Zazen is all the Buddhas and Ancestors sitting in our own moment of sitting, as if our sitting turns us into those Buddhas and Ancestors on the spot. We must have faith in that fact. We must taste vibrantly that the mere act of sitting zazen is whole and complete, the total fruition of life’s goals, with nothing lacking and nothing added to the bare fact of sitting here and now. No matter how busy our lives or how strongly we may feel tempted to be elsewhere, for the time of sitting we put aside all other concerns. To do this, we must have a sense that the single act of crossing the legs as Dōgen instructed (or sitting in some other balanced posture, as many modern students do) is the realization of all we’ve ever sought. That is why there is simply no other place to go in the world, nothing else to do besides sit in this posture.
Even if we do not yet fully believe in the completeness of zazen, we can nonetheless have trust and faith in it, and that trust and faith will soon turn into an actual experience. A friend who is a Broadway performer and Zen practitioner once told me that the “non-method” of zazen is like the case of a method actor playing the part of Willie Loman in Death of a Salesman. First the actor merely pretends he is Willie but eventually comes to embody Willie from head to toe. So, if needed, we sit zazen in the role of a totally satisfied and equanimous Buddha until Buddha comes to life for us.
... Unfortunately, we modern teachers do not always sufficiently emphasize this sacred, complete fulfillment of just sitting. I have sometimes witnessed zazen explained to newcomers like this: “Just sit in an upright posture, let your thoughts go, just breathe.” I have heard the advice to students to “just follow the breath,” or “straighten the back,” or “don’t grab onto thoughts,” or “drop all goals,” all of which are right and good, but few teachers say something like: “Sit zazen with the conviction that sitting is all that is needed in life,” or, “Sit trusting that this sitting is the total fulfillment of all the universe,” or, “Sit with a subtle sense that, were you to die right now on the cushion, sitting alone would have made a complete life.” ...
However, we should not think about or voice this truth of the completeness of zazen during zazen, but we must silently and subtly feel it deep down. Our feelings of lack or dissatisfaction will drop away in the wholeness and equanimity of sitting. Thus, I sometimes describe zazen as a “non-self”-fulfilling prophecy because, when we feel that sitting is complete, it is complete. On the other hand, if we feel that our zazen is incomplete, then it is incomplete. Zazen is just zazen, life is just life, but our judgment is subjective. How we see zazen is entirely up to us. But if we can know it as complete, we can do the same with all of life.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Ugrok
SatToday
)
) ...
