stirling

It's NICE to sit! You won't get far in most spirituality without sitting. Meditation is even a feature of magick practice. Getting all of your fixed ideas about yourself and the world out of the way opens up the space for shifts in understanding to occur. Sitting in meditation after insight into the nature of mind deepens the experience of it and helps the continual further dissolution of dualities and ancient twisted karma. No practice "works". A person who thinks that they can "enlighten" themselves is deluded. There are no enlightened "selves". We are in the Buddhism subforum, so I'm speaking specifically of Buddhism, here. The Zen path and Dzogchen path, which have been my primary vehicles, can be expressed this way. Most Buddhism eschews striving, as well as clinging or aversion, leaving "enlightenment projects" to other disciplines in recognition that it really isn't UP to "you". Procrastination? What is it that you think needs to be done? Deepening insight. Enjoying being-ness. Flying to other planets and visiting space beings. The siddhis are interesting. (just kidding about the space beings) I used to meditate because I was a happier, calmer, less reactive person when I did. I initially became a dedicated meditator after 2 weeks of practice changed my life. At this point I'm fresh out of goals or posts, or anyone to have any.

Where do thoughts come from then? Science hasn't figured it out, though they have managed to find correlative brain function. I'm guessing you'll say, "the unconscious", which seems to me to be merely a convenient MacGuffin that stands in for "I don't know". The question: "Where is the "unconscious" travels down a path just a mystical as any attempt to triangulate the location of "self". You might as well try to point to your "human rights". The origin of thoughts is just one thing to look at, but a powerful one. The insight you are looking for, however, isn't some satisfying logical conclusion, but an experiential insight.

People who sit for hours are training their minds to recognize and rest in enlightened mind. This, and perhaps bodhicitta (loving kindness/compassion) are what we are generally cultivating. Most important factors for reduction of suffering and true insight can be found in "just sitting". Just sitting isn't actually any different than resting in enlightened mind, though you need insight to see it. Of the "Four Noble Truths" the third, cessation of suffering (Nirodha), is no different than the still mind when "just sitting". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Noble_Truths The "Noble Eightfold Path" is aspirational, and in't something that can be accomplished without enlightenment EXCEPT to some degree by a mind well-trained in resting in it's own "nature". That training in Zen is called "just sitting". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_Eightfold_Path It took about 25 years to gain permanent non-dual insight. The only adequate measurements I know of are if there is complete insight, and kindness.

Modern AND traditional mystics have a hard time explaining the "appearance" (or any other qualities, for that matter) of "emptiness" because it doesn't have any that can be truly be defined as "characteristics". You can try: it is still (while still in motion), color saturated, silent (while there is still sound), timeless, spaceless, without subject/object relationships or a "self" present that observes. These will sound like nonsense to most people. The only "concrete" example that can be had is your own experience. Very few if any are going to read about it and suddenly get it. Demonstrating what emptiness is really requires and in-person meeting and "pointing out". Once seen, some supposedly will get it and become "awakened" immediately, but most will either sort of get what you are pointing at and be underwhelmed, or surprised or in disbelief at how simple it is. Unless seen at its full depth it doesn't truly impress without putting the time and work into learning to rest in it during meditation and being able to watch as it transforms experience.

Except that, seen from enlightened mind, "all dharmas are marked by emptiness", a perspective unavailable to unenlightened mind. The one pervasive, permanent and unchanging quality of all things is this "emptiness" and it is impossible not to see in all relative appearances once seen.

And here.

The lenses we are using are different. I agree that is important not to confuse them. There are some events that aren't likely to generate insight in a novice student, which is why every good dharma teacher has a list of counselors and psychiatrists for referring such cases. Agreed. Different people will require different modalities. Buddhism isn't about self-improvement, it is about seeing through the delusion of the self. We will have to agree to disagree here.

Exactly. Untangling our ancient twisted karma is at least half of what Buddhist practice is about.

