The Buddha taught a method for keeping stress out of our lives. Until the summer my job and home life was laden with such stress, so I practised a lot, and hey, it worked - potential stress was often nipped in the bud and present stress was generally dissolved. I was less stressed when I remembered to practise than when I did not. Result!
But here's my dilemma. My home life has become easier, owing to a change in my wife's professional situation, and my own job has recently improved, owing to a little down-shifting I arranged - so in my life as a whole, much less stress arises. Feeling thus healthier, I am taking my Zen "medicine" less regularly. Yet I still think of myself as a Buddhist, and Buddhists practise regularly, right?
Ok, everything changes, so these good times cannot last. I know that. But in the meantime, what should a Buddhist do when his life is going well?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Hi Michael,
ReplyDeleteI'm very glad you're all doing well.
At the same time though, where did you, a recipient of transmission in a Mahayana lineage, get the idea that the goal of Buddhist practice is personal stress relief?
Was the Buddha who taught this called 'Oprah' or 'Dr. Phil' or something?
Sorry to put it bluntly, but you're a big boy and all.
Regards,
Harry.
I was thinking about this today.
ReplyDeleteWhen things go well, practice is blessing.
When things go wrong, practice is a refuge.
And well, you are zen people. You know how to twist this around.
Is there a goal to any practice?
ReplyDeleteBetter stop practicing.
Interesting replies!
ReplyDeleteHarry, Mahayana is a branch of Buddhism, and the Buddha did say,"Vediyamanassa kho panaham, bhikkhave,
idam dukkham ti pannapemi ayam
dukkha-samudayo ti pannapemi
ayam dukkha-nirodho ti pannapemi
ayam dukkha-nirodha-gamini-patipada
ti pannapemi." So yes, personal stress relief.
That said, those who like the Mahayana approach will help other people relieve their stress too - just as the Buddha did. He spent his whole adult life teaching stress relief! So while things are going nicely, I continue to run the "sharing" side of my practice - but the "private" parts become less regular. That's what I'm asking about.
Di Jhana, yes, when things go well, practice is a blessing - I just wonder whether it ought also to be a habit.
Rizal Affif, "I teach the truth of the path leading to the cessation of suffering " implies that the cessation of suffering is a goal. Instead of meditating this morning, I could go chew the bark on my apple trees. Why don't I? Because I feel such action would be fruitless!
Hi Michael,
ReplyDelete'The Buddha said this', 'the Buddha said that', the Buddha said plenty. He never said that what he taught was 'Buddhism' though, and the indications are that he would have found that term a bit odd, because he wasn't about starting a cult of himself and what he said. He was primarily concerned with us realising what he had realised in his sitting under a tree and becoming enlightened 'together with all things'. Buddhas realise and preach the Dharma, the nature and function of reality realised in/with our lives, not just personal or interpersonal stress relief, nor just a method of personal, psychological redemption.
I think, if we really try to penetrate the Dharma, or reality if you like, we can appreciate to some small extent the 'fine, subtle mind of Nirvana', the very same mind that creates suffering, that IS suffering. We have to do this with whatever we've got, whatever the ebb and tide of karma blows our way be it good or bad. In a sense whether it's good or bad is irrelevant and, if we're sincere in our practice, it doesn't matter in the least if it's good or bad.
We could say that the purpose of Buddhism is to realise the self; but that 'self' is never confined to our own mind and experience of it, or to our to own stress, or to the minds and stresses of others. The Self that we clarify in Buddhist practice is not a self that exists in contrast to what we consider our self or others and so, if we want to realise it for what it is, we should not limit it by considering it in relation to our self or the self of others.
My 2 cents... and you did ask!
Regards,
Harry.
Only two cents? Harry always provides value for money!
