Great Awakening - Dropping Body-Mind

[Jundo]

Hi,

I feel that the following topics are so important, that I want to have them as their own thread, and not just part of others ... So, I repost them here ...

Every chapter begins by talking about how so and so experienced a great awakening.

I would like to know how it is that nowadays awakenings seem so taboo.

Oh, Great Awakenings are not 'taboo', never where and are not now. Where would you get such a narrow idea?

But what is truly "Great" about these Awakenings?

Where in the Zen literature does one see someone running around after their "Great Awakening" yelling "Eureka Eureka" at the top of their lungs, tears streaming down their eyes, all mysteries of the universe revealed and all one's personal problems and hang ups washed completely away????

NO WHERE!

(except perhaps in certain Kensho-fetishist book like "Three Pillars of Zen" and similar farces. Remember: "After the Ecstacy ... the Laundry!") There are so many Buddhist people with story book images of "Great Awakening fairy tales" in their mind ... and not the slightest idea what the true "Greatness" of "Great Awakening" is and where truly found. Such people have never experienced a True "Great Awakening" ... True Kensho ... True Satori ... Not a one has truly experienced "Great Awakening" ... for "Great Awakening" is a Buddha's soft and sublime smile.

Great Awakening is profound yet subtle, mundane but a miracle, the clearing up of mysteries yet the allowing of others (as the Buddha taught that some questions are not relevant to the quest), the solving of all problems through and through even as so many of life's problems remain.

I am so tired of folks who talk of "Great Awakening" without the slightest idea what is so "Great" about it! They are naive, children.

Nothing is more precious than to be a man who has nothing further to seek. Just do not give rise to any fancies, and be your ordinary selves.

I am so tired of those children who write that the Zen masters of old, based on some "they lived happily ever after" image of "Great Awakening, were thereafter "perfect people without a fault or a flaw." How ridiculous! (save that none of us have a "fault" or "flaw" from the start ... including all the faults and flaws we must labor day by day to repair. Read and reread this sentence three times and three times again, until it is completely pierced ... for it is at the very Heart of "Great Awakening").

After Keizan had his "Great Awakening", and Dogen ... and all the others ... what changed?

Do you know? Do you truly know?

So many folks mouthing the words "Great Awakening" would not know "Great Awakening" if it was right before their own eyes (which is precisely where it is ... and one's eyes too).

The first thing that comes to mind is that Micchaka practices sorcery. Sorcery boils down to cause and effect thinking.

Oh, there is a "magic" to this realization ... more ordinary yet spectacular than any dime store trick. People do not realize the spectacular realization of the most ordinary (for who judge's the "ordinary" to be "ordinary"??) This is the Greatest of Great Awakenings!

Craig,

A favorite passage of mine. In each Zazen, I try, although there really is no trying, the dropping of body and mind.

Most folks do not know what is this "dropping of body and mind" They feel that it must be the attaining of some state of disembodied consciousness. (In fact, there are forms of meditation which attain such disembodied states, but Shikantaza is not so).

To "drop away body and mind" is to simply and thoroughly drop the mind-body's demands/wishes/aversions-attractions/hard categorizing between the self and all that body-mind consider 'not the self'. Thereby, the "self" is put out of a job ... the hard walls between self and other soften or fall ... body and mind thus dropped away as the resistance and separation to "other" is dropped away ... thus "self" vs. "other" is dropped away ... thus "self" and "other" dropped away.

The way there is radical non-demanding, non-seeking, just sitting ... the way of no way.

Please be clear on this point.

Gassho, Jundo

[Adam]

Re: Great Awakening - Dropping Body-Mind

Hi,

I feel that the following topics are so important, that I want to have them as their own thread, and not just part of others ... So, I repost them here ...

Every chapter begins by talking about how so and so experienced a great awakening.

I would like to know how it is that nowadays awakenings seem so taboo.

Oh, Great Awakenings are not 'taboo', never where and are not now. Where would you get such a narrow idea?

