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Thread: Faith in Zazen...

  1. #1

    Faith in Zazen...

    Hi everyone,

    Someone suggested to me recently that a part Shikantaza is 'faith'. If this is so could you elaborate?

    I understood it as a faith in the efficacy of sitting without necessarily looking for the fruits. Maybe?

    Thanks...


    Didn't sit this morning as I have toothache and tried the JD solution last night and felt a bit worse for wear this morning.....I'm bad I know...
    Sat today

  2. #2
    Quote Originally Posted by dharmasponge View Post
    Hi everyone,

    Someone suggested to me recently that a part Shikantaza is 'faith'. If this is so could you elaborate?
    This is so.

    Quote Originally Posted by dharmasponge View Post

    I understood it as a faith in the efficacy of sitting without necessarily looking for the fruits. Maybe?

    Maybe.

    Gassho, Jishin, _/st\_

  3. #3
    Mp
    Guest
    Hello Dharmasponge,

    When sitting, just sit! I feel when we have faith in something, especially at the beginning, we are looking/expecting a pre-determined outcome. The benefits of Shikantaza will reveal themselves in time ... all that is needed is for us to open our hearts and minds and just sit. =)

    Gassho
    Shingen

    SatToday

  4. #4
    There's a really good discussion of faith in How to Raise an Ox by Francis Dojun Cook.

    The idea is that faith is a kind of preliminary idea that will, in time, be replaced by knowledge through direct experience--not a "blind" faith or adherence to orthodoxy or something you rely on throughout your entire life. Your very practice is an act of faith--that act of dropping off efforts and trusting our own Buddha nature.

    I'd recommend checking out the book. I haven't finished it yet, but so far it's a great primer on Dogen and possibly the most clear book on Zen Buddhism I've seen so far.

    Gassho

    Jen

    ST

  5. #5
    Yugen
    Guest

    Faith in Zazen...

    Hakuin taught that there were three essentials to zazen - great faith, great doubt, and great determination.

    They all exist in creative tension with one another. What faith means to you will change and evolve over the course of practice. What does it mean to you? Nenka and Shingen speak very wisely.

    Among other things, Faith to me means spiritual and existential self reliance - doubt and determination support and challenge this statement every step along the way.

    Interesting - as I typed Hakuin's name autospell corrected it to Bakunin, who believed that anarchy is the mother of order. And so with our exploration of the great void we ultimately encounter the reality of things, when we allow our mental structures, narratives, and facades to fall away.

    Faith, Doubt and Determination are required to sustain ourselves on this path with few landmarks, few traces. It is a wilderness in which each of us is an explorer.

    Deep bows
    Yugen


    PS - the JD got your attention off the toothache it seems? The cure is worse than the ailment!





    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
    Last edited by Yugen; 04-09-2015 at 04:01 PM.

  6. #6
    Hi Tony

    Faith can be a useful support until practice is based on direct knowledge and experience of sitting.

    Faith is not just faith in the practice, but also in the teachers and sangha members who sit with you. Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.

    I agree with Nenka that the Faith section in How To Raise an Ox is very good. Faith often gets a bad rap from being conflated with blind belief. Buddhist faith, in my experience, is more nuanced and not unlimited. If faith in something is not supported by experience in the end, it tends to wither.

    Gassho
    Kokuu
    #sattoday

  7. #7
    Kyotai
    Guest
    Thank you Yugen, thank you all.

    Gassho, Kyotai
    Sat today - with great doubt as of lately

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Kokuu View Post
    Faith can be a useful support until practice is based on direct knowledge and experience of sitting.

    Faith is not just faith in the practice, but also in the teachers and sangha members who sit with you. Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.
    I agree with this. Very nicely and simply said, Kokuu!

    Nenka, thank you for the book recommendation, sounds like a good one.

    Tony, much metta for your toothache! (No better time to sit, if you ask me, which no one did. ) I asked a similar question about faith a while back and there was a great discussion, here:

    http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showt...highlight=Bomb

    Gassho
    Lisa
    sat today

  9. #9
    The following point is very very VERY important!

    There are two aspects of "faith" (perhaps "trust" is a less loaded word for many Western people) vital to Shikantaza.

    First is the kind alluded to by several folks above: The "trust" one must have in the doctor and his prescription at the outset of therapy ... The student should have trust in the teacher and teachings, at least for the months or longer until the teachings begin to prove themselves.

