can you explain this please: 'Zen stresses there is no gap between daily practice and enlightenment'

zenmyste

It is a ZEN quote describing Zen and enlightenment. and i dont think i fully understand it.

Can someone explain it clearly please?

does it just mean in zen 'enlightenment is nothing more than the daily practice' if so, why do they think this is enlightenment?

Jeffrey

same awareness

the practice is to remove the stains..

jll

I think they mean we are already enlightened but we dont realise it yet.

jinzang

If your practice is something you leave on the meditation cushion, then it is a conditioned practice. Enlightenment, of whatever degree, is about contact with the unconditioned. So your practice has to be a 24 hour affair, something you do on and off the cushion.

Temporary_arising

What there are are realisation's. After a few realisation's reality is understood, and then the realisation that there is no practice nor anybody to practice. Enlightenment is this, here and now. This has to be realised first though. Without realisation, practice isn't enlightenment, as there's still illusion. I'd propose that whoever made that statement either wasn't realised and misunderstood, or it was lost in translation.

Rodrigo

I think it means just that: practice is not something you do to reach enlightenment in some distant future; instead, when you practice, when you live the moment mindfully, you are enlightened.

Temporary_arising

Practicing being in the present moment is not enlightenment as long as there is still the belief that there is a you practicing.

genkaku

An audience member once told the Korean Zen teacher Soen Sa Nimh that sometimes, during meditation, he felt like an absolute faker and a schmuck. Soen Sa Nimh replied, "You're either a Buddha or a schmuck -- there is no in between."

For discussion purposes, this response sounds very sexy indeed. No "between" for Buddha and schmuck; no "between" for daily practice and enlightenment; no "between" for indoors and outdoors. Wherever there is a "between" some investigation is required.

Take "night" and "day." Since it's summertime here in the U.S., it's not beyond imagining that someone might take a lawn chair and take a seat outdoors around 3 a.m. Clearly, it's night ... the stars, the moon ... you know what I mean. Around 4 a.m., the sky in the east turns a lighter shade of "night." Still, it's not exactly "day" yet. Little by little things grow lighter and lighter until -- voila! -- it's "day."

For conversational purposes, anyone might be pretty sure of themselves when referring to "night" and "day." And yet the reality is that finding the "between" to night and day is impossible. This suggests that in experience, "between" is a figment of the conversational imagination. It's not bad or good, wise or stupid ... it's just a conversational convenience. Believing in it is a personal matter. If you want to believe, then you believe. If you don't, you don't. But I think experience will show that it's more a matter of choice than it is a matter of reality.

Shumuck, Buddha, Buddha, schmuck. Maybe there's some kind of a new word we could make up -- maybe schmuddha or maybe budduck. Maybe daily practice IS enlightenment and enlightenment IS daily practice. I guess everyone finds out for themselves.

kaci

there are frequently similar statements in zen tradition - it may be that they point to the fact that states of enlightened awareness are actually present at moments during life even if one never takes up zen. however, they are obscured by other movements of mind due to distractions, desires, disturbances, aversions, daydreams, etc. and we do not normally notice them. this is essentially bankei's whole message: "the unborn buddha mind has always been there - it hears all the sounds you don't pay attention to, see's the things you don't notice; reside in the unborn buddha mind and stop allowing selfish tendencies to stir up the turbulence that obscures it!"

done.

IronRabbit

reside in the unborn buddha mind and stop allowing selfish tendencies to stir up the turbulence that obscures it

done

as in easier said than....?

Wherever there is a "between" some investigation is required.

this is the stuff of enlightenment - the in between - the space between breaths - between words - between synapses - between molecules where there is "no" in between - not even really anti-matter but "no thing"...."no mind". really indescribable and beyond knowing. reside there? how? sit faster????

kaci

sheesh IR, calm down - its only one saying and thoughts about what it might mean ...

taiyaki

just be. it is as simple as that.
in being we accept what is.

Spaceless

I think they mean we are already enlightened but we dont realise it yet.

Precisely, in view of eons of past,present lives karmics, it develops into attachment and discrimination due to ignorant. So the only way it to develop loving-kindness or metta so as to gradually recover by not creating negative karmic development :thumbsup:

IronRabbit

dude, calmer than you are....just asking...calmer than you are....

just quoting walter in the big lebowski here - have a chuckle.....

DaltheJigsaw

My personal opinion. Always being mindful and focused with anything that crosses your path.

mugzy

@zenmyste How do you think about this statement, what do you think it means? There are many good thoughts here, but I'm wondering what yours are on this subject.

Cinorjer

An audience member once told the Korean Zen teacher Soen Sa Nimh that sometimes, during meditation, he felt like an absolute faker and a schmuck. Soen Sa Nimh replied, "You're either a Buddha or a schmuck -- there is no in between."

For discussion purposes, this response sounds very sexy indeed. No "between" for Buddha and schmuck; no "between" for daily practice and enlightenment; no "between" for indoors and outdoors. Wherever there is a "between" some investigation is required.

Take "night" and "day." Since it's summertime here in the U.S., it's not beyond imagining that someone might take a lawn chair and take a seat outdoors around 3 a.m. Clearly, it's night ... the stars, the moon ... you know what I mean. Around 4 a.m., the sky in the east turns a lighter shade of "night." Still, it's not exactly "day" yet. Little by little things grow lighter and lighter until -- voila! -- it's "day."

For conversational purposes, anyone might be pretty sure of themselves when referring to "night" and "day." And yet the reality is that finding the "between" to night and day is impossible. This suggests that in experience, "between" is a figment of the conversational imagination. It's not bad or good, wise or stupid ... it's just a conversational convenience. Believing in it is a personal matter. If you want to believe, then you believe. If you don't, you don't. But I think experience will show that it's more a matter of choice than it is a matter of reality.

Shumuck, Buddha, Buddha, schmuck. Maybe there's some kind of a new word we could make up -- maybe schmuddha or maybe budduck. Maybe daily practice IS enlightenment and enlightenment IS daily practice. I guess everyone finds out for themselves.

I really like that.

A famous Zen Master once said, "Whatever you are doing is your Buddha Nature." So if you are sitting, that is your Buddha Nature. If you are thinking, that is your Buddha Nature. If you are hitting someone on the nose, that is your Buddha Nature. If your are practicing compassion, that is your Buddha Nature.

So cut off all thinking, and does your Buddha Nature disappear?
If you do nothing, where does your Buddha Nature go to?

I'm afraid that's as clear as I can get.

It's just beginning to get light outside and I see my daughter forgot to bring in the empty garbage can from the curb.

Jeffrey

Doh me too! (gets up)