But what is truly "Great" about these Awakenings?

Where in the Zen literature does one see someone running around after their "Great Awakening" yelling "Eureka Eureka" at the top of their lungs, tears streaming down their eyes, all mysteries of the universe revealed and all one's personal problems and hang ups washed completely away????

NO WHERE!

(except perhaps in certain Kensho-fetishist book like "Three Pillars of Zen" and similar farces. Remember: "After the Ecstacy ... the Laundry!") There are so many Buddhist people with story book images of "Great Awakening fairy tales" in their mind ... and not the slightest idea what the true "Greatness" of "Great Awakening" is and where truly found. Such people have never experienced a True "Great Awakening" ... True Kensho ... True Satori ... Not a one has truly experienced "Great Awakening" ... for "Great Awakening" is a Buddha's soft and sublime smile.

Great Awakening is profound yet subtle, mundane but a miracle, the clearing up of mysteries yet the allowing of others (as the Buddha taught that some questions are not relevant to the quest), the solving of all problems through and through even as so many of life's problems remain.

I am so tired of folks who talk of "Great Awakening" without the slightest idea what is so "Great" about it! They are naive, children.

I am so tired of those children who write that the Zen masters of old, based on some "they lived happily ever after" image of "Great Awakening, were thereafter "perfect people without a fault or a flaw." How ridiculous! (save that none of us have a "fault" or "flaw" from the start ... including all the faults and flaws we must labor day by day to repair. Read and reread this sentence three times and three times again, until it is completely pierced ... for it is at the very Heart of "Great Awakening").

After Keizan had his "Great Awakening", and Dogen ... and all the others ... what changed?

Do you know? Do you truly know?

So many folks mouthing the words "Great Awakening" would not know "Great Awakening" if it was right before their own eyes (which is precisely where it is ... and one's eyes too).

The first thing that comes to mind is that Micchaka practices sorcery. Sorcery boils down to cause and effect thinking.

Oh, there is a "magic" to this realization ... more ordinary yet spectacular than any dime store trick. People do not realize the spectacular realization of the most ordinary (for who judge's the "ordinary" to be "ordinary"??) This is the Greatest of Great Awakenings!

Craig,

A favorite passage of mine. In each Zazen, I try, although there really is no trying, the dropping of body and mind.

Most folks do not know what is this "dropping of body and mind" They feel that it must be the attaining of some state of disembodied consciousness. (In fact, there are forms of meditation which attain such disembodied states, but Shikantaza is not so).

To "drop away body and mind" is to simply and thoroughly drop the mind-body's demands/wishes/aversions-attractions/hard categorizing between the self and all that body-mind consider 'not the self'. Thereby, the "self" is put out of a job ... the hard walls between self and other soften or fall ... body and mind thus dropped away as the resistance and separation to "other" is dropped away ... thus "self" vs. "other" is dropped away ... thus "self" and "other" dropped away.

The way there is radical non-demanding, non-seeking, just sitting ... the way of no way.

Please be clear on this point.

Gassho, Jundo

I agree with this, Jundo. There seems to be this feeling that to be awake is to change somehow. Like we will look different, be able to read minds, or fly. I have been victim to this feeling too, but I have needed to remind myself that there is nothing to obtain and no where to go. I am Adam before awakening, I am Adam after awakening (not Adam, too). But I still catch my ego entertaining magical powers or somehow being better than those beings around me. I have to laugh and chalk it up for living in the video game age, but it's important for me not to be attached to these images in my mind. I have found that when I laugh these images off and do not have any expectations, judgements, or goals in my sitting, I actually sit with more confidence. I can sit in peace, in a sense. I don't have this "something extra" with me when I sit. It's just sitting. I still have the images and thoughts sprout in my mind, but it's easier for me to watch them enter my mind and exit on the other side. Of course, there are times when I find myself lost in a tangent, but more and more, I have been able to let the images and thoughts drift by like incense smoke. Thank you so much for the post!

