more that one is distant due to that very hunger and need).
Our way is also the Greatest Game & Joke!
Gassho, J
SatTodayLAH
Gassho,
Roland
SatToday
Hi Roland,
Please do. Shikantaza has nothing against experimenting or working with any of this. Once one rises from the cushion, one can do anything from eat a sandwich to go to a baseball game, go to Church or put on a headset. All good, many insights to gain. (In fact, I am just reading a book on some recent scholarly research on psilocybin for folks with cancer. I am not even totally against moderate use of psychedelics, with guidance, at certain times in life).
However, none of that is Shikantaza.
When sitting Shikantaza, just sit Shikantaza ... the one and only action to do or needed in the whole boundless universe in that instant. Put down the sandwich and the headset, sober up from the shrooms and face the wall.
So long as one is sitting Shikantaza each day with nothing more needed, I am not so concerned what healthy activities one engages in the rest of one's day. I hope you do gain insights, and will report to us if so. I also believe that there are many insights to be gained in Shikantaza very easy to overlook in so-called "meditation" or by trying to reach some special state and "get" something. Only by stopping to seek a "special state" does one get the most special state of Shikantaza.
Gassho, J
SatTodayLAH
Last edited by Jundo; 07-25-2017 at 01:27 PM.
ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE
In my twenties I took LSD on top of a mountain during a snowstorm. I became a mountain lion and the moon was extremely bright. The next day I fell going down and sprained my ankle. I ate lunch at McDonalds. The next Monday I went to class and heard a lecture. My wife and I had an argument that night. And so it goes.
Gassho
Meishin
sat today
Thank you Jundo.My first impression is that this is precisely why Shikantaza is -not- meditation.
In "meditation," one typically seeks to obtain some special state, such as a feeling of peace (I recommend valium as quicker), visions, energies, deep deep concentrated states of transcendence or god or cosmic unity.
Shikantaza radically seeks nothing.
One simply sits, radically to the marrow seeking nothing apart from the wholeness and fulfillment of all desires which is sitting itself.
In doing so, a funny thing happens however:
One thus comes to embody a Peace which holds all of life's feelings of peace and conflict, and is thus much more profound then simply feeling peaceful when one feels "peaceful". (Hard to describe, but it is a Big P Peace so Peaceful that one does not even need to feel peaceful to have it. It is present even when, in life, one feels anything but ordinary valium "peaceful". It is somehow present on the battlefield or in the surgical waiting room when one is feeling anything but content and peaceful. To wish to feel human small "p" peaceful all the time, 24/7, is a fool's errand and dead end away from life ... seriously, just try heroine if that is what one wants (many do).
Anything that seeks merely to feel "peaceful" is a child's toy or a narcotic. Much of Buddhism and other Eastern Practices chases enlightenment far ... sometimes lifetimes ... away because folks do not sit in the wholeness and completion of this. They seek "peace", but fail to know the Peace of not seeking and no need to seek.
Without need for any visions, deep states or experiences of transcendence, senations of the sacred, magical or miraculous ... BECAUSE of the very dropping of all hunting and search for such thrills ... one comes to know a Transcendence by which the so-called "ordinary" is most Sacred and Magical and Miraculous without any fireworks or hollywood special effects. I do not know if this is "God", right in in the tables, flat tires, stubbed toes and medical traumas of life ... but in my bone, if there is a God and "cosmic unity", such cannot be but so.
Would you like to make a VR machine that teaches such profound lesson ... a VR machine that does not simply continue to feed our present modern hunger for flashing effects and electronic thrills and brain stimulation? ...
... Then simply unplug the VR machine and "Just Sit". Truly nothing more is needed (and the more one thinks that "something more is needed", then the more that one is distant due to that very hunger and need).
Our way is also the Greatest Game & Joke!
Gassho, J
SatTodayLAH
I never thaught about Shikantaza vs meditation until now.
