In another thread, Jundo wrote:
...So, in our "Just Sitting" Shikantaza, we completely accept the universe, and all in it, just as it is. We drop all thoughts of likes and dislikes, dreams and regrets and need for change, hopes and fears. Yet simultaneously, hand in hand without the slightest deviation (on another mental "track", if you want to say that), we live our lives as human beings, and living life requires choices, goals, likes and dislikes, dreams and hopes.

Thus, living our life is much like living in a house with a leaky roof, spiders and broken windows. In Master Dogen's way, we simply sit to drop all resistance to the house we have been living in all along, to realize that there is nowhere to 'go' in life, to cease all efforts to add to or take away from the structure, to let go of the ego's insisting on how things "should be" in order for the house to be "good" ... we ARE that house, our True Home! Then we find, in dropping that resistance, that the house we have always been in is "perfectly what it is", and we can be joyful right where we are. HOWEVER, we can be content with that house even as, hand in hand, there is still much serious repair work to do (an acceptance-without-acceptance of the leaky windows, spiders and creaky doors). There is nothing to prevent our fixing those, even as we accept their existence! We can accept and not accept simultaneously, repair what needs to be repaired.

We have goals for repair even as, on the other "track", we drop all goals and thoughts of repair.

So, even as we can accept that we are a wife beating alcoholic, we should immediately set to not be so! One simply cannot taste the fruits of Buddhist practice if one is so filled with anger, violence, pain and need that one is a violent, abusive alcoholic!

And what guides us onto the smooth path for life?

Yes, the Precepts.
I don't "get this" yet (it seems to me that once I accept the house as it is, my motivation to fix the house becomes nearly zero. Sure, I can fix the stuff if I have a mild preference in that direction, but it's not likely to happen). Let me use a concrete example from my life: My wife and I have long thought about moving to the mountains once we no longer have to work. However, this seems SO MUCH less important after just a year of exploring Buddhism and what really is important in life. In fact, I begin to suspect that this desire to move to the mountains is just another "the grass is always greener" deluded desire that will only result in yet another dream/desire that will never be fulfilled once we get to the mountains. Which leaves me with very little motiviation to actually make that move.

I can run this scenario with virtually every desire in my "samsara" life. This seems to fit in quite well with a quote from Linji:

Followers of the Way, as I look at it, we're no different from Shakyamuni. In all our various activities each day, is there anything we lack? The wonderful light of the six senses has never for a moment ceased to shine. If you could just look at it this way, then you'e be the kind of person who has nothing to do for the rest of your life
I understand this does not necessarily contradict Jundo's example above (the wife beating alchoholic), but assuming you are generally following the precepts, to me it does seem to imply that our motivation to do much but sit and enjoy is pretty small (NOT A BAD THING - unless your wife is not into Zen :mrgreen: )

Comments? Experiences? God knows Jundo has to be tired of explaining this again and again and again...