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Thread: Two eyes open together

  1. #1

    Two eyes open together

    In Shikantaza, one learns to have ordinary human preferences, yet simultaneously, no preferences at all, all in the very same instant. We can have wants and needs, yet be totally free of all wants and needs, both together in the same heart. It is possible to have healthy human desires while also free of all desire whatsoever, in a single thought!

    It is like seeing out of two eyes, left and right, perceiving and encountering the world from different and opposing angles ... preferences yet no preferences, desires yet no desires, needs yet no needs ... with both eyes open together holding the clarity of a Buddha's Eye.

    One learns that sometimes we will fear in life (for there are some scary things) yet, in the very same moment, one knows the shelter beyond all fear to the marrow. Running for our very lives in a cold sweat, yet free of all fear, held in one taste.

    These seeming contradictions are like opposite flavors mixed together in a pot, the sour and sweet perfuming and empowering each other, such that fear and fearlessness, goals and goallessness, needs and satisfaction, become one luscious taste.

    One learns that we can make choices, have goals and things to do, for we must be active to live, and we can have likes and loves, as well as things we detest, hopes. regrets and dreams ... yet as if sharing the very same heart ..., there is freedom from all preferences, a flood of equanimity, nothing to repair, nothing in need of doing, no goal remaining unfulfilled. We are incomplete yet complete at once.

    It is like making a trip, pushing ahead to the goal of desired destinations, yet as one walks, each single footstep is its own arrival, and no matter how far one goes, one never leaves home.

    We learn to live in a world of birth and death, aging, sickness and health ... yet, in the same breath, know timelessness, flowing beyond birth and death, wholeness washing away all measures of sickness or health. Death yet no death, sickness yet never sickness, time yet timeless ...

    People wrongly believe that we can be, or need to be, only one way or the other: We are either driven to survive by human desires, or frozen like opium addicts so totally content that they forget to feed themselves. They think that fear and total freedom from fear is an either/or proposition, and both cannot logically be true at once, yet our Koan revealed is that "either" and "or" are just two faces of a single mountain, the front and back of one shining moon. A secret of Zen Practice is that one can know total contentedness AND human discontent at once, simultaneously experienced, as two sides of a no sided coin. We can experience ordinary human desires, fears, plans, sadness ... while not being their prisoner, all in lovely moderation ... while further, thoroughly free of all desire, fear, goals and sadness at once, to the marrow, case closed.

    Our way to know this Wisdom is to sit in the complete Wholeness and Completion of simple sitting, Shikantaza, filled with equanimity, nothing more to choose, nothing whatsoever more in need of attaining ... all as our eyes remain open, and thoughts drift by, of discontents, choices, fears and all the rest.

    This is the wisdom of Shikantaza.

    Gassho, J

    SatTodayLAH
    ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

  2. #2
    Beautiful Jundo. It is good to have a reminder that there is a middle way.

    Gassho,
    John
    SatTodayLah

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by jgotthart View Post
    Beautiful Jundo. It is good to have a reminder that there is a middle way.

    Gassho,
    John
    SatTodayLah
    Perhaps, more than "middle way," it is both sides at once, looking right left and middle yet no right left or middle.

    Gassho, J

    STLah
    ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

  4. #4
    Member Yokai's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2020
    Location
    Havelock North, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand
    Thank you Jundo. Beautiful

    These seeming contradictions are like opposite flavors mixed together...one luscious taste.
    Salted Caramel?

    Gassho
    Chris sattodayLAH
    Last edited by Yokai; 07-23-2020 at 04:53 AM.

  5. #5
    Thank you.

    Gassho,
    Kotei sat/lah today.

    義道 冴庭 / Gidō Kotei.
    Being a novice priest doesn't mean my writing about the Dharma is more substantial than yours. Actually, it might well be the other way round.

  6. #6
    Yes!
    Gassho
    Meitou
    Sattoday lah
    命 Mei - life
    島 Tou - island

  7. #7
    Thank you, Jundo!
    Beautiful words

    Gassho,
    Ben

    Stlah

    Enviado desde mi PLK-L01 mediante Tapatalk

  8. #8


    Ghasso
    Bobby
    SatToday


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
    Just Sit

  9. #9
    Thank you for this teaching Jundo.

    You have a wonderful way of making the teachings clear and accessible.

    Gassho,
    Rob

    -st-


    Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk
    聖簡 Seikan (Sacred Simplicity)

  10. #10
    Thank you Jundo. That's the heart sutra if I've ever heard it.

