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Thread: Practice question(s)

  1. #51
    Gassho Keishin

    I think a lot of the time (for myself anyway) we come to practice looking to get rid of something like our thoughts or our little terrible habits, make ourselves a better person or to find great enlightenment, but in the end it's like you realize there is nothing that you can get rid of and there is nothing that you can find and thoughts and habits well... when you look at them clearly you see exactly what they are. Anyway, the Buddha taught all this stuff. He was the first one to actually look at what he was. He saw his habits,craving and stuff clearly and he did it through paying attention to his life. He just sat down and payed attention to what was going on. How simple.

    like a dog chasing his own tail thinking that it's something else then... he bites it and reality sets in.

  2. #52

  3. #53
    My lute strings are just way to loose. I think it may just be a question of me being lazy and always gravitating to the easy way out. I realize this yet, don't seem to be making real drastic change. If I look at things with a wider view, then yes I'm moving in the right direction. However, I cannot escape feelings of frustration and complacency.

  4. #54
    oops duplicate post!

  5. #55
    Wow!

    I don't have much to add, except to say thank you to everyone who has posted on this thread! I can relate to so much of what many here have expressed regarding your practice, and I've gained some great history lessons.

    Gregor, my lute strings could always use a good tightening!

    What a community!

  6. #56
    Member Martin's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Location
    Wherever the next mediation is. Every now and then I make it back to Norfolk, England.
    Will's post earlier today about trying too hard reminded me of the time I gave up on Zen.

    I had been determined to experience in meditation the things that others wrote or talked about. I sat and tried and tried. And then tried more. Damn it, it didn’t work. The harder I tried the less it worked. The moment came where I decided it was all nonsense and to give up. So that very moment I gave up on trying to meditate….. and found myself just sitting. And here I am.

    Gassho

    Martin

  7. #57
    Quote Originally Posted by Martin
    Will's post earlier today about trying too hard reminded me of the time I gave up on Zen.

    I had been determined to experience in meditation the things that others wrote or talked about. I sat and tried and tried. And then tried more. Damn it, it didn’t work. The harder I tried the less it worked. The moment came where I decided it was all nonsense and to give up. So that very moment I gave up on trying to meditate….. and found myself just sitting. And here I am.

    Gassho

    Martin
    Beloved Martin,

    Thank you. I had a similar experience. I went to a three day meditation intensive and tried hard for three days to really do it right and have "something" happen. It was a good experience, but I did not have the breakthrough or awakening that I sought.

    A year later, I retrurned to the intensive again, but this time as a volunteer not as a participant. I brought water to the participants, arranged cushions, helped out any way I could. One evening we were outside doing walking mediation. I watched as the participants walked as slowly as they could with their eyes focused on the ground. I thought about why do we walk so slow in this meditation, and I thought it must be because we are not trying to get somewhere else... we walk slow to get closer and closer to this very moment... to where we are now... I thought the slower we walk the closer we are to now... and the slowest I can walk is to stand still...so I stopped walking and looked up...and everything was incredibly beautiful and perfect and one...everything was just as it was and completely different from how it had been at the same time...it was ... it is............ 8)

    It seems to me that at some point we have to drop the desire to be here now, and give up, and just be here now...

    Namaste brother...Gassho...

    Urug

  8. #58
    oops...pushed the button twice...methinks... ops:

    Urug

  9. #59
    Nice Martin.

    Hey Urug.
    The way that I understand Kinhin is that it is just an extension of your sitting practice. It is zazen in motion. Walking slowly gives you more of a chance to pay attention to your experience and all the other stuff you do while sitting zazen. Like you feel the lift of the foot, the air passing by it and the pressure when it lands on the ground etc...
    It is just one way to bring practice off the zafu.

    Gassho

  10. #60
    Quote Originally Posted by will
    The way that I understand Kinhin is that it is just an extension of your sitting practice. ...It is just one way to bring practice off the zafu.
    Beloved Will,

    I agree. For me it seems that my entire life is becoming an extension of sitting practice. Walking, cooking, feeding the chickens, working in the gardens, stacking wood, clearing trails, driving the car, etc. Each seems an oportunity to choose to be here with what is happening, or to choose to be in my head/thouhgts or just function on automatic.

    I still fall into the usuall human state of being lost in thoughts for a big part of the day, but more and more I'm learning to find little cues to remind me to wake up and live each moment.

    As Jundo has said sometimes it is OK to day dream.But for me, I have spent so much of my life doing that, that it feels wonderful to stop and be here now.

    Also, since making my life my practice, I have felt better than I ever have before. I am much more easy going, less fretful or worried, more at ease, and much more at peace. I also feel connected to everything on a very basic level, while before it was only an intellectual concept.

    Namaste brother...gassho & peace to you...

    Urug 8)

  11. #61
    That's great Urug. I'm happy you are enjoying yourself.

    The basics of practice are just to notice what is going on. If your daydreaming just notice you are daydreaming then you will get a glimpse of what all these zen teachers are talking about. Know what these things are. What is daydreaming? How do you daydream etc... not trying to notice, not trying not to notice it, not trying to try to notice it, it but just noticing it and noticing every other thing that makes up what you are experiencing at any moment.

    But not trying hehe.

    Gassho

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