Gassho,

Adam

[Jundo]

Re: Great Awakening - Dropping Body-Mind

Oh, we CHANGE RADICALLY, Adam ... through and though ... upon Great Awakening ...

... by awakening to that never in need of change even amid all change ... with not a thing to add or take away, even as we add or take away ...

That paradox is right at the Heart of "Great Awakening"

[Adam]

Re: Great Awakening - Dropping Body-Mind

Oh, we CHANGE RADICALLY, Adam ... through and though ... upon Great Awakening ...

... by awakening to that never in need of change even amid all change ... with not a thing to add or take away, even as we add or take away ...

That paradox is right at the Heart of "Great Awakening"

Thanks for this, Jundo. I just meant that I will not somehow be 10 feet tall a bullet proof. Mentally, yes. Physically, no. I will look the same whether or not I am awake.

Gassho,

Adam

[CraigfromAz]

Re: Great Awakening - Dropping Body-Mind

Remember: "After the Ecstacy ... the Laundry!")

Too funny!!! And probably all too true.

I have read "The Three Pillars of Zen" and I found it interesting that the descriptions of the kensho experiences were just that - singular experiences, with no commentary (one way or another) on any lasting impact on the person. I wonder if having one of these experiences could actually get in the way of your practice (if the experience is "as advertised", I could see this being something we might try very hard to hold onto).

On the other hand, a strong experience of awakening would (I think) go a long way to encouraging people to continue their practice. However, as I was re-reading Suzuki's ZMBM just this morning, I ran across him quoting Dogen as saying something like "don't be so sure you will know it when you have an enlightenment experience." Doesn't sound like Dogen thought much of fantastic kensho experiences...

[Nick B]

Re: Great Awakening - Dropping Body-Mind

People do not realize the spectacular realization of the most ordinary (for who judge's the "ordinary" to be "ordinary"??)

I am often struck by the wonder of ordinary life, clay has mixed with water and sunshine and has given birth to countless phenomena. At some point this phenomena became self aware, the universe seeing itself, but beings get lost in there self importance and crave after new stimulations that promise happiness. Some beings see through this and return to the ordinary wonder of the universe reflecting the universe. In the end it is truly amazing that any of this takes place at all, each moment is a living dynamic miracle.

Most folks do not know what is this "dropping of body and mind" They feel that it must be the attaining of some state of disembodied consciousness. (In fact, there are forms of meditation which attain such disembodied states, but Shikantaza is not so).

To "drop away body and mind" is to simply and thoroughly drop the mind-body's demands/wishes/aversions-attractions/hard categorizing between the self and all that body-mind consider 'not the self'. Thereby, the "self" is put out of a job ... the hard walls between self and other soften or fall ... body and mind thus dropped away as the resistance and separation to "other" is dropped away ... thus "self" vs. "other" is dropped away ... thus "self" and "other" dropped away.

The way there is radical non-demanding, non-seeking, just sitting ... the way of no way.

Please be clear on this point.

Thank you very much Jundo for saying this so clearly.

In trying to be clear on this point I find the idea of a mirror is a good way to express the way I am sitting shikantaza. A mirror is not a living thinking thing, so it does not grasp at anything, it does not have a sense of self nor does it seek anything, it just reflects whatever is before it, and while it reflects it does not project anything onto the reflections that arise within it nor does it become attached to the reflections that arise and pass away.There is no experience of self and other, there is just this moment reflected as it is and the next moment and the next moment and so on.

I find that this no self no other arises on its own when I am off the cushion without me trying to do anything. When it happens there is just walking, or just gardening, or just watering, or just sitting. Even when I recongnize this, the recognition itself is like a cloud that comes and gos on its own, it does not disturb me in any way and it seems very natural when it takes place.

As for change, what I find changes is my experience of life, for instance if I am going down to the garden to pull weeds, there is walking with the whole world, a butterfly moves amongst the flowers, the wind blows the grass and the summer sun hides behind a cloud. The whole thing is alive and dynamic, an unfolding from moment to moment.

