stirling

On the front end, not much - on the back end, quite a bit. If you are already enlightened and just need to realize it, it is much more possible in this lifetime. A good teacher can actually point out enlightened mind so that the student can learn to practice in it. Unless you know what enlightenment is, how could you actually codify it into a goal? Ultimately no person becomes enlightened.

Well... yes. That's me. These approaches ARE different and the stated intent is different. It IS possible to become an enlightened "self" (I have seen this called non-dual "one") rather than realize the entire field of reality is enlightened (non-dual "two"). Non-dual "one" still retains a subject/object relationship, and there are some I have met that do not get past that experientially. For a discussion on this that I like to come back to for reference check out: https://deconstructingyourself.com/transcript-of-a-few-stray-points-about-nonduality-with-jake-orthwein.html See above. That might be the case in some places, but that isn't my bias. We have a Thai Forest group in our town with actual monastics, and we are all friends. We (Zen priests) helped them build some bookshelves earlier this year for their monastery. Different traditions and practices suit different people. My dharma brothers are all intent on reducing suffering. The alaya vijnana isn't really a player in Mahayana, so much. The bodhisattva vow mostly comes from the Diamond Sutra, the relevant quote is: I think this intent is born out of the deepest love and compassion for all beings, a large feature of practice in the Mahayana.

Funny... I always think about it as simple and clean - unless we are enjoying the poetic presentation of Dogen.

In this case I am really pointing toward stillness or emptiness rather than a stillness of the mind. The mind is what moves and is therefore only ever temporarily still. Enlightened mind sees emptiness even as the mind has thoughts, or bodily activity. Like all things thoughts or bodily activity arise naturally and pass, and have never belonged to a "self". My original quote, for reference: Note - no traditional Theravada teacher would be pointing this out, only a Mahayana or Vajrayana teacher, and yet it is plain as day once you know what you are looking for. Learning to see it is the first major step to liberation. - The entire world view is different, Mark, and that colors what practices are done and emphasized. Try a simple google search and do some reading: https://www.google.com/search?q=differences+between+mahayana+and+theravada+buddhism&oq=differences+between+mahayana+a&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 Zen students do obviously read the suttas, and sometimes do SOME of the Theravada practices (jhanas for example), but that is the exception, and they aren't done from the same beginning perspective. Theravada students are intent on enlightening themselves, but not in this lifetime. A Zen student knows that they are already enlightened, as is everything else, and that almost anything could precipitate that realization. A Theravada student aims for liberation for himself, a Zen student intends to save all beings from suffering. Theravadins seek anatta, or "no-self". A Zen students seeks emptiness or the realization of the "no-self" of ALL seemingly separate appearances in consciousness. The practices reflect these differences. There is too much to capture here, but it takes more than a cursory examination of the two to understand. Not that it really matters, but this is a perfect example of why you don't get the difference we are talking about here. Where there is enlightenment, there is truly no difference between Buddhas. The lineage is a recognition of that. The text of ordinations, lay entrustments, and transmission make this clear.

The place to find evidence is in your practice. It's free to find out, and doesn't require any beliefs, or books, just meditation.

I'm lost, honestly, but I'm happy to leave it here.

Suzuki Roshi's text on the top isn't his clearest work, though I think he is pointing to the fact that stlilness is a quality of all "things" because they are only separate where they are contrived as separate things by the mind. Brings to mind good old Case 29: Even a mind in thought, a full concert venue, a rush hour freeway, or a hill of ants on a hot day can be seen to be still. To learn what to look for generally requires pointing by a realized teacher.