This is worth thinking about some more, it might make an important difference.
It is a wonderful evening for that.
Gassho
Marcus
SatToday
This article pointed to something I had always missed about meditation before I started sitting shikantaza. Sitting isn't just a thing you do with your mind, it's a complete integration of mind and body. I was always frustrated by zazen instructions that spent paragraphs talking about proper posture, with almost no instruction on what to do with your mind. It took me a while to realize that was the whole point, and the body is just as much a part of it as the mind is.
This was the first time I'd read one of these articles about meditation software that acknowledged that.
Gassho, Zenmei #sat
And "thinking-non-thinking" about too, which might make an important sameness.
Shikantaza is body-mind, not two. Sometimes we sit with the body, sometimes we move the body in Samu work, cleaning, Oryoki, hiking in the mountains, walking to the bathroom, walking to a meeting at the office, changing a baby diaper ... all same mind. All can be Shikantaza with body still or body moving. Thus, we sit each day to realize this, then get up from the cushion and get moving to realize this.
Gassho, J
SatTodayLAH
ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE
Thank you Jundo,And "thinking-non-thinking" about too, which might make an important sameness.
I am afraid this goes a bit beond my understanding. I think I can understand "thinking-non-thinking" but you lost me in "thinking-non-thinking" about something... For me "thinking-non-thinking" makes the "thinking" an undependent entity without a subject thus without the "about".
So I guess it is too much thinking all together and it comes down to the same: I better stop thinking about this.
Gassho
Marcus
SatToday
Oh, very easy. Thinking is a subject thinking about an object, this and that, yesterday and today, win and lose, good and bad, birth and death, tables and chairs, etc. etc.
In nothinking, there is no subject in contrast to object, no this nor that, yesterday, today, now and all the rest. Simple grand flowing wholeness.
If in thinking-non-thinking, one perfumes the other ... is the other, not two ... then thinking is, yet is not as it was before. For example, there is me and you, win and lose, birth and death ... yet not ... then what. The ordinary proves to have been most fabulous all along.
Gassho, J
SatTodayLAH
ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE
I was thinking about this some more.
If I understand correctly, we are already living in a virtual/augmented reality made up of our stories and delusions. We tell ourselves stories that obscures reality like the clouds either partially or fully obscure the clear blue sky. A Buddha may see the clouds but understands them as clouds while still seeing the clear blue sky.
I am not confident that I want to further obscure reality with technology and I sure don't trust the Apples, Googles, and Samsungs of the world to not take advantage of AR/VR for their commercial gain while promising me a more spiritual experience.
Or maybe I am just turning into a grumpy old Luddite in my old age.
Gassho
Warren
Sat today
Last edited by Tairin; 07-29-2017 at 01:48 PM.
Living in a virtual reality made up of stories and delusions is reality itself. Reality can not be obscured by technology. Technology is reality itself. You can not turn into a grumpy old Luddite in your old age. You are grumpy old Luddite in your old age. You can not turn into a Buddha by sitting or make a mirror by shinning a brick. You are Buddha already!I was thinking about this some more.
If I understand correctly, we are already living in a virtual/augmented reality made up of our stories and delusions. We tell ourselves stories that obscures reality like the clouds either partially or fully obscure the clear blue sky. A Buddha may see the clouds but understands them as clouds while still seeing the clear blue sky.
I am not confident that I want to further obscure reality with technology and I sure don't trust the Apples, Googles, and Samsungs of the world to not take advantage of AR/VR for their commercial gain while promising me a more spiritual experience.
Or maybe I am just turning into a grumpy old Luddite in my old age.
Gassho
Warren
Sat today
My 2 cents.
Gasho, Jishin, _/st\_
From our reading "Living By Vow - Continuous Circle of Offering: The Meal Chants"
Within delusion there is suchness as delusion. The fact that we are deluded is reality. When we see delusion as delusion, delusion is part of reality and there is nothing to be eliminated, nothing to be negated. We should accept everything as the Buddha's life
Gassho
Warren
Sat today & LAH
Thank you jundo,
I will try my best.