Shikantaza isn't intended as a tool for working with sankharas/obscurations/mental problems. It merely opens up the space to process them. Our attachments, aversions, personal stories and beliefs arise naturally moment to moment and don't need encouragement, they just require our attention, and non-grasping. Even small day-to-day events often link us to much deeper traumas; pulling at these threads begins to unravel them. Meditation done to avoid thoughts and feelings will fail. If anything, meditation makes the onslaught of our difficult thoughts and feelings worse, though you might get lucky if your only sit for 15 or 20 minutes a day, which isn't really enough for profound transformation. As you are probably aware, the buddha didn't practice because it made him more effective at work. The Four Noble Truths make a bold claim: That there is a way to end suffering. Those who practice diligently begin to see reductions in suffering in weeks. The suffering in question is the "second arrow", or mental story of suffering that is experienced - the specific thing Buddhist practice intends to treat. https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn36/sn36.006.than.html Does Buddhism do what it says on the tin? This is for sincere, dedicated practitioners who have finally had enough of suffering or wish to understand the true nature of "mind".

Students are often taught to recognize the "nature of mind" and then see if they can naturally rest in it as a meditation right off the bat. If you can't, you'll be taught something like watching the breath, which you would do UNTIL you notice that sometimes the crutch of the meditation "method" drops away, and that there are moments at a time of quiet awareness appearing. From then on, most students are taught to notice the quiet awareness and see if they can notice and then rest in it. Success depends on the acuity and dedication of the student. The most direct path is this dropping the method and just resting in the "natural state" of open awareness, from a Dzogchen/Zen perspective.

The fourth "musing" refers to fourth jhana, which is where mind becomes still. This is the gateway to emptiness. While this is where shikantaza begins, it extends easily into formlessness (jhanas 5 - 8), and in most sits will pass back and forth over these territories. Any enlightened "being" can allow the mind to become entirely still at any time. The jhanas are valuable because an unenlightened practitioner can get a taste of what formless mind (in various progressively deeper flavors) is like in their meditation practice and become familiar with them TO A DEGREE. The enlightened mind is predisposed to naturally be present in the formless, at one depth or another, at all times. Guatama (and all other countless enlightened beings) would naturally experience "non-meditation" after 4th path (no-self) where the mind is always formless and requires no effort to be as it naturally is.

Whether you want to deal with them or not, meditation WILL absolutely dig up ALL of your unprocessed mental garbage. The spaciousness of "open awareness" meditation practices such as shikantaza create space for them to come up. If you go on retreat you are guaranteed to see at least ONE person suddenly burst into tears on the meditation cushion for this reason. These stories are actually the fodder for insight. In Buddhism we call them "samskaras" or "shankaras". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samskara_(Indian_philosophy)#:~:text=Saṃskāra or Saṅkhāra in Buddhism,Saṅkhāra) rather than eliminate them. Samskaras are mental imprints you carry around with you that are "unfinished business". In Buddhism it isn't necessary to have them make sense, or understand the underlying story of them that you have told yourself, but rather to allow them to come up in consciousness, and leave consciousness (arise and pass away) without telling their story over and over again. Some people will need both counseling AND this approach to process the most difficult amongst them. The intention isn't to deny them, but rather to have them become possible to experience without mental residue in the body/mind (namarupa). Samskaras are "obsurations", like dirt on a lense, to seeing the reality of how things are. They are stories we tell ourselves about how things really are that are biased and limited, and get in the way. The more of them we are able to clear, the more likely we are to have the "accident" of suddenly seeing through them entirely and deeply into the duality of reality.

Soto Zen teacher in the Shuryu Suzuki lineage here. Sorry if sharing this annoys anybody. I have practiced since 1990 in the Nyingma/Dzogchen tradition, and for the last 7 years in the Soto Zen tradition. Shikantaza is the same as Dzogchen - resting in enlightened mind. It is sitting without any crutch of a technique, allowing enlightened mind to be as it is, and is therefore the SAME as enlightened mind, only in most people there is no insight into its nature. The Rinzai teachers I am friends with would agree with this summation, only they would simply use the term "zazen" to refer to their meditation. Shikantaza, to me is a more specific and detailed assessment of what it means. I started sitting in Dzogchen at the age of 23 and it has been my primary practice until now. I was introduced to the non-dual "nature of mind"/beginner's mind/buddha nature at that time, and became increasingly better at this meditation until it "stuck", and a moment of complete non-dual insight opened everything up almost 10 years ago. Since that point, it has become a permanent perspective, supplanting the previous frame of duality permanently. Now mind is ALWAYS in shikantaza/dzogchen. IF you can practice by resting the mind in it's enlightened (actual) nature, I would do so as often as I possibly could knowing what I do now. It IS a very direct path to enlightenment for those that are able to see the non-dual nature, and have some faith in what it is. ALL of my 7 or so teachers (and their teachers) sat this way and realized the nature of things. It requires giving up on results, and the belief in agency, and requires a faith in the practice that comes from seeing that even BEFORE awakening it is transformative. Feel free to message me if you have any questions.

