Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
A Koan...
in Meditation
Some teachers will tell you to meditate on "who am i?"
I've heard a different technique. ...try "what is this? "
Meditate well.
I've heard a different technique. ...try "what is this? "
Meditate well.
0
Comments
If you change the word from "who" to "what" "i" to "this" the person will be less likely to come up with an answer to self. Open the door that leads to non self.
Or.. ..another koan could be "who am I not"
So @Florian doesn't that also sound like just a question?
http://vimeo.com/theglossary/thisiswater
The way I see it, you can be as attached as you like (knock yourself out!) or you can run away as fast as you can (find a nifty spiritual framework in which to couch it) ... either way, you're screwed.
Even just reading the newspaper, you have dislikes, or likes, or some view of self attached to those likes or dislikes. Why? because we still think there is an "I" who is reading the newspaper . An "I" who is laughing at the comic section. "I" who is cutting out coupons.
This is not some random shit im making up. The Buddha taught that there is this problem. Its universal. The Buddha said this about every single unenlightend person.
I speak for myself as well.
Since, if the problem as you say, is "universal," then the Buddha would have the same problem. Did/does the Buddha you refer to have this problem or not? If yes, then is/was s/he the Buddha? And if not, on what basis do you say so?
If belief is to be the yardstick, did the Buddha you credit believe? Sounds iffy to me, but I've always been a skeptical Sally.
^^^Pema Chodron on shenpa
To the extent that I am any longer a "Buddhist," my strange stuff sounds like this: The Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path are pretty much the cornerstone of all Buddhism. The Four Noble Truths are observations. The Eightfold Path depicts suggestions based on those observations.
As a matter of doctrine, The Four Noble Truths and The Eightfold Path are a bit like feeding pureed spinach to a tot: It's carefully prepared and slips easily down the intellectual throat. It is nourishing, assuming you can get the kid to swallow it. And this is a doctrine that may assist in the first wobbly steps a child might take. Good doctrine, good philosophy, good religion (perhaps). Oh yes, delusions and ignorance are like body odor ... no missing 'em!
But, to switch metaphors, all of this is like having a bicycle without having yet ridden it. It's shiny and inviting and way-kool.
The Four Noble Truths and The Eightfold Path move out of the pureed spinach realm as soon as anyone -- personally, deliberately, actively -- puts the walk to the talk. Practice is hard. It is endless. It cannot (like doctrine) be codified and contained. To say that there are 84,000 Dharma gates is to suggest that the number of entry points in the matter of liberation are infinite ... infinite, not as a matter of philosophy or doctrine, but literally and intimately infinite.
Zen is sometimes described as "the teaching outside the scriptures." This, like a shiny new bike, sounds way-kool ... right up until the moment anyone tries it. Where there are no hand holds -- when the helping hands fall away and you are stuck riding the bicycle on your own ... well, it's no joke: This is the world of meat and potatoes and spinach puree simply cannot help. Where is Buddha, where is Dharma, where is Sangha, where are the scriptures when seated on a bicycle that threatens very literally to crash? Where is ignorance and where is delusion ... seriously?
The doctrine of the Four Noble Truths and The Eighfold Path is nourishing, no question about it. Such doctrine can help shape intention and formulate action. "The Buddha says..." and similar encouragements are sometimes moving ... at least to those who find the suggestions and observations of Buddhism compelling. Hope and belief are fortified within doctrine. The Buddha is a bright beacon and, if you're anything like me, you say "Thank you very much."
But how thankful can anyone be if a lifelong diet consists of nothing but pureed spinach? Delusion? Sure. Ignorance? Sure. Attachment? Sure. This is a land of barbed wire ... stuff that can rend the flesh and make the tears flow. Will doctrine, however good, ease such pains? Bit by intimate bit, practice informs doctrine instead of the other way around.
The 84,000 gates are open. A man or woman walks through a singular gate that may seem quite singular and is, in one sense, utterly singular. No doctrine can enter where s/he walks. No wisdom is on tap. Things are the same, but different. After all, now s/he knows how to ride a bike.
Sorry for the length.
I post all this stuff from my sangha's view and I know nobody is on the same page. I guess I just like to talk to the universe and myself.
However much I agree to the this very insightful metaphor of bikes and practice, the helping hands, however long do help, are part of the process. In the beginning. To some those helping hands are doctrine of Buddhas Dharma.
Others maybe something else.
But, it is in my opinion, foolish to let go too soon in this world of barb wire.
The child too young, needing training wheels, and next the helping hands. Least he falls and smashes his face into the pavement. Later on, he is on his own.
Can we agree?
But there is something to be said for remembering Ta Hui's appreciation from an earlier time: "I have always taken a great vow that I would rather suffer the fires of hell for all eternity than to portray Zen as a human emotion." Intellectually and emotionally, this may seem cold and hard. But in reality...?
I dunno ... it just strikes me as something to keep an eye on.
Disclaimer: This was a jazz riff in the key of "huh?"