    But there is another "trust in Shikantaza" that is ABSOLUTELY VITAL! I describe such as follows: Strange as it may sound at first blush, if one sits with a radical trust that the mere act of sitting Zazen is a complete action ... it is! But on the contrary, if one sits with the feeling "something is missing" ... then it is! So, a thorough trust in the former is vital!

    Quoting myself ...

    Please understand what I am about to say fully:

    If you simply sit with the attitude that your Zazen in that moment is "perfectly whole, just complete unto itself, without borders and duration, not long or short, nothing to add or take away, containing all moments and no moments in "this one moment" ... then IT IS! IT IS because you learn to treat and taste it as so. Your learning how to treat it as so, makes it so. If you can learn to sit there feeling about Zazen, and all of life, that "there is not one thing to add or take away" ... then, guess what: there is not one thing to add or take away precisely because you feel that way. Each moment is perfectly whole when you can see each moment as perfectly whole. Time stops when you stop thinking about time. Each instant of time is perfect when you think it perfect.

    Strange, huh? But you are in the driver's seat.
    What is a good analogy to explain this? Well, suppose you were looking at or climbing a mountain, and you said to your self "this mountain, and this experience, is whole and complete ... there is nothing to add or take away from this ... there is nothing more I need to do now, no other place I should be now, but this ... this is total fulfillment" ... then your simply having such attitude lets you realize the moment as so. A wonderful experience.

    But on the other hand, if you say to your self "I need a better mountain, there are more impressive mountains, I did not climb fast enough, the day is not as I dreamed, I still feel that something is missing in my heart, I yearn and hunger for something else, some other mountain" ... then it is so, and you make it so by your attitude.

    So why is the former vital? Sitting with such attitude allows us to realize this whole universe, and our place as it, with the same wholeness and total fulfillment. It is ignorant human beings who are prisoners of the latter way of always feeling need, desire and lack.

    The mountain itself sits in its place ... and all the rest is what one pours upon it in judgement of the human mind. Truly, in Shikantaza we come to recognize each mountain and each grain of sand and each day and each moment and each action ... and each sentient being, and you and your life too ... and each tooth and every toothache too ... as occupying its own sacred place, a kind of Jewel shining in Indra's Net. Thereby, as Nenka said ...

    Your very practice is an act of faith--that act of dropping off efforts and trusting our own Buddha nature.

    Got the point?

    Gassho, Jundo

    PS - I rather disagree with the point Yugen raises about Hakuin's "three essentials to zazen - great faith, great doubt, and great determination." In pointing to those, Hakuin was speaking about his particular flavor of Koan Centered Zazen in which one focuses on a Koan with such intensity that Great Doubt erupts into an experience of Kensho. It is not directly applicable to Shikantaza Practice.
    Last edited by Jundo; 04-09-2015 at 08:00 PM.
    ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

  10. #10
    Yugen
    Guest

    Faith in Zazen...

    Hi Jundo,
    You are correct regarding the historical and method context of Hakuin's remark. Since we all practice life as a Koan however I don't think it's much of a stretch to apply this to Soto practice and Shikantaza - I find the common view of Rinzai/Koan study as distinct from Soto as a non-Koan discipline to be weak. We certainly do not focus on Koan study during zazen or otherwise in he Rinzai context, but Dogens use of Koans and their influence upon his work is accepted in contemporary scholarship. Shinji Shobogenzo is a case in point, even if he didn't transcribe it in one night .

    You are the teacher and I am the student. My opinion only!

    Deep bows
    Yugen


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
    Last edited by Yugen; 04-09-2015 at 06:05 PM.

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by dharmasponge View Post
    Hi everyone,

    Someone suggested to me recently that a part Shikantaza is 'faith'. If this is so could you elaborate?

    I understood it as a faith in the efficacy of sitting without necessarily looking for the fruits. Maybe?

    Thanks...