ReplyDeleteActually I think we are maybe saying the same thing from a different angle, and to this end I'm going to cite Harry's pal Dogen so Harry can't argue! (For those who've not seen it, Harry runs a great Dogen website at http://koanworkshop.blogspot.com/)
Stress (i.e dukkha, caused by tanha) stirs us up. Practice stills us, allowing the muddy water of perception to slow down until the soil settles at the bottom of the glass, allowing us to see clearly. This is why Dogen said that practice and enlightenment are one and the same.
So you can take a fairly Theravadin "personal psychological redemption" approach to Buddhism or, more like Nagarjuna, focus on "the nature and function of reality realised in/with our lives" - but each will lead to the other because, as Dogen said, they're the same thing.
Which brings us back to the original question: if by a strange confluence of circumstances a Buddhist finds himself in a state of calm without recourse to practice (even improbable circumstances do, if you wait long enough, occur!) what should he do?
"So you can take a fairly Theravadin "personal psychological redemption" approach to Buddhism or, more like Nagarjuna, focus on "the nature and function of reality realised in/with our lives" - but each will lead to the other because, as Dogen said, they're the same thing."
ReplyDeleteYou should know by now that it's not as easy as that to stop me arguing! :-)
Dogen said no such thing. Dogen said that the right sort of effort, substantially heading towards and clarifying realisation and learning to that end, is the thing that characterises and, in a substantial way, unites all schools of Buddhism (he put the horse before the cart in other words). But he also used 'the small vehicle' as a statement of inferior practice as did most Mahayana commentators before and after him for some time.
I agree with him, and not in a flimsy, doctrinal way, but in a practical and substantial way. Small practice (that is, practice in relation to our perception of self such as 'self betterment' or 'self realisation for my self') is small practice, a small vehicle, and it is necessarily limited by a limited view of what constitutes the self and the subsequent range of practice/realisation.
If we have a limited view of self and the self to be realised then such self referential practice simply will not necessarily lead to the realisation of the broader Dharma, or Self, or 'not-self' ('anatta'/'anatman') to express it in the negative term.
Regards,
Harry.
Harry, the Buddha dind't certainly talk about buddhism. He did talk about sasana, a term wich could be translated as "religion" and of Dhamma-Vinaya, teaching and discipline, which were cleary defined in what today we have in the suttas and vinaya of the Pali Canon and other versions.
ReplyDeleteWhat the Buddha didn't certainly talked was about the Self with capitals, nor any other absolute term. Nor he talked about not-self as an absolute term or the real nature of things. These conceptions were later atributions that we can find more or less usable in our quest.
The closer we get to an absolute term in early Buddhism is in a very beautiful description of Nibbana in negative terms, found in the Udana. And yet, we should remember that nibbana is only one of the many terms he used to described the goal and the fruit of the path, which is just and only cessation of craving. What we put on it later, is our doing.
So it's not about realising a broader Dharma or anything you want to call Self. Dharma is there to practice. In the end, it seems to me more practical to think of "buddhism" or whatever you want to call it in terms of "doing/not doing" instead of "being/not being".
This takes us back to Michael question "what sould we do?" and "should practice also be a habit?"
You have the Dha(r/m)mha and the Vinaya to answer to this. What about a little bit of prajna, wisdom (and just let the equation be that without compassion there cannot be wisdom) so we know what to do in every situation?
Could this help in your struggle.
And let me put it in more zen terms. Remember Hishamatsu's koan: whatever you do will not do, what do you do?
You don't answer to this koan in a blog, nor even in dokusan. You cannot just come with an answer and hope to receive an aproval.
The question is made in every inhalation, the answer is given in every exhalation.
What do you do, Michael?
What do you do, Harry? (or do you already have an answer?)
"What the Buddha didn't certainly talked was about the Self with capitals, nor any other absolute term. Nor he talked about not-self as an absolute term or the real nature of things. These conceptions were later atributions that we can find more or less usable in our quest."
