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meditation practice FOR?????
genkaku
Northampton, Mass. U.S.A. Veteran
It seems to me that no one practices meditation FOR something else. Only before or after meditation practice can we discuss the benefits or disasters that might accrue. But while actually in the midst of practicing -- same as with any other activity -- there is no FOR in the moment. Pounding a nail is pounding a nail at the moment of pounding a nail. The "birdhouse" or "bookshelf" comes before or after ... but not during. "Enlightenment" or "compassion" are what get discussed over beer and chips before or after a meditation practice.
And maybe that's one of the real benefits of meditation practice -- just learning that things are not FOR anything else. It's nothing sexy or spiritual. Isn't it just a fact worth learning? "All things are interconnected" or "there is no separation" are just powerpoint descriptors that may come up before or after.
Pass the chips.
What do you think?
And maybe that's one of the real benefits of meditation practice -- just learning that things are not FOR anything else. It's nothing sexy or spiritual. Isn't it just a fact worth learning? "All things are interconnected" or "there is no separation" are just powerpoint descriptors that may come up before or after.
Pass the chips.
What do you think?
5
Comments
Why do you practise? If you practise in order to _____ then this is to misunderstand practice. “In order to _____” indicates a split in the flow of time into now and later. Practice is practice, with “nothing extra,” as Dogen might say. And if practice is your life, then the question may be expanded further: why do you live?
The notion that life must possess a “meaning” or “purpose” is misleading: a lack is implied—a separation between yourself and all else. Does a river, a mountain, or a pine tree have a “meaning” or a “purpose”? Being complete in itself, a tree is nothing other than its own activity, integrated seamlessly within its own environment. It lacks nothing. “Lack”—which is always someplace else or sometime else—is an illusion with which we needlessly burden ourselves.
I was going to find time to look at his view tomorrow..
But that's for then..
In the meantime I agree. If we are meditating for something..can we be meditating at all ?
How can we be one -pointed for secondary reasons ?
I also offer popcorn to myself, seasoned with basil, curry powder, whole peppers, paprika etc and dipped in chilli and ginger sauce . . . yum . . . [lobster gets very excited and the restraints have to be tightened . . . ] however that is another recipe for later offering . . . Basically I don't want Kwan Yin getting too spicey . . . so she is offered minimal or no spice but some salt . . .
Puja, dedication of merit can be done before what most class as formal sitting.
It is also possible to direct ones arisings of metta to a person or situation.
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~camer008/meditation.tonglen.html
. . . time to improve the/our world?
OM YA HA HUM HRIH
Here and now –even before we can name it “here and now”- pounding a nail without separating from it and naming it “pounding”or “nail”.
Nothing special.
I meditate for the benefit of all beings. That sounds grandiose, but I need something to mediate the sneaking suspicion that I'm simply sitting on my ass like a lazy bum to no one's benefit. :P
“Ordinary mind is the Way,” Nansen replied.
“Shall I try to seek after it?” Joshu asked.
“If you try for it, you will become separated from it,” responded Nansen.
“How can I know the Way unless I try for it?” persisted Joshu. Nansen said, “The Way is not a matter of knowing or not knowing. Knowing is delusion; not knowing is confusion. When you have really reached the true Way beyond doubt, you will find it vast and boundless as outer space. How can it be talked about on the level of right and wrong?”
With these words, Joshu came to a sudden realization.
So the meaning of meditation doesn't start or cease with the cushion. Craving is looking for the meaning in the wrong place "I will get that". Or it could be aversion "I will destroy or stop that"
Yes, the desire to end suffering is suffering in itself. The nice thing about the path is that you don't have to do the whole thing at once if you aren't able to (and most people aren't.) It specifies increasingly refined forms of suffering, and the desire to end suffering is one of the last things to go.
Anyone who thinks they're not practicing meditation for the end of suffering is probably either lying or stupid. It is just barely possible that they are completely enlightened.
@Jeffrey, I think that's a pretty tragic watering down of what the Buddha originally offered. If the kleshas are still running the show and messing things up, it doesn't really matter that they're recognized as essenceless. Recognition of a phenomenon as essenceless is mostly useful as a way to disidentify from it so that it can be dispassionately dissected and brought to an end. And virtue, generosity, mindfulness, all the other wings to awakening are graspable in the right circumstances.
So mahayana is a technique to handle kleshas (also). I thought you were a mahayana Buddhist as you said, @fivebells?
Oh and there is no doubt that the mahayana is different from the Theravada. I don't buy arguments like "my CANON is the true one", however.
The reason I dislike the line, whether offered in false or true humility, is that in order for someone to know s/he was not enlightened, s/he would first have to know what enlightenment was ... and in order to know that, s/he would have to be enlightened. And so, from my point of view, the proposition falls flat on its face whether in reality or merely based on intellect.
Just because someone finds aspects of life unsatisfactory (dukkha) and wishes things could be more peaceful is not at all the same as referring to themselves as unenlightened.
I trust you understand this is not some ad hominem attack, @citta ... I'd be perfectly willing to say the same to any hominem who used the line.
Yes, I am a Mahayana Buddhist, doing hinayana practices. I think the Mahayana practices build on the hinayana practices, and are basically useless without a mastery of hinayana practice as a foundation.
Nor did I say anywhere that any canon is a true one. I said your creed is weak sauce, and gave a well-reasoned argument for it.
@seeker242, true as far as it goes, but you're never just sitting there breathing in and out. When you reach a point where it seems as though that's happening, it is time to study the factors of attention, intention, fabrication, perception and feeling which are making up the experience of just sitting there breathing in and out, and take them apart.
Obviously I am only a Bhumis 1, stream entrant, barely swimming in the right direction sort of buddha with a small be.