    Didn't sit this morning as I have toothache and tried the JD solution last night and felt a bit worse for wear this morning.....I'm bad I know...
    Hi Tony,

    I think one of the things we try to do in Zen is move away from the pain caused by the phenomenal/dualistic world and move more into the peaceful essential/oneness world. I get the feeling you expect phenomenal answers. For example: "If this is so, could you please elaborate?" If someone starts going blah blah blah answering your question, you are going to formulate more phenomenal questions expecting another phenomenal answer which is just going to cause you more confusion. Answers like "This is so" to your "If this is so?", "Maybe" to your "Maybe?", "Hard to say." "Don't know." "Rock and Roll." "Bugger." "Spaghetti Monster!" or anything that cuts your thinking mind off for a bit and bring you back to here and now (essential world) are better answers than a phenomenal/dualistic answer in my opinion in your case. Its that simple man. I think Taigu once said that Zen begins when the questions stop. Take this advice. Pull up a Zafu and have a sit.

    Gassho, Jishin, _/st\_
    Last edited by Jishin; 04-09-2015 at 06:07 PM.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Yugen View Post
    Hi Jundo,
    You are correct regarding the historical and method context of Hakuin's remark. Since we all practice life as a Koan however I don't think it's much of a stretch to apply this to Soto practice and Shikantaza - I find the common view of Rinzai/Koan study as distinct from Soto as a non-Koan discipline to be weak. We certainly do not focus on Koan study during zazen or otherwise in he Rinzai context, but Dogens use of Koans and their influence upon his work is accepted in contemporary scholarship. Shinji Shobogenzo is a case in point, even if he didn't transcribe it in one night .

    You are the teacher and I am the student. My opinion only!

    Deep bows
    Yugen


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
    Hi Yugen,

    Yes, of course one can find some place for such words in Soto Practice too. We all have time we doubt (me too, though not now) and need to trust and stick on with determination. Of course.

    But Hakuin was speaking of his intense work with Koan Phrase Zazen, like this famous quote ...

    Night and day I did not sleep; I forgot both to eat and rest. Suddenly a great doubt manifested itself before me. It was as though I were frozen solid in the midst of an ice sheet extending tens of thousands of miles. A purity filled my breast and I could neither go forward nor retreat. To all intents and purposes I was out of my mind and the mu alone remained. Although I sat in the lecture hall and listened to the master’s lecture, it was as though I were hearing a discussion from a distance outside the hall. At times it felt as though I were floating through the air.

    This state lasted for several days. Then I chanced to hear the sound of the temple bell and I was suddenly transformed. It was as if a sheet of ice had been smashed or a jade tower had fallen with a crash. Suddenly I returned to my senses. I felt then that I had achieved the status of Yen-t’ou, who through the three periods of time encountered not the slightest loss [although he had been murdered by bandits]. All my former doubts vanished as though ice had melted away. In a loud voice I called: “Wonderful, wonderful. There is no cycle of birth and death through which one must pass. There is no enlightenment one must seek. The seventeen hundred koan handed down from the past have not the slightest value whatsoever.” My pride soared up like a majestic mountain, my arrogance surged forward like the tide. Smugly I thought to myself: “In the past two or three hundred years no one could have accomplished such a marvelous breakthrough as this.”
    We also "non-get" to (because one never has left) this place beyond birth and death ... but we tend to use a finer approach.

    Gassho, J

    SatToday
    ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

  13. #13
    Yugen
    Guest

    Faith in Zazen...

    You are completely correct Jundo. Thank you for the teaching!

    Deep bows
    Yugen


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
    Last edited by Yugen; 04-09-2015 at 06:31 PM.

  14. #14
    My dear friend, I can tell you something that happened when I asked - during a Dokusan (private interview with a Zen teacher) - how to do Zazen properly.

    The monk said: "Zazen will teach you by itself."

    Since then Zazen is teaching me; when I sit incorrectly, Zazen leads me to the correct posture (altough there is no correct or incorrect here). When many thoughts arise, Zazen shows me my breath flow. It seems to me a gate without gate: a door that opens inwardly (although there is not a door) for I to realize "myself". Sometimes I feel more "flowing with the flow", then seems to me there's no space to manifestations of the thoughts "I" call "myself". Then finished its time, I ask "myself" who's practicing, and then I feel again that "self" of mine.

    I agree when we are beginning this practice (always?!) we need to have some faith in order to establish practice and maybe begin to grab the "fruits" of it. Although there is no practice, and there is no fruit.

    Maybe this practice is just a training, a way to gradually widen the usual self-centered thought to...

    But why to be like that, sitting in front of a wall (or whatever) most times in unconfortable positions, legs hurting...?

    That leads me to think maybe because of it, Master Dogen Zenji - founder of Soto School - said "One day without work, one day without food."