This is contrasted with "oh man I gotta go pull weeds", there is some walking "this is going to suck, man its hot out here, that little pathetic cloud ain't gonna last long". "Why the hell aren't the kids out here with me, why should they be in the air conditioned house?". Stumble over a piece of wood feeling both stupid and angry and finally reaching the garden and pulling weeds hating each one "dam weeds".

I don't know but thats a pretty big change in my book.

[Jundo]

Re: Great Awakening - Dropping Body-Mind

I am going to move this here from another thread ...
viewtopic.php?p=38864#p38864

Where in the Zen literature does one see someone running around after their "Great Awakening" yelling "Eureka Eureka" at the top of their lungs, tears streaming down their eyes, all mysteries of the universe revealed and all one's personal problems and hang ups washed completely away????

The Buddha saw the morning star and proclaimed, I along with all sentient beings have awakened!

Ah, I rather prefer those translations of the Buddha's expression whereby he saw the morning star as perfectly just the morning star, as himself, as all things, just as the are ...

Nothing more need be done to make the morning star more the morning star ... to make the morning star all of reality ...

"Buddha exclaimed on achieving enlightenment, "How wonderful! All beings are already enlightened, just as they are!"

Sakyamuni-Buddha said, when he saw the morning star and had his enlightenment experience or daikensho, "how wonderful! How wonderful! Everything just as it is, is enlightened, but because of our upside down view we don't realize it" so we all must go on this long journey to find out that all along we were enlightened anyway. ...

[In the end, in] the return to the world we see that oneness and manyness, are the same thing. The mundane world is the world of enlightenment. The everyday ordinary world is holy. And now we return to the marketplace to share the good news with others who are ready to make that shift. But since this is not easy to grasp we must each make our own long arduous journey to right here... this very moment.
http://www.zenpeacemakers.org/zps/dharm ... -intro.htm

While I do agree that there is no need to get hung up on a momentary experience, what exactly is an awakening?

How do we define it?

How do we articulate it?

That simple "ah ha" moment, felt throughout one's being ... ""How wonderful! All beings are already enlightened, just as they are!"

But do not be complacent:

Would it be wrong then to understand that there is continuous awakening?

Not at all ... for though the house is perfectly just what it is ... we must put that perfect acceptance into practice ... even as, hand and hand, we may repair the broken windows and creaky doors. Such action is total awakening.

this is the subject of another thread today ...
viewtopic.php?p=38871#p38871

One should not just sit there complacently saying "all things are just what they are, and I need do nothing but sit here on my rump" ... for we must make that fact real in our lives.

"Complete, Perfect, Supreme Realization" is both to realize that all things are completely, perfectly and supremely as they are ... and to realize that Truth by our actions which make it all real in this life. It is "continuous practice" because ... although there is nothing to attain and no place to go ... we must constantly make non-attaining real in each changing moment.

That is Great Awakening and Great Realization.

Gassho, J

[Jundo]

Re: Great Awakening - Dropping Body-Mind

In trying to be clear on this point I find the idea of a mirror is a good way to express the way I am sitting shikantaza. A mirror is not a living thinking thing, so it does not grasp at anything, it does not have a sense of self nor does it seek anything, it just reflects whatever is before it, and while it reflects it does not project anything onto the reflections that arise within it nor does it become attached to the reflections that arise and pass away.There is no experience of self and other, there is just this moment reflected as it is and the next moment and the next moment and so on.

I find that this no self no other arises on its own when I am off the cushion without me trying to do anything. When it happens there is just walking, or just gardening, or just watering, or just sitting. Even when I recongnize this, the recognition itself is like a cloud that comes and gos on its own, it does not disturb me in any way and it seems very natural when it takes place.

