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Zen Is................................?
Shoshin1
Sentient BeingOceania Veteran
Zen is.........on the tip of my tongue (and tends to reside in the empty space between word & thought)
Zen is....................?
1
Comments
32 dots followed by a question mark.
Zen is the transcendence of anyone's conditioned responses to phenomena.
is what zen practitioners do when they have nothing better to do.
is going, going, always going on, always becoming buddha.
is a word to make a book title sound interesting.
is the ever widening of heart and mind.
is a oneness of body and mind.
is a path into selflessness.
is a sum of no thing.
is an ego diet.
is not this.
is this.
is?
?
.
Lots of meditation. Soto as just sitting and Rinzai as sitting and then figuring out the response to the koan. Also it's at the back of the dictionary.
Tee Hee
Zyzzyva is the last word in my dictionary (its a weevil) ... oh wait you mean past the back cover even. There is nothing there ... not even a dot or words.
Wait ... I think I hear bells ... oops ... nothing
You're a right ding dong at times @lobster
I knew it!
https://www.dailyzen.com/journal/shikantaza
What meditation? Zen is just sitting. Or is it a half moon to point at?
................................ mysterious
🙏🏿
Zen is what it is and as always been ...Words might give it a passing glimpse, but can never truly capture it..
A Passing Glimpse
I often see flowers from a passing car
That are gone before I can tell what they are.
I want to get out of the train and go back
To see what they were beside the track.
I name all the flowers I am sure they weren't;
Not fireweed loving where woods have burnt
Not bluebells gracing a tunnel mouth
Not lupine living on sand and drouth.
Was something brushed across my mind
That no one on earth will ever find?
Heaven gives it glimpses only to those
Not in position to look too close.
~Robert Frost~
Do you look at the moon or the finger? Is the moon or the finger even there?
Maybe Zen just is. Maybe Zen just isn't.
Correct.
Wow…
Savour the mundane days.
Zen is Zazen
Good find @kotishka…
The video has been an eye opener. Very good diagnostic for me. Most of my meditation practice these 2and a 1/2 years has actually been me thinking sat down on a cushion crossed legged cushion or me thinking about meditation on the cushion.....
"Should I ask this?"
"What is this?"
"Arghh! How could I allow that **** say that to ..."
"I'm so Buddhist, muaha!
....
I find a mantra and / or image is better to focus on for meditation.
Even then the monkey mind still wants to play...
Zen.......is.........
Edit: I've managed to add it on my meditation time to mark the end of the session.
Edit 2: The app I use -https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.yuttadhammo.BodhiTimer&gl=US-.
Interesting video @Kotishka, perhaps it would be best suited for the Elephant in the Room thread...
"If you’re not sure, don’t act. Once you act, you wander through birth and death and regret having no refuge. Poverty and hardship are created by false thinking. To understand this mind, you have to act without acting. Only then will you see things from a tathagata’s perspective."
Which reminds me of this quote
"The most essential method which includes all other methods is to behold the Mind...The Mind is the root from which all things grow...If one can understanding the Mind...Everything else is included"
~Bodhidharma~
Sokuzan is a master I have found while re-embracing Zen Buddhism. He triggered me a bit when I found out he had previously trained -even became one of the official instructors- with Trungpa Rinpoche, who by the way was my "first" teacher (Shambhala). But Sokuzan really transmits something to me... In a positive way of course.
I like this teacher, thank you for sharing @Kotishka
I wonder if the Buddha had to conform to the 1 hour zoom session Q&A.
"When somebody asks me what zazen is good for, I say that zazen isn’t good for anything at all. And then some say that in that case they’d rather stop doing zazen. But what’s running around satisfying your desires good for? What is gambling good for? And dancing? What is it good for to get worked up over winning or losing in baseball? It’s all good for absolutely nothing! That’s why nothing is as sensible as sitting silently in zazen. In the world, “good for nothing” just means that you can’t make money out of it."
" 1. Study and practice the Buddha-dharma only for the sake of the Buddha-dharma, not for the sake of human emotions and worldly ideas.
Zazen is the most venerable and only true teacher.
Zazen must work concretely in our daily lives as the two practices (vow and repentance), the three minds (magnanimous mind, parental mind, and joyful mind), and as the realization of the saying, "Gaining is delusion, losing is enlightenment."
Live by vow and root it deeply.
Realizing that development and backsliding are your responsibility alone, endeavor to practice and develop.
Sit silently for ten years, then for ten more years, and then for another ten years.
Cooperate with one another and aim to create a place where sincere practitioners can practice without trouble. "
Kōdō Sawaki
https://www.antaiji.org/archives/eng/kodo-sawaki-to-you.shtml
https://www.antaiji.org/archives/eng/kosho-uchiyama-7-points.shtml