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life and zen
misecmisc1
I am a HinduIndia Veteran
hi all,
i was reading various commentaries and dhamma talks on zen on the internet. so thought of writing this post to share with you all.
zen seems to be a cool way to live life. it takes the life to its smallest unit, a moment, which itself cannot be grasped. it says to live life fully in every moment. the method it says to do is to neither grasp nor reject anything - so no doing, rather just being in every moment.
life is like a journey - with emphasis not on destination, rather than on journey itself. our body and our mind both are not in our control, so in a way nothing is in our control. yet we live life by always trying to control it. i think this is because of the fear, which is deep down inside us - one of the most deepest fears being our death. so nothing is in our control - but still we have the choice of choosing between skillful and unskillful.
dogen said - we are time-being, meaning, time is self and self is time. everything is included in the present moment and it is complete in and of itself - yet there is no past and no future - because there is no present to grab hold of even. our awareness just experiences in the current moment, and so without our awareness, there is nothing as time.
dogen said - samsara and nirvana both are here right at this moment. dogen said - it is like one leg is right view of our basic nature and the other leg is the deluded view of samsara, it is up to us with which leg we move forward in the present moment.
suzuki roshi said - it is 'not always so'. what is right now, may not be right later - there is nothing inherently right and nothing inherently wrong - so we should be open to everything and be ready to accept whatever arises in this moment.
moreover, dogen said - practice-enlightenment, meaning - practice is enlightenment and enlightenment is practice. there is nothing outside of practice which can be enlightenment and there is no practice outside enlightenment. so whatever we do, we are practicing - but how we practice - either through our biases or not - is what matters. so this makes it both easy and difficult - easy in the sense, enlightenment is always available and difficult in the sense that it makes it a life long practice till we die, it is not the case that this moment enlightenment is realized and next moment we can be careless, rather it is the continuous being of fully present in the moment through out our life.
so this makes life - a journey, which we cannot really control, so it gives us a freedom that we can let go on a conventional level, because on the first hand we did not really possessed anything, so there is nothing we can let go of - but since conventionally we thought we possessed things, so we can let go of those things and be relieved of the burden to make everything right.
i am a completely ignorant person, with all the defilements of lust, anger, greed, attachment, hatred and pride in me, so obviously i cannot say the above statements, but whatever is typed above are those statements which i have read on internet in zen commentaries and on thinking, they seemed nice to me, so thought of sharing the above statements with you all. if you have read till now, thanks for taking your time in reading this post.
metta to all sentient beings.
i was reading various commentaries and dhamma talks on zen on the internet. so thought of writing this post to share with you all.
zen seems to be a cool way to live life. it takes the life to its smallest unit, a moment, which itself cannot be grasped. it says to live life fully in every moment. the method it says to do is to neither grasp nor reject anything - so no doing, rather just being in every moment.
life is like a journey - with emphasis not on destination, rather than on journey itself. our body and our mind both are not in our control, so in a way nothing is in our control. yet we live life by always trying to control it. i think this is because of the fear, which is deep down inside us - one of the most deepest fears being our death. so nothing is in our control - but still we have the choice of choosing between skillful and unskillful.
dogen said - we are time-being, meaning, time is self and self is time. everything is included in the present moment and it is complete in and of itself - yet there is no past and no future - because there is no present to grab hold of even. our awareness just experiences in the current moment, and so without our awareness, there is nothing as time.
dogen said - samsara and nirvana both are here right at this moment. dogen said - it is like one leg is right view of our basic nature and the other leg is the deluded view of samsara, it is up to us with which leg we move forward in the present moment.
suzuki roshi said - it is 'not always so'. what is right now, may not be right later - there is nothing inherently right and nothing inherently wrong - so we should be open to everything and be ready to accept whatever arises in this moment.
moreover, dogen said - practice-enlightenment, meaning - practice is enlightenment and enlightenment is practice. there is nothing outside of practice which can be enlightenment and there is no practice outside enlightenment. so whatever we do, we are practicing - but how we practice - either through our biases or not - is what matters. so this makes it both easy and difficult - easy in the sense, enlightenment is always available and difficult in the sense that it makes it a life long practice till we die, it is not the case that this moment enlightenment is realized and next moment we can be careless, rather it is the continuous being of fully present in the moment through out our life.
so this makes life - a journey, which we cannot really control, so it gives us a freedom that we can let go on a conventional level, because on the first hand we did not really possessed anything, so there is nothing we can let go of - but since conventionally we thought we possessed things, so we can let go of those things and be relieved of the burden to make everything right.
i am a completely ignorant person, with all the defilements of lust, anger, greed, attachment, hatred and pride in me, so obviously i cannot say the above statements, but whatever is typed above are those statements which i have read on internet in zen commentaries and on thinking, they seemed nice to me, so thought of sharing the above statements with you all. if you have read till now, thanks for taking your time in reading this post.
metta to all sentient beings.
4
Comments
If you are enlightened you would not advise ignorance.
The Buddha did not.
So why have you said this?
:scratch:
The practise you mention is done, moment by moment, by folks no more or less, special than yourself.
Whatever efforts you can muster to manifest any of your posting is a freedom to be experienced that you might otherwise never find.
Enlightenment can never be fully understood for the only thing thinking that enlightenment is just an understanding, is the self.
The absence of self is enlightenment.
If enlightenment is the sweeping out of a room, masticating about it is not it.
And from now on I think we should take on an oath to chew a bar of soap if any of us use the "E" word again.
Also unskilful?
A stated truth can be a lie if some hear something else, as we know. No Truth can be stated only things that are true. So who is the One that knows? Do you add wisdom to your 'permanent ignorance'? Does that too change?
How open and compassionate are you to my, your and others impermanence? 'Realise this'? Another lie?
My son rode his bike today without training wheels. That made me smile.
My step-mother is dying, and this is making my father weep for her. These are truths.....my truths. Other than that....... ignorance? I'm not sure.
That is the path to knowing what is happening to you and taking skillful actions. No?
We smile, we weep. The bird feeder refills.
Today I wept over a film on Iplayer
'My Afternoons with Magueritte'
. . . there is nothing other than that for sure . . .