As for change, what I find changes is my experience of life, for instance if I am going down to the garden to pull weeds, there is walking with the whole world, a butterfly moves amongst the flowers, the wind blows the grass and the summer sun hides behind a cloud. The whole thing is alive and dynamic, an unfolding from moment to moment.

This is contrasted with "oh man I gotta go pull weeds", there is some walking "this is going to suck, man its hot out here, that little pathetic cloud ain't gonna last long". "Why the hell aren't the kids out here with me, why should they be in the air conditioned house?". Stumble over a piece of wood feeling both stupid and angry and finally reaching the garden and pulling weeds hating each one "dam weeds".

Ah, but do not fall into either extreme view.

Do you know the perfectly serene mirror that is still present, though and though, as humans think (as we are prone to do) ... "oh man I gotta go pull weeds" ... "this is going to suck, man its hot out here"?

Do not think that one is only doing this practice "right" when feeling like a clear and polished mirror, pulling weeds in contentment with undisturbed mind. Instead, find the undisturbed mind that is always present ... even as the mind thinks "man, it is hot and there are so many damn weeds". The mirror is always there, so let it just reflect that too.

We can fully accept and embrace the weeds and heat, even as we pull them and sweat and do not accept them.

We can accept that we do not accept the weeds and heat, even as we thoroughly accept and embrace them.

Can you see right through "not accepting" even as, as humans are prone to do, there are things we do not like and accept?

Gassho, J

[Martin]

Re: Great Awakening - Dropping Body-Mind

Thank you Jundo, all.

In Little Gidding T S Eliot wrote

"We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time".

I like that, and perhaps it's the same notion.

Gassho (I see, btw, that elsewhere on the web, in places where it's apparently terribly important to have an [i]opinion[i] about Treeleaf, we are criticised here for too much "Gasshoing". Perhaps they think it's just a word, not an action or an attitude).

Martin

[Tb]

Re: Great Awakening - Dropping Body-Mind

Gassho (I see, btw, that elsewhere on the web, in places where it's apparently terribly important to have an [i]opinion[i] about Treeleaf, we are criticised here for too much "Gasshoing". Perhaps they think it's just a word, not an action or an attitude).

Martin

Hi.

Do you have any links? :roll:

And i must say you can't have to much "gasshoing"..

Mtfbwy
Fugen

[BrianW]

Re: Great Awakening - Dropping Body-Mind

Do not think that one is only doing this practice "right" when feeling like a clear and polished mirror, pulling weeds in contentment with undisturbed mind. Instead, find the undisturbed mind that is always present ... even as the mind thinks "man, it is hot and there are so many damn weeds". The mirror is always there, so let it just reflect that too.

Perhaps that even with our negative emotions there is at the core, or at some deep level, clarity and peace?

Gassho,
Jisen/BrianW

[ghop]

Re: Great Awakening - Dropping Body-Mind

Nothing is more precious than to be a man who has nothing further to seek. Just do not give rise to any fancies, and be your ordinary selves.

To "drop away body and mind" is to simply and thoroughly drop the mind-body's demands/wishes/aversions-attractions/hard categorizing between the self and all that body-mind consider 'not the self'. Thereby, the "self" is put out of a job ... the hard walls between self and other soften or fall ... body and mind thus dropped away as the resistance and separation to "other" is dropped away ... thus "self" vs. "other" is dropped away ... thus "self" and "other" dropped away.

Thank you for this Jundo.

gassho
Greg

[Risho]

Re: Great Awakening - Dropping Body-Mind

([i]except perhaps in certain Kensho-fetishist book like "Three Pillars of Zen" and similar farces.

hahaahah :mrgreen: , you should put that as your review on Amazon. There were some things I liked about the book, but the desperation of chasing after Kensho experiences wasn't one of them.

After Keizan had his "Great Awakening", and Dogen ... and all the others ... what changed?

Do you know? Do you truly know?

