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Just Be?
Hello again. As I've mentioned before I'm quite new to Buddhism. On both the forum and in some of my readings I have come across "just be". At first I was a bit confused, but took some time to think about it. Is it similar to the ideas of living in the moment and not forcing anyway, or am I still somewhat confused? Thanks in advanced.
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Peace
To use a simplified analogy: As a concert pianist, you would have to practice your scales and various finger exercises, and rehearse the music, gradually perfecting your performance before walking out onto the stage. In a certain sense, that is what meditation is (in another sense, that is what it is NOT, but that's another story).
In meditation practice, you don't seek to squash straying thoughts (this only produces more thoughts!)-- instead you observe and become aware of the thoughts as they pass by-- like clouds. Don't cling to the thoughts or follow them, don't try to push them away. Just watch. As you get further along in your practice (months, years), you'll get better at this, but initially it can seem a bit maddening! What you are doing is learning to not attach yourself to your thoughts. Ultimately, everything that you experience in life is just your thoughts.
So being on the cushion is like the concert pianist in the practice room, slowly perfecting his skills on the piano. He can then be ready to do some performing in concert-- and that's the other aspect of Buddhist practice: taking this awareness with you not just on the cushion, but off the cushion, into everyday life itself.
After gaining some degree of awareness in meditation, you can begin to incorporate this into daily life (I often use my job in the ER as a place for practice-- I can't say I am always successful!).
Like the concert pianist, however, there is no point of arrival, where one can say, "my performance is so perfect, I don't need to practice any more!" One returns to the cushion, one returns to daily life. The goal is to make it seamless.
That is one *basic* perspective on how all that fits together.
Anyway, that practice of not clinging and not pushing away is what is really meant by the term "just be."
Zoketsu Norman Fischer: "The problem is that we actually are incapable of seeing zazen as useless because our minds can’t accept the fundamental genuineness and all-rightness of our lives. We are actually very resistant to this reality. We hate it because it is too simple and we persistently think we need more. This is not a detail or a quirk of our minds; it is not even a habit really; it is the deep nature of our minds."
Just FYI: I practice in the Soto Zen tradition with the shikantaza form of zazen meditation. Other meditation practices may vary.
Hope this helps!
Hagen's book OUGHT to be available at bookstores, though most bookstores I've been to are shockingly bad. You can definitely get it on Amazon or what have you easily though-- it won't be hard to get. Its a great introduction and he explains things quite clearly.
The book lays out just the very bare basics of meditation, emptiness, dependent arising, etc., without getting complicated. Thich Nhat Hanh's The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching is a good follow-up to Hagen, which gets into more specific Buddhist doctrines. The TNH book should be easy as pie to find (this is not one of his "lighter" books either-- NH is capable of writing some hardcore stuff as well as lighter stuff).
Those two books (in that order) I think I would always recommend as an introduction to Buddhism. At least it worked for me!