    Gassho

    Rish
    -stlah

  11. #11
    Thank you Jundo, I was just reading about this today in Okumura's 'Living by Vow.' It's probably one of the most difficult of Buddhist concepts to get your mind around. Years of Shikantaza will do it for you tho,

    gassho, Shokai
    stlah
    合掌,生開
    gassho, Shokai

    仁道 生開 / Jindo Shokai

    "Open to life in a benevolent way"

    https://sarushinzendo.wordpress.com/

  12. #12
    Wonderful. Thank you Jundo


    Tairin
    Sat today and lah
    泰林 - Tai Rin - Peaceful Woods

  13. #13
    Wonderful wisdom.
    Deep bows
    Van
    Satlah


    Sent from my HD1913 using Tapatalk

  14. #14


    Gassho
    Kyōsen
    Sat|LAH
    橋川
    kyō (bridge) | sen (river)

  15. #15
    Member Onka's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2019
    Location
    Rural Queensland, so-called Australia
    Gassho
    Onka
    sat today
    穏 On (Calm)
    火 Ka (Fires)
    They/She.

  16. #16

  17. #17
    Thank you for this, Jundo.

    Gassho
    STlah
    Shoki

  18. #18
    I am seeking, and finding equanimity in my life by seeking to do good with and for others. I put aside my problems for now (I have plenty of time and opportunity to discuss these later with one I care about at a stronger time in their lives) and give emotionally to another, or doing something for them. This can include charities, or even with my Zendo. This is the key for me-- as I am able, give to others. Thank you Jundo for this teaching. Now I practice zazen. Shikantaza, just sitting.
    Tai Shi
    sat/ lah
    Gassho
    Peaceful Poet, Tai Shi. Ubasoku; calm, supportive, limited to positive 優婆塞 台 婆

  19. #19
    I have learned to sit with bad days and good days. Equanimity comes without saying and under all circumstances. The metaphor of child's funger "cuffs" became one of the ideas I used in surrender about 33 years ago As Marjorie helped me through the initial stage of sobriety. It was then for the very first time I realized the relationship between equnimity and gratitude, an intuition I have visited and revisited over more than three decades. My mind and emotion being equal, there is a recriprcal relationship between such mental formations as mind, feeling, attitude, and emptiness as one feels as one becomes Shikantaza or just sitting. For me I began with mantra to accept, then to change, then to not plan the outcomes-- then I begin simply to surrenender, and surrender is the best word as one finds oneself for the first time repedly, over, and over, and on into self recreated over time. No matter how much time between, for if on sits through bad and good it simply will happen. It may not be exactly through sitting, and often a catastrophic incident brings on surrender. There is no doubt. Yet one becomes awear of others in this process, becoumes honest with self and others, and eventually fully grateful for all.
    Tai Shi
    sat/ lah
    Gassho
    Last edited by Tai Shi; 08-03-2020 at 05:01 PM. Reason: spelling
    Peaceful Poet, Tai Shi. Ubasoku; calm, supportive, limited to positive 優婆塞 台 婆

  20. #20
    That's a really nice teaching Rev Jundo, which certainly resonates with me.

    Thanks you.

    Gasho, Karl, sat/lah.

  21. #21
    Thank you Jundo. I really like this.

    Gassho, Shinshi

    SaT-LaH
    空道 心志 Kudo Shinshi
    I am just a priest-in-training, any resemblance between what I post and actual teachings is purely coincidental.
    E84I - JAJ

  22. #22

    Two eyes open together

    I agree with Shokai. Living by my vows is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Whether with study sitting and commitment or by taking 12 steps one must commit at some point. Oh Jundo opium addict appropriate or Oxycodone or alcohol or sex or credit cards or self aggrandizing, or food. We call this substance abuse for a reassurance or comfort or desire or hidden in the self enshrouded layers of substance. So one emerged to great reality, bad good inference removed. This clarity comes at a cost to face hurt and relief. Like when a child wishes very hard, wish fulfilled then loses interest. So is self absorbed feeling. It’s always the effect one craves. When released one finds reality in a spectrum from bad to good. Thank you Jundo for this teaching
    Tai Shi
    sat/ Gassho
    Last edited by Tai Shi; 08-03-2020 at 09:07 PM.
    Peaceful Poet, Tai Shi. Ubasoku; calm, supportive, limited to positive 優婆塞 台 婆

  23. #23
    Beautiful. Thank you for the teaching, Jundo.

    Gassho
    Washin
    sat today
    Kaidō (皆道) Every Way
    Washin (和信) Harmony Trust
    ----
    I am a novice priest-in-training. Anything that I say must not be considered as teaching
    and should be taken with a 'grain of salt'.

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