I don't know :?: Maybe it strengthened their commitment on the path. But I do know personally, I practice this practice because I'm sick of adding on and adding on. I add on fear, or other crap, that is not real. I add on a lot of background noise because I'm bored. Oh I have nothing to fidget with or worry about, I'll worry about having nothing to worry about. It's insane!

In any case, the last thing I need in my practice is the pursuit of false ideals (I guess that's redundant because all ideals are false). Realization and actualization is the practice, not idealization. I don't know if I'm making sense, but that's why I'm here, and I find Treeleaf a great sangha to help me stay on the path.

From Mountain Record of Zen Talks by Daido Roshi, "How will we create that archive of sanity on top of a mountain peak, stuck in oneness? What will we do about the environment? What will we do about the starving millions, nuclear holocaust, the pollution of hte environment? What will we do about the twenty-first century if we are sitting alone on some mountain peak contemplating our navels while the world goes by? That is not our practice." p. 120

This is the Mahayana.. seeking enlightenment for oneself is a bs crap understanding of what this is. It's another medal to tack on to the ego's resume. I'm arguing in my mind about kensho; in the meantime, an old woman (to use a cliche') needs my help crossing the street. Hey, you cut me off and I gave you the finger. Where's the entry point to practice? Right here. Instead of reacting with those old habits, I need to feel that anger, and find out what is at the root of it. What did that person harm on me? What did they take from me? Who did they take it from? I mean most of my anger or fear is fake, protecting the ego. I mean have legitimate fears and anger, but most of the time it's from drama I'm creating to protect my position, whether that is physical (like where I'm at on the road in relationship to another driver taking "my spot") or mental (my status). But none of it is real.

And dammit! Practice is compassion and wisdom (nod to the Buddha Basics sit-a-longs ). We may study the eight fold path, but how is that actualized in our lives? That's the whole point, not if we got some fantastic hallucination while sitting on our cushion. I'm a newbie and my position may change the more I learn, but this is what I've experienced so far and what I've learned while being here.

I know you guys and gals articulate it better, but this just gets me fired up to continue my practice

[Stephanie]

Re: Great Awakening - Dropping Body-Mind

I don't know anyone right now who claims or believes that an enlightenment experience is a "happily ever after" that forever erases all problems and difficulties.

One of my central personal koans for a long time has been, "How can realized teachers still be so flawed and have so many problems?" Because I've worked with, had my life touched by, and read transformative teachings from people who I either already knew or later found out had secrets, skeletons, and demons in their closets.

What I've realized since can be encapsulated in the sentence, "We can't escape the world." We are conditioned beings and that conditioning is exactly what blocks our ability to see clearly. And while we can have moments of seeing through the conditioning, we can't drop conditioning forever. We can't function without it. Even the greatest masters still have all the baggage that got piled on them growing up. The only difference is that they have moments--not continuously, but moments--where they see baggage as baggage, and don't identify with it.

For me, Zen practice is not at all about becoming a "fitter, happier" me. It's not about becoming a nicer person, or learning how to peel carrots with more focused attention. It's not about acting like people want or expect "good Buddhists" to act. It's about seeing what is true, what is real, to the extent it is possible, no matter what that reality or truth happens to be, pleasant or unpleasant.

In my experience, Zen practice--zazen--is the only way to do this. Because I've learned, through personal experience, that truth and reality are not thoughts and cannot be known with or through thoughts. But most of our "understanding" is thought based, to the extent we don't even see that it is.

We have to see clearly that our thoughts are not it, no matter how lovely they are, and that practice is never going to get us what we want. I've been reading Charlotte Joko Beck and Toni Packer, and both are very clear that true practice requires going through an uncomfortable process of seeing the futility of the way we normally approach life. We have to see how self-centered we are, how we are trying to work every situation to our advantage, how we are trying to get peacefulness or happiness or love or security for ourselves and how futile this ultimately is. This isn't some trick where we say, "Oh, it's futile," and then by saying that get what we want. We never get what we want.

