What exactly is "grasping"?

[deci belle]

It seems this the subject of the comments has gone far afield from the OP.

 

Be that as it may…

 

In meditation, you are supposed to arrive to a samadhi state with an alert and emptied mind.

 

This is why maintaining an unbroken continuity of subtle concentration in the midst of ordinary affairs is the highest meditation practice. It is also the easiest to maintain, once one has reached a general clarity of mind.

 

This is why formal meditation is considered a temporary expedient— i.e., one should not stick to solitary stillness and imagine this as arrival.

[forestofclarity]

Depends on which school you follow. In some schools, there is a "supposed to" and in others there is no "supposed to."

 

In meditation, you are supposed to arrive to a samadhi state with an alert and emptied mind.

[GrandmasterP]

I read a passage today describing "the mistake of Shamatha" referring to practicing Shamatha and resting in a dull state, absent the spark of active presence (my paraphrase) I don't know if that's what you could be referring to. This was a Bön source, which is what my earlier comments relate to as well, not Zen - though there are significant similarities.

Found it.

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Entangling-Vines-Classic-Collection-Kirchner/dp/B00E31PE9E/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1397748612&sr=8-2&keywords=Entangling+Vines

 

"Entangling Vines, a translation of the Shumon kattoshu, is one of the few major koan texts to have been compiled in Japan rather than China."

Edited April 17, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[ChiForce]

Depends on which school you follow. In some schools, there is a "supposed to" and in others there is no "supposed to."

Regardless which schools, the end goal in meditation is to reach samadhi and to gain the transcendental wisdom. In fact, there are even levels of samadhi and dhyanas you must go through in order to reach closer to enlightenment. If you can't reach samadhi in your meditation, even the first level, you have a lot of work ahead of you in your meditation.

[forestofclarity]

This is a Buddhism sub-forum. One important Buddhist principle is anatta or anatman, there is no self. If you work with this concept over time, you will find it applies to everything, including to ideas that there is an "end goal in mediation" or there is a "Buddhism." To believe in a fixed point of any sort is to deny emptiness and assert some kind of self.

 

In addition, forms of Zen in particular reject this approach. This can be seen in the famous dharma combat between Shenxiu and Hui Neng:

 

 

Senxiu:

• 身是菩提樹，　The body is a Bodhi tree,
• 心如明鏡臺。　The mind a standing mirror bright.
• 時時勤拂拭，　At all times polish it diligently,
• 勿使惹塵埃。　And let no dust alight.

Hui Neng:

• 菩提本無樹，　Bodhi is fundamentally without any tree;
• 明鏡亦非臺。　The bright mirror is also not a stand.
• 本來無一物，　Fundamentally there is not a single thing —
• 何處惹塵埃。　Where could any dust be attracted?

 

 

I invite you to look at some resources in the Soto school which teaches a different approach, especially as set out by Dogen.

If you want immediate guidance, you can head over the Treeleaf Zendo. You may also consider looking at Sheng Yen's Silent Illumination, wherein the master says that reaching samadhi is NOT a goal of that approach. Or you can look to sayings from Vajrayana, such as this from Tilopa.

 

If you don't like Buddhist teachings, consider the teachings of Ramana Maharshi, especially as written in the excellent works of Sri Sadhu Om, or you may wish to consider the teachings of modernists such as Jean Klein. You may wish to adopt an eclectic approach, like Peter Fenner or Stephan Bodian. You may also want to consider this article by Bill Bodri. I have sat satsang with a disciple of Muktananda who taught the same thing.

 

 

Regardless which schools, the end goal in meditation is to reach samadhi and to gain the transcendental wisdom. In fact, there are even levels of samadhi and dhyanas you must go through in order to reach closer to enlightenment. If you can't reach samadhi in your meditation, even the first level, you have a lot of work ahead of you in your meditation.

[GrandmasterP]

+1 Forestofemptiness.

Sheng Yen's ' Method of No Method' is a super book....

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Method-No-method-Practice-Silent-Illumination/dp/1590305752/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397838332&sr=1-1&keywords=the+method+of+no+method

[ChiForce]

This is a Buddhism sub-forum. One important Buddhist principle is anatta or anatman, there is no self. If you work with this concept over time, you will find it applies to everything, including to ideas that there is an "end goal in mediation" or there is a "Buddhism." To believe in a fixed point of any sort is to deny emptiness and assert some kind of self.

 

In addition, forms of Zen in particular reject this approach. This can be seen in the famous dharma combat between Shenxiu and Hui Neng:

 

 

 

I invite you to look at some resources in the Soto school which teaches a different approach, especially as set out by Dogen.