... so it IS when looked at properly. Deep in meditation the world IS a flickering phantom world of ephemeral moments. Time, space, and self drop away and there is just being. This is an experience anyone can have, though many will say it is just a "state". In some branch of Advaita Vedanta or another (I forget which) they consider the stack of consciousness inverted to the way we commonly think of it: Waking reality is the most "asleep", the dreaming world more accurate, where time, space and self are wiggly, and deep sleep and the blackness of empty being-ness as most like the enlightened mind. Ever notice how our waking stories about our dreams have to be altered to fit into a narrative, as they don't really follow our typical lines of causation? In a dream you can be in one location one moment, and then walk into a completely different place all of a sudden. You can see the dream from your "self" perspective, or suddenly from the perspective of another "character". When you try to read something in a dream, it may be nonsense, or may be different if you try to read it again, or even have numbers and letters that change constantly. I have noticed all of these things and more when I am not trying to bend the contents of a dream into a narrative. All of the typical rules go out the window. I have found that one can be "enlightened" (awake to the non-dual nature of reality) in both the waking world AND deep sleep, but it is somehow possibly easier in sleep where the rules already don't make complete sense. In the waking world we have a tendency to explain away the odd moments of life, missing time in the car, strange figures we see out of the corner of our eyes, missing doorways, stairwells, things we decide we "misremember". If we get out of the habit of explaining away our experience or constructing stories about what "must have" happened, and just accept that being present with reality is weird, we open a door onto much more. It is absolutely good to hold our ideas about reality lightly, rather than grasping for surety.

Hello S:C, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharma# In this case I mean: • Practices (or teachings) that are in "harmony" or lead to harmony (enlightenment). • ALL "phenomena" that appear in our experience which are themselves already in harmony (enlightened), and are actually teachings themselves. The "dharmakaya" is the term for the space in which all phenomena appear. It is also considered to be the "teaching body" of the Buddhas. These are the two facets of the word "dharma" I am speaking specifically about.

Can you be present in any moment beside this one? Aren't the past both thoughts that you experience NOW? The present has always been the only real moment. Future and past, here and there, "self" and other, and all other constructs with story lines, here and there, or perceived centers of experiencing are inexpressibly non-dual. All dualities, all karma, reincarnation, dependent origination.... ALL dharmas dissolve in the enlightened perspective - the difference between a relative teaching and a absolute teaching. It isn't an abstract intellectual idea, it is a lived, perceived, deeply understood reality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuowang# I have wondered about, and done some investigation on this point in the past. Examples from the link above (amongst others I have encountered) make it clear to me that Zuowang is essentially the same practice as Shikantaza, or Dzogchen, which is no surprise (as Apech suggests) since these all are known to historically cross-pollinate in China, ending up in Japan and Tibet. These are non-dual absorptions in which "mind and body drop away" the texts (and coincidentally Ch'an/Zen) suggest and there is just "awareness", bare, empty, and without "self". At least one later Buddhist sutra (the Surangama) mentions the Tao a number of times suggesting some cross pollination of at least terminology, for example:

Sorry I haven't responded in a more timely manner... life. It IS like almost every tradition. The reality of things, and the practices that might help make enlightenment more likely (but DON'T actually precipitate it) are all more or less similar at their basis. Most people won't be able to practice the most simple amongst them. Having your thoughts stop is one of the first insights - something you can actually build on because you can now have "faith" the practice DOES something. Simply continuing to deepen that by applying the same practice is the next step... and the next, and the next. Things continue to change, as is their nature. Don't get lost in the idea that there are "advanced" practices. The most advanced practices I have been given are most often very simple. My advice would be to notice when you forget to watch your breath and the mind has become spacious and still and just stay with that stillness, only coming back to the breath if discursive thoughts come back up. If you want to make more direct progress I would suggest finding a teacher.