Seeing this, seeing through the self, whether totally in an instant, or gradually over time, requires a huge paradigm shift. This is radically different from cultivating an attitude of "acceptance" or even of "presence." Toni Packer says, "Rather than trying to seek solutions, overcome the self, or be of genuine service to the world, can we as human beings, caught in the midst of endless confrontation and fighting or weary acceptance of things, begin with a completely different approach: listening quietly and feeling inwardly all that's going on in and around us, without either acceptance or rejection?"

Joko Beck says, "It's natural to be selfish, to want what we want, and we are inevitably selfish until we see an alternative. The function of teaching in a center like this is to help us see the alternative and to disturb us in our selfishness. So long as we are caught in the first viewpoint, governed by wanting to feel good or blissful or enlightened, we need to be disturbed. We need to be upset. A good center and a good teacher assist that. Enlightenment is, after all, simply an absence of any concern for self. Don't come to this center to feel better; that's not what this place is about. What I want are lives that get bigger so that they can take care of more things, more people."

I started out this practice path a lot "nicer" than I am now. More "self-sacrificing." I took on crap in relationships that was truly unbelievable. I was a lot more saint-like! Except I wasn't. Except it was all rooted in a supremely distorted vision and understanding. It was rooted in deep self-loathing and a belief, rarely conscious, that I didn't deserve to be the one receiving, I had to prove myself as the giver first before I could ever deserve even a simple kindness.

When I started seeing this distorted view and dropping it, a lot of people started liking me a lot less. Because I didn't just give and give endlessly. I said "no."

But the danger in swinging away from that one extreme is swinging back toward the extreme that I think most of us spend our lives operating from, the belief that "I deserve something." I think probably that belief was even buried underneath my previous view and approach, and I was trying to prove to the universe that I was good enough to deserve something.

All of this is crap. And most of us bring this crap to practice, and practice this crap the rest of our lives, and thus never wake up.

Waking up to see through our delusions is not a pleasant ride. It is going to be deeply uncomfortable at times because the reason we hold on to our beliefs and distorted views in the first place, even though they cause us to suffer, is that they comfort us. They are like a carrot we dangle in front of ourselves to justify all the suffering we go through. And facing that the carrot may not exist means facing the possibility we don't get any reward or any relief from all the suffering we've done to try to prove to the universe we are good enough to deserve and get some goodness back.

The self that we center all of this distorted thinking on is an illusion. As long as we are operating from that sense of self, there is a fundamental distortion in our view, whether that distortion is that the self is deserving or undeserving, whether that distortion is the self is good or bad, whether that distortion is that I need to give more or I need to get more. The self doesn't fucking exist, so anything we try to do to it or make it into is like laboring over what color we need to dye a unicorn's mane.

I think maybe why the Internet peanut gallery criticizes Treeleaf as having a "faux nicey nice" vibe is maybe that it does sometimes. Maybe we should examine our strong reactions to that accusation? Maybe we should examine why we're practicing and what we're trying to get? Is anyone here willing to be uncomfortable? Or is our effort to make this place as comfortable as possible for everyone like switching the radio dial from Jim Morrison bellowing "WAKE UP!!!" to a nice lullaby?

I've not had a kensho and yet over the course of my practice I've seen through one delusion after another. And each time, the new delusion that sets in doesn't go quite as deep as the last one. Maybe one day, the last layer of the onion will come off. Maybe it won't. But at least, thank goodness, enough of the first few layers have come off that my practice is no longer adding any new layers over top of the ones I put on in my usual moments of non-practicing awareness. I know this because of the feeling of recognition that happens on the cushion, and off of it in moments when I catch myself furiously caught up in a delusion. That ability to drop the thinking mess is the fruit of practice. And for me, with a practice in its infancy, it only happens in very brief bursts of time before the whole delusional system boots back up.

