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Thich Nhat Hanh on zazen
betaboy
Veteran
Thich Nhat Hanh teaches that the way we are to observe something in meditation is to become the thing we are observing by removing the boundary between subject and object. He says, "Non-duality is the key word....the body and mind are one entity, and the subject and object of meditation are one entity also."
Source:http://www.intrex.net/chzg/Pat1.htm
Any thoughts on this?
Source:http://www.intrex.net/chzg/Pat1.htm
Any thoughts on this?
0
Comments
"When we practice zazen our mind follows our breathing....The air comes in and goes out like someone passing through a swinging door. If you think, 'I breathe', the 'I' is extra. There is no you to say 'I.' What we call 'I' is just a swinging door which moves when we inhale and when we exhale. It just moves; that is all. When your mind is calm enough to follow this movement, there is nothing: no 'I,' no world, no mind nor body; just a swinging door. So when we practice zazen, all that exists is the movement of the breathing, but we are aware of this movement."
i enjoyed the article. thanks for posting
Yes, they are further down in another paragraph:
The effort we make in zazen is not to hold our minds empty or blank or void of thought. Nor is it to force the attention onto the breath. That would lead to rigidity, to a rigid state of mind. Rather, our effort should lead to flexibility by being ready to let go whenever we notice that we are distracting ourselves from our intention to engage with our present body and mind. Be ready to let go of distractions, to let go of insights, to let the tracking mind stop and return to your breath. We do not try to stop our minds from thinking. In zazen, we try to wake up. When you realize that you are thinking, let go of your thoughts the way you let go of your breath when you exhale. This flexibility, this ability to drop distraction and return to the breath, over and over and over throughout zazen, is one of the most important elements in practicing zazen.
This is what where I am on this one--
Perhaps you can think of a time when you had an argument, in your head, with someone about something. Most of us have done this at one time or another.
It could have been about a time when you were a kid and someone in authority treated you unfairly and didn't listen to you; or an anticipated time in the future, gearing up for an argument with a family member; or anything like that.
You would, in your head, say what you might have said, or could have said, to that person. And then, you'd imagine what the person might reply. And so on.
Then, when you were done with the whole wretched thing, not having tormented yourself enough, you went back to replay it again!
And, often, in the case of anticipating an argument, when we *actually* go to the other person and *actually* talk to them about what's on our minds, they say, "Oh, you want to ---? Yeah, ok." And the whole thing evaporates.
Now, in that movie-in-my-head (I ask myself), where were the other person's replies coming from?
Well, in that case it seems clear, that if I'm *not* telepathic, the other person's replies *must* have come from me. I was generating them. (And, if I *am* telepathic, then the fact that the other person doesn't react at all the way I imagined tells me I'm a *lousy* telepath!)
Do you see? Our ideas of other people are largely generated by our own minds. Like looking at an inkblot, or making animal shapes out of clouds. We work with what's presented, but what we make of it is our own doing.
And -- this is tricky -- our ideas of ourselves are similarly generated. In the same way, we create our sense of who we are.
I'm sure there's more to it; these are just some of my thoughts.
Conrad.