Are we talking about Theravada Buddhism or Zen? To try to bridge or conflate the two is a mistake, they are fundamentally different approaches. After some research I discovered a source for your quote: https://shunryusuzuki2.com/Detail1?ID=368 You left a few things out I think are important to this quote. The full text is as follows: To break this down: Each part of your body should participate completely in zazen. - See that the body is a field of sensations all comprised of stillness. To think, “I am doing zazen” or “My body is doing zazen” is wrong understanding. It is a self-centered idea. - No "self" does Zazen. Nothing separate does zazen. If you think you are practicing zazen, you are involved in some selfish, egotistical idea.- Zazen is the ultimate reality of things. No ego or "self-ish" part of you can practice it. The entire universe is doing zazen in the same way that your body is doing zazen. - As above, so below - the universe is awakened and doing zazen when and where you are. Actualization is always here, and now. That is why zazen practice represents the whole universe. We should do zazen with this feeling in our practice. You should not say, “I practice zazen with my body.” It is not so. - No-body is DOING zazen, zazen is what is always happening in this moment when we are awake. Your body is practicing zazen in imperturbability while your mind is moving. Your legs are practicing zazen with pain. Water is practicing zazen with movement, yet the water is still while flowing because flowing is its stillness, or its nature. The bridge is doing zazen without moving. - The nature of reality is Zazen. Zazen happens with all possible conditions and movements perfectly because they are not separate from what Zazen IS. ...imperturbable zazen is practicing zazen. - ONLY Zazen practices zazen. No-self, thought, action, activity or separateness is present when Zazen is practiced. No. Just Zazen being Zazen. Timeless, placeless, "self-less". Here/Now. - If your interest is in proving your personal view of these practices, I can see how selective quoting might be advantageous. If your interest is in pulling back the veil, taking the entirety of a master's quotes might be more advantageous. _/\_

This is precisely a quote about "don't know" mind, the topic of this thread. "Lovely quotes" are pointers to practice. When one is "dangling somewhere" the number of possibilities for escape are only limited where the thinking mind is concerned. Allowing the mind to become still is often what creates the space that precipitates the "aha" moment that solves the conundrum. This is my experience. I understand that you may feel that it wouldn't work out for you. But... do YOU know the dangers? Why not share?

I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to go ahead and ignore this. Do you ever find yourself somewhere you aren't? His point is, awakening always happens HERE and it happens NOW. The fundamental point is actualized (you are enlightened) when you wake up. Waking up happens all the time. When the mind is still, actualizing enlightenment happens... waking up happens! Dogen believed (correctly in my experience) that there IS no difference between the mind in stillness and enlightenment itself, only that the meditator may not realize this. The body? When the mind is "awake" and still, there is just sensation and awareness of it. There is no person sitting, no body, no specific place attention could find itself in experience. When the mind is deeply still: If this isn't a statement you can relate to you should check in with your teacher, and definitely double down on your meditation practice. If you are still in the standard 40 minute Soto sitting session, and have been meditating for a period of months or years, I would expect you should be sitting in this experience pretty frequently in the last 20 minutes or so of your practice. You don't have to find a place. Stillness is HERE. Take a deep breath where you are in this moment, and let it gently out through your mouth. Allow stillness to rise up. It's here. There is no need for a special time, place, cushion, location... anything. It happens naturally in the dentists office, or the grocery store, or when you ride a bike, drive, play drums, etc. once you are paying attention and noticing. With a few months of meditation practice, you can begin to become adept at awakening any time you realize you have been "asleep", lost in your thinking mind. The eventual track of practice in most Mahayana practices is that you start to bring awake awareness to as many of your moments as possible. If you don't have a teacher feel free to PM me. _/\_

Trepanation - it's what's good for the nation!

How so? Aren't you throwing out the baby with the bathwater? How so? What danger?

Oh no... the baby and the bath water?!?! I must have stepped in it again. I assure you that what I am saying belongs here, and I am sorry if I have disturbed you. The topic of this thread is a Zen expression, "don't know mind", that is a conceptual description of the mind clear, still, and ready for anything, arrived at by allow the mind to come to a stop. It isn't a practice, concept, or religious belief (a baby in the bath water) it is precisely the lack of ANY effort or contrivance of the mind. It is mind "as it is", arrived at by allowing to come to a stop of its own accord. It is simply being enlightened mind in this moment. It is dropping process, technique and maps completely and finding enlightenment in this moment, if only temporarily. This is the essence of Zen. This is the concept of the "Gateless Gate", the title of a famous collection of koans, and subject of many spiritual quotes. The lesson of them is that true understanding or enlightenment is not a destination to be reached by passing through a physical or mental barrier, but an experience that transcends thought, "self", religion, practices, and fabrication. The title is a paradox: a gate that is no gate at all. A gate that you desperately wish to pass through, but can realize that you have always been inside of. It is a metaphor that appears again and again in non-dual traditions.