    Maybe that "food" (that shift of conscience) isn't really "there" in the Zazen but in order to get it we have to work to open that door which leads Nowhere.

    One day without work, one day without food. We have to do the efforts. Sometimes door is heavy!

    Maybe first we'll se a glimpse of light, then... well, I don't know really.

    Then I sit again, pursuing that state of consciousness I thought I'd experienced someday; again self-centered, again struggling with my lack of posture, struggling with my feelings...

    Until Zazen comes again, silently between thoughts and the door is open again: then I see

    Nothing.

    Although most times it is a glimpse, it is a true ray of light which illuminates my way... and of every and one being.

    I beg you keep practicing.

    Sometimes I hear in the wind: everything is practicing with you.

    I am just a practicer like you. Please consider this is just opinions on my actual state of knowledge of what is Zen practice to me...still much much much to learn (and practicing!)
    _/|\_

    Kyōsei

    強 Kyō
    声 Sei

    Namu kie Butsu, Namu kie Ho, Namu kie So.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Jundo View Post
    Sitting with such attitude allows us to realize this whole universe, and our place as it, with the same wholeness and total fulfillment.
    Holy guacamole! Read it backwards, forwards, standing on your head, turn it inside out, examine each individual word carefully, then just dive into it and swim around in it. This one sentence is packed so densely with truth, it could go off like a supernova. May we all be consumed by the explosion! Thank you Teacher, deepest bows.

    Gassho
    Lisa
    sat today


    p.s. Regarding faith, doubt, and determination: clearly we Soto folks don’t apply these ideas as a means to make enlightenment happen or to chase after kensho. But I do agree with Yugen that the creative tension they bring can support, challenge and sustain us on the path. I guess it depends on how you define and use these words. I think of faith as faith in the 3 Jewels, allowing yourself to manifest as the whole universe; doubt as healthy skepticism to find out and experience what the nature of reality is, what shikantaza is, and how it answers or renders moot my questions: and determination as dedication to sit and to the precepts. I’m an uneducated newbie, so these are just my subjective and, I’m sure, flawed concepts that reflect my current understanding.

  16. #16
    In truth, I'm not sure I see a faith in sitting? Not really for me, at least.

    What led me to Buddhism was when I realized how a particular person or two in my life were really getting to me. I was stuck in questioning everything I did, how they would perceive it, what underlying intentions were in the things they said and did, what might they do tomorrow, how other people would perceive our interactions, on and on. I could feel the churning and turning inside me. I could feel the strain.

    The Four Noble Truths and all that helped, being soothing in their own way, but then I found Treeleaf and started to sit.

    It is a break from everything, the questions and the thinking. (Or maybe more accurately, a break from fighting everything.) It is a chance to just let things be, to just be, and not have to worry about anything. Sure, my head keeps going at it, especially on a crazy day, but it gets a chance to "spin out". Let it all go. Not hold onto it, not shove it away, not poke at it, but let it be and let it go. How wonderful!

    And I get better at carrying that sitting with me, beyond the zafu.

    I gave a new food a try and liked it, I'd say. Whatever happens, however I am doing it, I feel better doing it. In that, I don't think there was really anything to have faith in?

    Perhaps I question the teachings a bit as I come across them, but sitting itself? Not really.

    Maybe my sharing will be helpful. If not, you know what, I'm not gonna question it. Sometimes it's just good to share.


    Gassho,
    Stacy

    #SatToday
    Last edited by Stacy; 04-09-2015 at 11:14 PM.

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Jundo View Post

    What is a good analogy to explain this? Well, suppose you were looking at or climbing a mountain, and you said to your self "this mountain, and this experience, is whole and complete ... there is nothing to add or take away from this ... there is nothing more I need to do now, no other place I should be now, but this ... this is total fulfillment" ... then your simply having such attitude lets you realize the moment as so. A wonderful experience.

    But on the other hand, if you say to your self "I need a better mountain, there are more impressive mountains, I did not climb fast enough, the day is not as I dreamed, I still feel that something is missing in my heart, I yearn and hunger for something else, some other mountain" ... then it is so, and you make it so by your attitude.

    ...

