Is 'just sitting' a post-enlightment practice?

[tao.te.kat]

Pure shikantaza is impossible prior kensho. It was know even for Bodhidharma so long ago (you can find it).

 

Bodhidharma spoke of this in his Essay on the Dharma pulse:

If someone without kensho tries constantly to make his thoughts free and unattached, he commits a great transgression against the Dharma and is a great fool to boot. He winds up in the passive indifference of empty emptiness, no more able to distinguish good from bad than a drunken man. If you want to put the Dharma of non- activity into practice, you must bring an end to all your thought-attachments by breaking through into kensho. Unless you have kensho, you can never expect to achieve a state of non-doing.

 

Prior to kensho you do Zazen Which is not exactly the same. But they're not so different. So there's some confussion.

 

Prior to the turning over described in the Lankavatara sutra (paravritti aka kensho in japanese) zazen is like self-liberation of thoughts in Tibet. You stay there, no point of focus, but attentive, if you get lost in a fantasy, you detect it, let it go and go back to be attentive.

 

After kensho, shikantaza is just sitting because you shouldnt self-liberate, you just stay in front of thoughts when they appear, and you just stay when they dont appear. You are attentive and that's all. Because, as Bodhidharma said you're free and unattached to thoughts. So you achieve a state of "only-sitting" or non-doing.

Edited April 25 by tao.te.kat

[Tommy]

On 4/25/2024 at 10:24 AM, tao.te.kat said:

Pure shikantaza is impossible prior kensho. It was know even for Bodhidharma so long ago (you can find it).

 

Bodhidharma spoke of this in his Essay on the Dharma pulse:

If someone without kensho tries constantly to make his thoughts free and unattached, he commits a great transgression against the Dharma and is a great fool to boot. He winds up in the passive indifference of empty emptiness, no more able to distinguish good from bad than a drunken man. If you want to put the Dharma of non- activity into practice, you must bring an end to all your thought-attachments by breaking through into kensho. Unless you have kensho, you can never expect to achieve a state of non-doing.

 

Prior to kensho you do Zazen Which is not exactly the same. But they're not so different. So there's some confusion.

 

Wow, that makes so much sense now. I have read this over and over again. Its meaning lost to me. Now it just makes sense. While practicing meditation, one puts the mind back into the correct state. Not attached to thoughts and no identifying with thoughts. The attention and concentration allow for the mind to reset. And by grace break thru this attachment.  Then the practice of just sitting is not lost to indifference. It is not lost to emptiness. Sometimes, I feel like an idiot being told the truth over and over again and not understanding. Then to have the walls all crashing down. And there it is with no way to explain other than what has been said already.

 

Note: Sorry, not to mislead, no kensho. Just stupid realization of how dumb I can be at times.

Edited July 30 by Tommy

[tao.te.kat]

> Just stupid realization of how dumb I can be at times.

 

You sound wise to me. Keep the good job. Kensho will arrive.

 

While observing thoughts and emotions coming and going, dont forget to be inquisitive about: then "what am I?" "what is this?" "from where am I then observing?" "what is my nature?"

 

Then one day, a knot between the observation and the contents will break. That will be the first kensho that probably will not last... but...

Edited August 1 by tao.te.kat