If you want immediate guidance, you can head over the Treeleaf Zendo. You may also consider looking at Sheng Yen's Silent Illumination, wherein the master says that reaching samadhi is NOT a goal of that approach. Or you can look to sayings from Vajrayana, such as this from Tilopa.

 

If you don't like Buddhist teachings, consider the teachings of Ramana Maharshi, especially as written in the excellent works of Sri Sadhu Om, or you may wish to consider the teachings of modernists such as Jean Klein. You may wish to adopt an eclectic approach, like Peter Fenner or Stephan Bodian. You may also want to consider this article by Bill Bodri. I have sat satsang with a disciple of Muktananda who taught the same thing.

Hehehe...you do realize that I have read Bill's 25 meditation methods and read several of Master Nan's works. These two cultivators couldn't be more Zen and Taoist. In fact, they dislike the today's trend Chan Buddhism because many students are of lesser quality. They practice principles and regurgitating meditation saying without doing the actual work themselves. Without merit!!! Master Nan calls this cause and effect reversal. Here, Master Nan is emphasizing the importance of walking the path and to discover the real meaning behind the sutras. He isn't talking about you should regurgitating the sutras and not sure why you have to cite some passages for me. For Master Nan, he even went so far to say that you aren't meditating if you can't see the inner illuminating light!!!! I say it again...you aren't meditating and cultivating if, in your meditation, you can not enter into a samadhi, period. No ifs or buts. Don't go New Age on me though about there are no paths or etc... It won't work here. FYI, you don't enter into a Samadhi if you have an ego and while you are still clinging onto the all 5 or any one of the 5 skandhas!!!!! To have entered into a samadhi it is already given that your ego is long DEAD!!!!!

Edited April 19, 2014 by ChiForce

[Captain Mar-Vell]

...

I often think of non grasping as remaining unattached to outcomes.

...

[ChiForce]

...

I often think of non grasping as remaining unattached to outcomes.

...

See, once you have successfully practiced Samatha and totally quiet your thoughts into one point concentration (you can use colors or some simple object to passively concentrate), you have arrived to a Samadhi--inner light illumination, warming of the body, and not feeling discomfort from your meditation posture, and pronounced chakra vibrations. All of these phenomena are combined into a single conscious thought!!!! The more you become affixed to these phenomena, the sooner you will lose your samadhi. To have a stable, strong Samadhi, it means that you must be able to not become attached to your samadhi experience!!! Sorry, I am just simplifying such a difficult concept dealing with the phenomena of the mind. You can read up Master Nan's To Realize Enlightenment, the first 60 pages. In there, he dealt with various jhanas you can experience in various levels of Samadhi.

Edited April 19, 2014 by ChiForce

[C T]

Hehehe...you do realize that I have read Bill's 25 meditation methods and read several of Master Nan's works. These two cultivators couldn't be more Zen and Taoist. In fact, they dislike the today's trend Chan Buddhism because many students are of lesser quality. They practice principles and regurgitating meditation saying without doing the actual work themselves. Without merit!!! Master Nan calls this cause and effect reversal. Here, Master Nan is emphasizing the importance of walking the path and to discover the real meaning behind the sutras. He isn't talking about you should regurgitating the sutras and not sure why you have to cite some passages for me. For Master Nan, he even went so far to say that you aren't meditating if you can't see the inner illuminating light!!!! I say it again...you aren't meditating and cultivating if, in your meditation, you can not enter into a samadhi, period. No ifs or buts. Don't go New Age on me though about there are no paths or etc... It won't work here. FYI, you don't enter into a Samadhi if you have an ego and while you are still clinging onto the all 5 or any one of the 5 skandhas!!!!! To have entered into a samadhi it is already given that your ego is long DEAD!!!!!

Samadhi is a fixation, often associated with samatha, which novice practitioners get attracted to due to the many resultant blissful, almost hypnogogic sensations. Getting to the in-between states is easy peasy for seasoned meditators. However, being able to drop the practice at once, and to remain easefully undistracted and awake, is the challenging aspect of the process.

[GrandmasterP]

Hehehe...you do realize that I have read Bill's 25 meditation methods and read several of Master Nan's works. These two cultivators couldn't be more Zen and Taoist. In fact, they dislike the today's trend Chan Buddhism because many students are of lesser quality. They practice principles and regurgitating meditation saying without doing the actual work themselves. Without merit!!! Master Nan calls this cause and effect reversal. Here, Master Nan is emphasizing the importance of walking the path and to discover the real meaning behind the sutras. He isn't talking about you should regurgitating the sutras and not sure why you have to cite some passages for me. For Master Nan, he even went so far to say that you aren't meditating if you can't see the inner illuminating light!!!! I say it again...you aren't meditating and cultivating if, in your meditation, you can not enter into a samadhi, period. No ifs or buts. Don't go New Age on me though about there are no paths or etc... It won't work here. FYI, you don't enter into a Samadhi if you have an ego and while you are still clinging onto the all 5 or any one of the 5 skandhas!!!!! To have entered into a samadhi it is already given that your ego is long DEAD!!!!!