    The mountain itself sits in its place ... and all the rest is what one pours upon it in judgement of the human mind. Truly, in Shikantaza we come to recognize each mountain and each grain of sand and each day and each moment and each action ... and each sentient being, and you and your life too ... and each tooth and every toothache too ... as occupying its own sacred place, a kind of Jewel shining in Indra's Net.
    By the way, let me express the real Trick ... what we call the "Mountains Are Mountains Again" Trick ... which is learning to lead life simultaneously from both viewless views as one at once, interpenetrating and interfusing. This is our Zen Practice. How?

    Well, then, there is a mountain to climb, but no place to go. Thus sitting and going, we are always going while simultaneously perfectly at rest! There is trash to pick up along the trail of our lives, but nothing to change. There are right ways and wrong ways, going in circle ways and ways which lead right off a cliff, into the mud or into the poison ivy ... yet each step is the trip, and there is ultimately no wrong way or place to fall. One move forward step by step ... yet each step, right here, is a total arrival. Ups and downs, rain and sunshine ... and we put on our rain gear when we can, and follow the good trail when we can ... but all is ultimately just what it is. We take care not to break our bones or break our hearts ... but such sometimes happens in life nonetheless, yet ultimately nothing which can ever be broken in a Buddha Heart.

    Got how that works? All True As One At Once! Climbing Buddha mountain, yet each step is just the mountain from beginningless beginning to endless end of the trail.

    It is a sane and healthful way to get on with life too. Trust me on that!

    The famous saying of 9th Century Master Ch'ing-yüan Wei-hsin (Seigen Ishin):
    老僧三十年前未參禪時、見山是山、見水是水、及至後夾親見知識、有箇入處、見山不是山、見水不是水、而今得 箇體歇處、依然見山秪是山、見水秪是水

    "Before someone studies Zen, to that someone mountains are mountains and waters are waters; after someone gets an insight into the truth of Zen through the instruction of a good master, mountains to that someone are not mountains and waters are not waters; but after this when the someone really attains to the abode of rest, mountains are once more mountains and waters are waters."


    Another old saying on Suchness (and the inspiration for the name of Taigu's community) ...

    青山自青山、白雲自白雲
    "The blue mountains are of themselves blue mountains;
    "The white clouds are of themselves white clouds."

    Gassho, J

    SatToday on the Mountain

    PS - This is also the way that Zen Monks can strive to attain flawless perfection in ritual, all while dropping all idea of perfection and flaw and striving and attaining, all amid a certain Buddha Perfection which sweeps in all small human ideas of perfect or flawed ... all as seen on this other perfectly-imperfect thread ...

    http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showt...l=1#post152113

    and

    http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showt...l=1#post152154
    Last edited by Jundo; 04-10-2015 at 06:12 AM.
    ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

  18. #18
    Thanks everyone again for such comprehensive and thoughtful answers.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
    Sat today

  19. #19
    Mp
    Guest
    Thank you Jundo for that perspective on "Faith/Trust". For me I do have "trust" in Shikantaza, as I have trust in knowing that if I sit the beauty and benefit of that practice will/does shine throughout my life ... and hopefully the lives of the people I meet. =)

    Gassho
    Shingen

    SatToday

  20. #20
    Here here to that, Shingen. Faith in practice, practice in faith.

    Gassho,
    Hotetsu

    #SatToday
    Forever is so very temporary...

  21. #21
    When I first became interested in Buddhism I had many doubts and concerns about the practice even though many of the core teachings resonates strongly with me. I kept them in my heart, with limited understanding and they were what they were.

    After some troubling events in my life I decided to give practice another try and one could say that it was an act of faith. Thus far, Treeleaf has been washing away my initial doubts and misunderstandings. I'm still pretty new to this, but so far so good. My "faith" in Buddhism and Zazen has increased based on my experience with daily sitting and slowly understanding the teachings. What resonated before is still resonating. What I've learned thus far has settled many of my concerns.

    Let's see what happens.

    Gassho

    Sat Today

  22. #22
    my opinion , which I do not hold is that if one comes to Buddhism, Zen, sitting, with some intellectual understanding then faith is required possibly more than if one intuitively enters the path with very little information. Me personally it just looked a cool thing to do, to sit, Buddhism itself appeared dreary and depressing, complicated, totally unbelievable and all about suffering but Zen and meditation had style. and wow, all you have to do is sit!!
    Lol, so as shallow as that may sound the first time I read how pointless it would be to have the goal of enlightenment when sitting I couldn't believe anyone in their right mind would think that they could be enlightened, so in my stumbling intuitive approach I started to realise maybe I am getting some of this stuff right.
    I remember when I joined here telling Jundo (bows in respect) how my practice was very simple, just sit and let go, for which one just needs a cushion, not faith.