I sincerely believe that Chet had a kensho, and that this was a vital and powerful experience. Why? Because of his ability to hone in on my delusion and point it out. No one else was able to. No one else could see the basis of my spiritual illness. To everyone else, such suffering must mean I have a psychological sickness and need medication. But I didn't. I had entered a certain painful phase of practice in which I could no longer find a life support system for a huge mass of idealistic delusions I'd been laboring under for years.

Chet is an incredibly flawed human being who doesn't do and isn't capable of a lot of the things "nice" people do. This has made trying to engage with him in a relationship like repeatedly throwing myself against a wall. But for that very reason, it's been good for my practice, because I've had to face how much I still want to get what I want, and how much I still have a very clear story about those things. And I don't think any of this has to do with Chet's intentions, by the way. He's legitimately "difficult." And, of course, people who think practice is about getting what you want and becoming a nicer person that other people like more are going to see that and assume he has no realization.

I still haven't quite worked out this koan of mine I mentioned in the beginning. How can people whose force of clarity has had such a transformative impact on my life still get caught in their delusions so much of the time? How can they still be so selfish? I honestly don't know. But what I do know is that the impact of wisdom on my life is immediate and clear, and many times deeply flawed, even delusional people have said or done things that immediately opened up that space of clarity in my life.

I think the fact of the inevitable hypocrisy of our teachers is something we will all see eventually if we look clearly enough. Honestly, Jundo, you fail to meet the criteria you put forth as evidence of realization, and are just as capable of acting stupid, stubborn, and mean as anyone else. Your recent lapse was above and beyond anything I've seen Chet do or say. The feeble justification is, "Well, I don't do it that often." Is that what this practice is about? Doing it less often? There's a lot of people who never sat a day in their lives who do it less often than you. Just like people probably roll their eyes at me, another legitimately "difficult" person perhaps, when I talk about what I've seen or realized. Because I'm clearly no blinking advertisement for "human perfection."

So what does that mean? Does that mean we need to find a better teacher who's more "realized"? Does that mean we need to make our practice about becoming more perfect? No, I don't think so. I think we just need to see clearly that this matter of practice isn't what we think it is and it doesn't get the results we're after and doesn't give us what we want or think we want. As long as we're looking to make our worldly situation better or make ourselves more likable we've missed the point entirely.

The point is realization. And realization doesn't mean "perfect wisdom and behavior for the rest of one's life hereafter." It means seeing clearly enough that when we inevitably fall back into our conditioning--which none of us can escape--that we can exit out of that program or pause that process for a moment, and see that it's a process or a program, not Reality itself. If our will and vision are very strong and clear, we may be able to shut that program down completely. It will boot back up again at some point when our attention wavers, and then we see it again, hopefully.

We each arrive where we are right now with a different set of experiences behind us. Different conditioning, different programming. It is our conditioning and programming that determines what our personalities are like and how "difficult" or "pleasant" we are. Practice will never erase and reset our conditioning. This huge reference system is the basis of our ability to function in the world at all. The best we can do is learn to see it for what it is and not identify with it completely.

We make a mistake when we judge a person's wisdom on how their particular conditioning manifests in the world. Some people are naturally "nice" and "easy to get along with" because they've either suffered very little, had good childhoods, or were conditioned to repress their true feelings so as not to upset whatever monster might come to life if they said what they really thought or felt. This has fuck-all to do with waking up, and as long as we're chasing after how to make us into nicer versions of ourselves we've totally missed the point.

The awakening experience is real, and vital in Zen, and not even Rinzai treats it like an end point. It is always treated as a beginning. Years of practice afterward are required to mature and refine and integrate that moment, or series of moments, of seeing. But until we see clearly that the self doesn't exist, that practice will never get us what we want, and that worldly results--such as being nicer or more likable--aren't what it's about, there is a fundamental distortion that inevitably distorts what we're doing when we sit our asses on the cushion.

[Rich]

Re: Great Awakening - Dropping Body-Mind

"What I want are lives that get bigger so that they can take care of more things, more people."

thank you joko beck, I think I am going to be OK with this and that.

/Rich