That 'long dead ego' there.

Aspirational perhaps?

Touching samadhi via cultivation can be done but then we, of necessity; return to the mundane world of opinion, dissent and engagement.

How else could we pay the bills, take out the trash or even engage in fascinating exchanges of our opinions with those of others here on TTB?

 

:-)

Edited April 19, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[dawei]

...

I often think of non grasping as remaining unattached to outcomes.

...

 

Isn't 'think' an outcome?

[deci belle]

Regardless which schools, the end goal in meditation is to reach samadhi and to gain the transcendental wisdom. In fact, there are even levels of samadhi and dhyanas you must go through in order to reach closer to enlightenment. If you can't reach samadhi in your meditation, even the first level, you have a lot of work ahead of you in your meditation.

No way. The end goal of meditation is to forget meditation. It is a temporary expedient for those who are as yet unable to maintain equipoise in action, which, as I stated earlier, is the highest meditation— even by those who have entered the inconceivable and have seen their nature.

 

There are those who are born knowing. There is no reaching, much less reaching closer. There are no stages.

 

There is nothing gained by enlightenment. This is the first truth of certification in terms of sudden illumination. No one must go through anything to realize their essential nature. One must only forget the false self to realize nonorigination.

 

The tenor of the comments have shifted a bit towards grasping in terms of the formless realm …ok.

[ChiForce]

No way. The end goal of meditation is to forget meditation. It is a temporary expedient for those who are as yet unable to maintain equipoise in action, which, as I stated earlier, is the highest meditation— even by those who have entered the inconceivable and have seen their nature.

 

There are those who are born knowing. There is no reaching, much less reaching closer. There are no stages.

 

There is nothing gained by enlightenment. This is the first truth of certification in terms of sudden illumination. No one must go through anything to realize their essential nature. One must only forget the false self to realize nonorigination.

 

The tenor of the comments have shifted a bit towards grasping in terms of the formless realm …ok.

Actually, if you are not there yet, there are stages to go through. Once you are there, you can even dismiss the state of enlightenment as illusion as well. However, if you haven't even experienced the first level of Samadhi and beginning to talk about the nature of Dharma, that all things are impermanent and even enlightenment itself, you really haven't achieved anything. You really haven't cultivated anything. I am not sure what would that make you....

[ChiForce]

Seriously, enough of this New Age BS....Enlightenment without Samadhi and Dhyanas...is like a Tao without the void. Like Zen without Dharma.

 

You don't necessary in a single life time to have experienced all the Dhyanas and Samadhi states. However, in your next rebirth, you would have accumulated enough merit to advance further in your cultivation without much help.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhy%C4%81na_in_Buddhism

Edited April 20, 2014 by ChiForce

[GrandmasterP]

With deepest respect ChiForce ?..

Mindfulness is ' Zen without the Dharma' and it works just as well as does Zen ( with the Dharma).

It is the same 'thing'.

Religious baggage and window dressing is just that.

Baggage and Window Dressing.

Much the same goes for New Age paths.

If those work for whom they work then those aren't "BS"to those they work for.

It serves naught but division, or advertising; to introduce marketing speak into spirituality.

 

" My product is better than that product. So buy my product."

Bit dogmatic that.

 

:-)

Edited April 20, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[traveler]

Unity in diversity.

 

When we can see every path as a valid experience, then the many become one. It is OK if we disagree because this only strengthens the whole fiber of our collective experience. Grasping: you simply lose track of what it is you were grasping at; you look and cannot find it. Like thinking that you were being attracted to the ground by gravity and then finding that you are actually floating in the air. Is floating or grounding the better path? Who cares as long as what you are experiencing is working for you. Awakening is a never-ending spiral: some times you need to be attached to certain energies or aspects of who you are, other times there is nothing there and you find yourself floating free of all entanglements. Around and around the great wheel of creation we move, discovering new and wonderful things at every turn. Consider: you cannot understand what it feels like to be free until you have grasped at stuff. One cannot exist without the other.

Edited April 20, 2014 by traveler

[GrandmasterP]

The dualistic mind sta­tions itself between us and what we experience and then acts as an interpreter of experience.

Hence sub­jective, conditioned interpretations can be mistaken for direct experience.

We do not enter into the experience of things as they are, but instead experience things as we think they are.

Doing so, for example if making 'judgement calls' such as "This RIGHT... that WRONG!" we experience only our own minds.