The problem we have is what we THINK we are beings of separateness - autonomous, willful... the center of everything. It is necessary to learn to drop thinking mind in order to observe reality uncluttered by supposition. From a Mahayana/Vajrayana, perspective, meditation (resting in open awareness specifically) is the tool needed to make the next step in understanding. Open awareness is simply being present with phenomena as they arise and pass from experience. Thoughts are infrequent and there are periods where the mind is simple present and still between individual thoughts that come and go. Once there is some ability to rest in the space between thoughts we can begin to see that all things occurs spontaneously, and do not belong to an I. This is "alignment" in Daoism, or "Wu Wei", but also how the Eightfold Path is accomplished - a powerful initial insight that builds confidence in Buddhist practice. It won't be an idea or a thought, but a seeing-into experientially. Ultimately it is seen that there is no observer, no subject, no meaning that doesn't arise in the moment of experience, no-self. Self as the thinking mind is how most of the world walks around. As I posted last time, it is fairly easy to get far enough to at least seriously need to question this idea through experience. Yes... "we" (and everything else) are emptiness, though STILL form somehow, fluxing moment to moment in a pageant as "ornaments of emptiness".

You observe a stone on the ground, or a bird in the sky. Are you the observer, or the objects (stones and birds) you observe? Are you your thoughts and impulses or that which OBSERVES your thoughts and impulses? If stones, birds, and thoughts and impulses are all things you observe, they MUST be objects, not "self". What IS "self", then?

Nice of you to think of me so kindly, but I have seen and met a number of entities of various kinds without fear or harm. Which ones are you are concerned about? Most of what I see/meet doesn't introduce itself.

The ones in my town are all either friends or acquaintances. The ones I have met previously, were my teachers or their peers. I won't way that they are Buddhas necessarily, but arhats certainly. I think any exact criteria is somewhat muddled beyond that point. Awakening is much more common. What would your criteria for enlightened be?

This is absolutely my experience, except the part about "harmful entities". In my opinion, though they might appear fearsome, they aren't harmful... quite the opposite, IMO. They are kind, showing us our fear, attachment, and aversion. Follow on question related to your previous post: If the very fabric of everything is itself enlightened, what makes you think that entities that represent that understanding in human form are so rare?

I live in a Pure Land, of course! It is a small town in the Pacific Northwest that just happens to have a lot of retired former Shuryu Suzuki and Rinzai Zen teachers, as well as a well-know Zen translator and author or two. Let's do definitions: By enlightened, I mean an Arhat. Specifically, complete realization of no-self in the Buddhist parlance. Most of the Buddhist meditation centers I have been affiliated with had at least one, some had more. Locations include San Francisco Zen Center, Hokoji Zen Center, Jikoji Zen Center, Land of Medicine Buddha, Pema Osel Ling, and Tashi Choling. I find YOUR assertions unbelievable... how about that!

Hi Luke! I honestly think of this more like surrender. You have to be open to admitting that you are lost and that you need help. Works best if you are truly out of ideas and give up. Sincerity and genuine heartfelt attitude matters greatly. Asking for something specific like a particular amount of money, or particular life experience to turn out in a way you think is favorable is unlikely to work out, IMHO. The more your request is of benefit to all sentient beings the better, such as heartfelt entreaties to remove delusions, etc. I wouldn't use it so much as a regular thing, but more like an occasional direct help-line sort of scenario... OR a place to begin when you have been "lost". I have read before that the Buddha Amitahba is known to always be listening for this sort of entreaty... one could repeat his name a few times before asking for help, for example. I have personally had some correlation with asking for help and major insight breakthroughs, and know others who have had help in various ways. My suggest is that anyone intending to do this have a meditation practice (open awareness/dzogchen/zazen) where the mind becomes still for at least a few seconds at a time. Asking in stillness would be ideal.