...assuming we accept the proposition that beings have "self" nature. Absolutely! The way to cooperate is to be transparent and without resistance as though you are not apart from it at all, in my understanding.

A map to where? Does anyone really need a map to here?

Meaning is an imputation devised by the thinking mind. It belongs to "YOU". Buddhism (like all other traditions) is a vehicle to realize something BEYOND conceptualization and the thinking mind. The vehicles themselves are empty of meaning, and ultimately NOT the realization. Some quotations might be fun! Realization only comes from EXPERIENTIAL gnosis. No amount of intellectual fabrication can get you there. Stop where you are. Allow the mind to be come still - here and now is where understanding happens.

Absolutely. Our story about the world (our karma) changes how we see it. The world, for example, is a fundamentally different place to a true optimist. Try this: In the morning, put a genuine smile on your face and walk through the world with that smile, greeting people with it, and allowing it to warm your view of the world. Ask yourself at the end of the day how it was. How deep is your "purity"? How deep is your set of beliefs, attachments, aversions, and story about the reality of how things are? No. It is seeing the world with something LESS. Done correctly it is seeing the world without your story about it. It is being in alignment with what is happening, and therefore ends our struggle (a better definition of "suffering").

Anywhere you were thinking of specifically?

Depending on what one might mean by "Existence" I would agree. In my definition, the existence of things and concepts we give the status of "separate" appear and disappear moment to moment. "Beingness", in my definition would be the simple presence of pure awareness that is underneath all thinking and doing by a "self". Brings to mind: From the perspective of enlightenment the phenomenal world can be both peopled by separate things and beings of various types or completely still and unitary, depending on which perspective one looks from. The unitary stillness is always present underneath the world of separateness. This is what Maharaj is pointing at. The panoply of observed phenomena DO arise from the unity/emptiness. I wouldn't go as far as saying it is any kind of purpose. It is just what happens. There are many ways of seeing the seemingly external world, but they are always right here, in my experience. There is nothing beyond, or somewhere else. Enlightenment always happens here, in this moment. There is nothing to do but stop fabricating your version of the outside world and rest in it, if you want to recognize it.

"Why?" implies some past or future, or someone to exist within a timeline. It is worth examining whether any continuity truly exists in this moment. Meditation (not a practice but actual stillness of the mind) would be the tool for this. See above. This moment is perfect and complete as it is, it is only the thinking mind that contrives ideas of "purpose" or meaning beyond what is visible right here, right now.

I'd like to hear more about your practice in Buddhism and Goetia too. I spent many years practicing in the Nyingma/Dzogchen tradition, and had success in "attainment of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel".

Just to clarify "don't know" mind: The perfection of the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, the precepts, ad nauseum is prajnaparamita or "emptiness". "Don't know" mind is emptiness, resting in the absence of all beliefs, projections into the future, or stories of the past, and "self". It is the Tao, primordial being-ness. It does not rely on any practice methodology, religion, belief-system, philosophy or any kind of "doing" by a "self". This "being-ness" is how things actually are. It is simplicity itself. When the mind is still, look for any of these qualities and see that they only arise with the thinking mind as concepts. This is where our struggle with reality begins.

Welcome to the board GEQ!

Earl, We haven't interacted much but it was always clear to me that you had experience that was valuable to share. I takes a special kind of bravery, and more than that, a surrender, to admit those aspects of our humanness that live in the dark corners of our psyche. Your first post in this thread is is definitely the way to burn off some karma! My deep congratulations on your insight into your own mind. How fortunate that the way through is all around you! Deep bows from me, sir. I look forward to seeing your avatar on the board again.

Welcome Iman!