None of us can, or should; judge another's direct experience by or against our own direct experience.

To attempt such is a recipe for dualism.

Edited April 20, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[ChiForce]

The dualistic mind sta­tions itself between us and what we experience and then acts as an interpreter of experience.

Hence sub­jective, conditioned interpretations can be mistaken for direct experience.

We do not enter into the experience of things as they are, but instead experience things as we think they are.

Doing so, for example if making 'judgement calls' such as "This RIGHT... that WRONG!" we experience only our own minds.

None of us can, or should; judge another's direct experience by or against our own direct experience.

To attempt such is a recipe for dualism.

Hahahah....I hate to use my own experience to validate the Zen teaching but is the truth, thousands year-old truths. I have been following the pratyekabuddha yana. For those not knowing what it is, it is an outside path. A pathless path without aids or teachers. The cultivator, because of his or her past life merit, he or she could advance further in the cultivating process just by simply contemplating the principle of dependent origination....that personal affliction and suffering are not real in itself but the conditioning onto other things. This isn't just some mind experiments but to actually resolving one's own personal issues and suffering. After a year or so, I experienced my first Samadhi, the first jhana, in my first kundalini energy rising experience. I believe I am onto my second jhana, I think. I experienced my first Samadhi without ever even reading a single verse in any of the Buddhist scriptures. Yet, I have arrived where I need to arrive. I have no problems knowing the Dharma or to even explain it from my own experiences.

 

For some strange reasons, we have posters claiming that to experience Samadhi isn't a necessary condition to advance in your meditation and cultivation because of some new age ideas. Hahaah... I am like WTF??? Is not easy to enter into Samadhi, let alone to have a stable one. It does not mean you have to validate your own enlightenment progress by removing the Dharma wisdom, insights of the Dharma from your own "personal experience," from the Zen teaching. Go look up the Dharma Gate, the gateless gate. It is called a gate because you need a key to unlock. Once you have opened this gate, you are on the path and the process will be revealed to you.

[deci belle]

The gateless gate has no gate, much less a key for a lock. It is your own mind.

 

It is obvious you have no idea what constitutes the gateless gate, practitioner.

[ChiForce]

The gateless gate has no gate, much less a key for a lock. It is your own mind.

 

It is obvious you have no idea what constitutes the gateless gate, practitioner.

You know you need a key when you have visions of a wall in front of you literally...hahaha... I see plenty of walls and yet I also see plenty of keys. Most of you couldn't even find this gate, let alone to unlock it. You don't even know if there is a gate at all...

[GrandmasterP]

Yes.

You are right ChiForce.

 

:-)

Edited April 20, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[idiot_stimpy]

Mahamudra cannot be taught. But most intelligent Naropa,

Since you have undergone rigorous austerity,

With forbearance in suffering and with devotion to your Guru,

Blessed One, take this secret instruction to heart.

 

Is space anywhere supported? Upon what does it rest?

Like space, Mahamudra is dependant upon nothing;

Relax and settle in the continuum of unalloyed purity,

And, your bonds loosening, release is certain.

 

Gazing intently into the empty sky, vision ceases;

Likewise, when mind gazes into mind itself,

The train of discursive and conceptual thought ends

And supreme enlightenment is gained.

 

Like the morning mist that dissolves into thin air,

Going nowhere but ceasing to be,

Waves of conceptualization, all the mind’s creation, dissolve,

When you behold your mind’s true nature.

excerpt - Tilopa’s Mahamudra Instruction to Naropa in Twenty Eight Verses

(translated by Keith Dowman)

[deci belle]

There is no thing dear ChiForce, but since you see so many things— may you possess all the gates, locks and keys you desire.

[GrandmasterP]

With regard to samadhi in Shikantaza practice, samadhi does not refer to some state of unusual concentration which some folks sometimes seek to enter in various forms of meditation. Zazen Samadhi cannot be entered or left is located no where and every where, leaving nothing out rejecting nothing alive, and unbound by need for attaining to some deep mental concentration or absorption or stopping of the mind effortless awakeness all ordinary phenomena already awakened when known as such no need to flee into the minds dark cave in search of it ordinary mind as awakened mind when known as such this ordinary never just ordinary.

Could be we are using 'samadhi' as a catch all label here to describe quite different things.

What our brother ChiForce is calling samadhi is for sure 'his version' of samadhi - what it means to him in and through the tradition he is cultivating.

Referentially valid samadhi that is too hence our friend is 'right'.

Other versions of samadhi are available as per that one I just cited.

Whatever gets anyone 'there' is the right way for that person.

As long as we don't use our personal preference as some sort of universal benchmark then it's all good.

Edited April 22, 2014 by GrandmasterP