    Gassho

    Sat this morning

  23. #23
    Lovely discussion. Trust each step, even the ones that trip us up. Don't have anything else to add except to say thanks.

    Gassho,
    Alan
    sattoday
    Shōmon

  24. #24
    But there is another "trust in Shikantaza" that is ABSOLUTELY VITAL! I describe such as follows: Strange as it may sound at first blush, if one sits with a radical trust that the mere act of sitting Zazen is a complete action ... it is! But on the contrary, if one sits with the feeling "something is missing" ... then it is! So, a thorough trust in the former is vital!

    YES!!! thank you Jundo

    Gassho

    Risho
    -sattoday
    Last edited by Risho; 04-16-2015 at 01:48 PM.

  25. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by Nenka View Post
    The idea is that faith is a kind of preliminary idea that will, in time, be replaced by knowledge through direct experience--not a "blind" faith or adherence to orthodoxy or something you rely on throughout your entire life. Your very practice is an act of faith--that act of dropping off efforts and trusting our own Buddha nature.ST
    This reflects my experience with zazen--I first came to it with a mixture of curiosity and faith in the experiences of others. Now I have direct experience as a reinforcement of that initial faith.

    Hope that makes sense?

    Gassho,

    Meredith

    SatToday

  26. #26
    Hi, most days I sit with pain--my doctors tell me I have chronic pain. The bones in my neck are destroyed from a disease process, and in some cases like mine, operations might be possible. Not so with me. the damage is too near the brain, or it isn't in the right place, or even it would do no good. When I am still, when I am quiet, sitting, just sitting Shikantaza, I do not experience level 10 pain, or any level. In my lower back the scar tissue has fused the joints. I find it difficult to bend over.

    I am quiet when I practice Shikantaza--quiet an still wakeful. Is this faith? Certainly it is perseverance, and this follows me when all else fails. I surrender to the quiet, to the time, to my breath, to my body, to my day, for in not thinking I find peace.

    Elgwyn
    sat today
    Gassho _/\_

  27. #27
    Suzuki roshi speaks of faith in Something which has no form, but is always ready to take on any form, has no taste or color but is always ready to take any taste or color, no quality but ready to take on any quality. He spoke of God but no the dualistic God but yes an ultimate reality of which we all are part. He mentions that at the moment of birth we are separated from this Reality without losing our nature but taking on feelings an a samsaric existence. Life is always painful until we develop understanding of ourselves and others, and of our situation between the universal Mind and our samsaric being.
    He was bin on sitting zazen with a ready mind and faith on our posture which he mentions often pre dates Shakiamuni by a long, long time.Like
    Dogen zenji, Shunryo-san gets an A+ in Buddhist faith.
    I keep listening to readings of his Zen Mind Beginner's Mind book over and over and always find something new that I missed before.
    "Know that the practice of zazen is the complete path of buddha-dharma and nothing can be compared to it....it is not the practice of one or two buddhas but all the buddha ancestors practice this way."
    Dogen zenji in Bendowa






  28. #28
    Quote Originally Posted by Ed View Post
    Suzuki roshi speaks of faith in Something which has no form, but is always ready to take on any form, has no taste or color but is always ready to take any taste or color, no quality but ready to take on any quality. He spoke of God but no the dualistic God but yes an ultimate reality of which we all are part. He mentions that at the moment of birth we are separated from this Reality without losing our nature but taking on feelings an a samsaric existence. Life is always painful until we develop understanding of ourselves and others, and of our situation between the universal Mind and our samsaric being.
    He was bin on sitting zazen with a ready mind and faith on our posture which he mentions often pre dates Shakiamuni by a long, long time.Like
    Dogen zenji, Shunryo-san gets an A+ in Buddhist faith.
    I keep listening to readings of his Zen Mind Beginner's Mind book over and over and always find something new that I missed before.
    Suzuki and Dogen have beautiful words. But they are dead and not my own.

    Gassho, Jishin, _/st\_

  29. #29
    Yes, agreed.
    "Know that the practice of zazen is the complete path of buddha-dharma and nothing can be compared to it....it is not the practice of one or two buddhas but all the buddha ancestors practice this way."
    Dogen zenji in Bendowa






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