Gassho
Marcus SatToday/LAH
Then again....isn't *all* "reality" at least somewhat virtual?
Gassho--
--JimH (SatToday!)
Oh, not just "somewhat" ...Then again....isn't *all* "reality" at least somewhat virtual?
Gassho--
--JimH (SatToday!)
It is a basic premise of traditional Buddhism that our perception of reality is the product of data, (in modern terms) converted to electro-chemical energy, then interpreted in the brain as some images that may or may not generally reflect what is actually "out there." For example, you may feel that you see a tree "out there", and photons of light from the tree enter the eyes, are turned into electo-chemical signals which are recreated as images of a "tree" somewhere inside the brain, which "tree" we further define with labels and categories such as "pine, tall, green, beautiful" etc. We share this dream of "tree" with fellow human beings. There is likely something "out there" (and you "in here" to see it), but not really in the "beautiful green pine" way that the brain imposes.
By the way, last night I was introduced by my nephew to "oculus rift", the virtual reality system in which one puts on a pair of gloves and goggles and enters various worlds. Not what I was expecting, truly astounding. My nephew designs for the program, and he believes it is a game changer. I must agree. I experienced reactions, physical and psychological, as if I were actually in such environments. Not just some "3D" experience. I feel like the first time somebody showed me a PC or the internet! A sample (in 2D, imagine if in total surround with gloves that make your own body function as your body in the environment, e.g., the hands seen in various games are actually felt and seen as one's own hands in the correct location on your body) ...
Gassho, J
SatTodayLAH
Last edited by Jundo; 08-03-2017 at 06:16 AM.
ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE
Yes Jundo, I'm an avid user of Oculus Rift and maybe one day I'll learn to do something creative with it - it was exactly to that kind of experience I was referring to. Not to somehow replace our beloved sitting, but still as a way to augment our intellect, compassion, empathy...
Gassho,
Roland
#SatToday
I've long been a fan of virtual reality, and I've been an even bigger fan of immersive games. I have played MMOs for decades, and have always sought out the most immersive experiences possible. I'm not a typical "hack and slasher", but rather more of an explorer. I get involved with games to fully see the world, and to experience "life" through a different set of eyes.
The building where I work has an office on the first floor where people can try out Virtual Reality goggles. It is very interesting to walk by and see people moving around and performing actions while wearing the VR goggles....and simultaneously watch what they are doing on a big screen behind them (so you see what they see). It's incredible. It's almost like the idea of the Star Trek Holodeck is only a couple of years away.
In college, I took a lot of philosophy classes, mainly around metaphysics. I loved the discussions about reality and experience. It has never ceased to fascinate me how we can all live in the same world, and yet have completely different realities. For example, my grandfather passed away years ago after suffering from dementia. His "reality" was a timeframe many years in the past. He tried every day to find his keys for a car he hadn't owned for decades, to try to get to a job he had retired from just as far back. He saw everyone around him as someone different (saw me as my dad when he was a boy, etc.). Still boggles my mind.
As games and simulations advance, the lines that determine what is "real" get more and more blurry!
Gassho--
--Jim (SatToday....really AND virtually!)
Facinating stuff. Perhaps one day the technology will be used at treeleaf and begin to blur the vast geography between us. The online and the real in person experience may truly become one.
But... sitting with Joyo, Shingen and Marc the other night over live video...pretty cool too.
Gassho, Kyotai
ST LAH
Sent from my SGH-I337M using Tapatalk
I wanna play "Riven" on VR. Anybody else get into the Myst series? I know that Cyan made a new game for VR and I think it is the perfect platform for their style!
Gassho, sat today, lah
求道芸化 Kyūdō Geika
I am just a priest-in-training, please do not take anything I say as a teaching.
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