However I am exceptionally humble and wise (not that anyone would notice).
Being as my being now extends to the great brain unwashed, I am forced into the realisation that dukkha, miserable as it seems is all around. In order to be a Real Buddha of cosmic proportions, anything that is suffering is my responsibility . . .I could be here for eternity.
Oh well, wasn't doing anything special any how's . . . :om:
Be kind to me, I am not the only flawed BodySatvia.
I will shortly be releasing a song of realization . . . probably to the tune of 'I taught, I thaw a Buddha Cat a creep king up on me . . . '
Crusty S Lobster (bodhisattva enabled)
I think you just didn't know what all was included intertwined in my mind with realizing things are essenceless. That's also not a weak argument. Nagarjuna said things like the kleshas being essenceless.
Congrats on your promotion, although it doesn't seem fair that mammals get the distinctiveness of stream entry whereas crustaceans just get what? the same old?
There’s a view (I don’t hear it on this forum but I did encounter it a few times) which says that to end all suffering is to stop the cycle of rebirth, period. All existence is suffering and therefore not existing is liberation from suffering. That’s Buddhism seen as some kind of anti-life movement.
The other view says that enlightened life is possible. It is “life without suffering” which is “as miserable as ever”.
The image is that of the lotus flower; bright leaves and roots in the mud. I personally like the phrase I picked up somewhere: “If you want to cross the ocean of suffering you must take the ship with no bottom”.
We probably all start out trying to improve our lives in some way. I remember my first meditation class where we were asked about our motivation. Everyone wanted something very profane out of their practice.
But at some point we must take the ship with no bottom.
New shell and a whisker trim, same old story, no rest this side of para-nirvana.
fivebells said:
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how said:
Maybe I'm being dim here but I thought the OP was just talking about not feeding a hope or aspiration in formal meditation. There was no mention of what should or should not bring us to practise.
There's plenty of room for hope and aspiration in formal meditation. Reminding yourself that you're doing it for the sake of ending your own suffering can really help to establish good concentration.
@fivebells
It's good to be reminded of how many different meditations there are out there.
I understand how my post might have sounded meditatively myopic but I was addressing an OP who speaks as if his practise is Shikantaza. (presumptuous I know but every practise leaves its flavour).
In that form of meditation, specific mental formations (whether deemed by the meditater as beneficial or a hindrance) are simply not deliberately fed. Eventually with such a practise, even the hopes & inspirations that brought you there, fall away as the meditater and the meditation become indistinguishable from each other. Here with no separation between the meditative inertia and the meditater, there is no favouring of one sense gate over another. Sometime this is likened to how one adjusts a pillow while asleep in the middle of the night to describe a practise that is no longer done for the sake of one's own salvation.
If Genkaku was speaking more of the general practise as opposed to his formal meditation, (as others have said) then your view is well taken.
I did a shikantaza-style practice for years, and it wasn't effective for me. For that kind of practice to go where it's supposed to, it's not enough to give up deliberate feeding, you have to give up the feeding you don't see, too.
Can't find anywhere on this thread where anyone said "NO ONE", but you..
I thought Genkaku was speaking of his form of practise and other folks just extrapolated with what made their practise different.
I wasn't saying Genkaku was right and others were wrong, just that the meditative minutia being discussed was really about differences between meditative forms where I thought Gengaku was actually asking about a commonality.
You do explain well why Zen wasn't effective for you. I don't think Zen takes those who continue to foster a separate meditative entity, very far. There are other paths better suited for that issue.
So...
I'll see you a feeding that we don't see and raise you nothing.
Well, if your going to get accurate... :facepalm:
If I do, think of it as a meritorious non thought . . .
:banghead:
Till then will continue banging my head against the wall . . .
. . . such relief when you stop . . . thus have I heard . . .
:rolleyes:
So, everyone has the natural urge to end their own suffering. I think we all know this because what is the basis for our compassion? Is it not the knowledge that there is a universal desire by everyone to end their own suffering?
When we consider the truth of the presence of this natural urge to ease our own suffering, we can see why the Buddha, In the Nibbedhika Sutta, declares: So it is possible to conclude that one motivation for following the path is to search for a way to end suffering. However, it is not necessarily the only motivation. I can see that apart from the motivation to end our own suffering, we could easily also be motivated by the desire to end other people's suffering or by an intellectual desire to understand the truth of things. But I think that given the fact that we all experience suffering, we will also have a desire to end this suffering and thus whether consciously or not, at least one of the motivating factors to follow the path is to end our own suffering.
That is why the Buddha said in the aforementioned Sutta: So, while there may be a variety of reasons/motivating factors for our practice, at least one of the underlying reasons is to end our own suffering.
But that is to talk of general motivating factors. When we look at specific acts which can be considered as part of our practice, I think we can say that at specific moments in time, the desire to end our own suffering is not necessarily present for all specific actions we take which may be considered as part of our practice. For example, we see a hungry man. We give him food. The motivating factor for that is compassion. At that specific moment we are motivated by compassion rather than to end our own suffering. However, when we look at the big picture, we can say that compassion is part of our practice and one of our motivations for following the practice is to end our own suffering. While that may be true, the specific motivation when carrying out an act of compassion is still normally just for the sake of compassion alone.
So I think this is the same with meditation. It is possible for someone to practice meditation with some other purpose in mind such as for an intellectual desire to gain knowledge of the truth or perhaps out of compassion to understand the truth so as to be able to help others.
So I don't think it is always that case that one engages in meditation to end one's own suffering. I think it applies more when we talk in general terms about following the practice. Only then, I think that we can say that out of the many reasons one may have for following the practice, this would include the motivation to end our own suffering.