ReplyDeleteHi Do jhana,
Well, as you have mentioned 'doing': One thing that we can do is to use language to express it (and I don't want to get into the vacuous debate again as to whether we can or cannot express reality with reality/ a real doing i.e. speaking). There is certainly no absolute anywhere, and because of this all meaning is contained in the only moment when we can do anything effective, such as speak... can we say then that THAT is an absolute? I think we can, but we'd want to be very substantially clear about it (I can ABSOLUTELY only be slapped on the head at this moment, by way of clarifying it tangibly!) That was what I was trying to express in talking about it both positively ('Self', 'reality', 'Dharma'...) and negatively ('not self' etc). The terms of reference of a man who died well over 2000 years ago are only as useful to me in as much as they apply, or can be applied, to the current, real situation of course. This is the only place where their real meaning can be.
"So it's not about realising a broader Dharma or anything you want to call Self. Dharma is there to practice. In the end, it seems to me more practical to think of "buddhism" or whatever you want to call it in terms of "doing/not doing" instead of "being/not being"."
This seems imbalanced to me. Realising that my life is broader and more inclusive than what I think and perceive it to be is a tangible action. Somebody effectively does it as opposed to someone, say, who does not do it and so, as Dogen put it, 'there are buddhas and there are ordinary beings'. Beings exist, and the doing of realisation has a real effect on beings, on their being which allows them to do. There is a doing, and there is a real effect of that doing on a being who has autonomy to do or not do.
Master Dogen expresses Buddhism from the angle of 'S/self' very well I think:
"To study Buddhism is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things. To be enlightened by all things is to be free from attachment to the body and mind of one's self and of others." (from Genjo-koan).
"And let me put it in more zen terms. Remember Hishamatsu's koan: whatever you do will not do, what do you do?
You don't answer to this koan in a blog, nor even in dokusan. You cannot just come with an answer and hope to receive an aproval."
We can try *sincerely* wherever and however we like and see fit, and we'll be wrong, and if it is not enough for Hishamatsu, then maybe he's a silly old dead bastard who ain't doing anything worth talking about.
Regards,
Harry.
Harry,
ReplyDeleteI am with you all the way through the 1st paragraf. I have nothing against talking, or writing, and in saying "it" (or trying) lies our answer to Hisamatsu's koan, by the moment.
By the way, Hisamatsu is dead, so enough or not enough doesn't apply.
About realization, I don't really have much to say now. I just can see how long my comments can get, and boy, I wonder who takes the effort to spend so long reading, when they could be sitting (or realizing)
Dogen express it so beautifully! But it seems to me that we go around focused on this Self, or in the not-self or making films about my ego, or pressing to be "one with things" ("if just I leg of the ego...") but we forget to forget the self and then, how can we be enlightened by all things?
Finally, it's not about trying sincerely, that we answer the silly old bastard's koan, but by actually answering and answering again when we "realize" (oh no, that again!) that it "didn't go".
Regards
"What the Buddha didn't certainly talked was about the Self with capitals, nor any other absolute term. Nor he talked about not-self as an absolute term or the real nature of things. These conceptions were later atributions that we can find more or less usable in our quest."
ReplyDeleteHi Do jhana,
Well, as you have mentioned 'doing': One thing that we can do is to use language to express it (and I don't want to get into the vacuous debate again as to whether we can or cannot express reality with reality/ a real doing i.e. speaking). There is certainly no absolute anywhere, and because of this all meaning is contained in the only moment when we can do anything effective, such as speak... can we say then that THAT is an absolute? I think we can, but we'd want to be very substantially clear about it (I can ABSOLUTELY only be slapped on the head at this moment, by way of clarifying it tangibly!) That was what I was trying to express in talking about it both positively ('Self', 'reality', 'Dharma'...) and negatively ('not self' etc). The terms of reference of a man who died well over 2000 years ago are only as useful to me in as much as they apply, or can be applied, to the current, real situation of course. This is the only place where their real meaning can be.
"So it's not about realising a broader Dharma or anything you want to call Self. Dharma is there to practice. In the end, it seems to me more practical to think of "buddhism" or whatever you want to call it in terms of "doing/not doing" instead of "being/not being"."
This seems imbalanced to me. Realising that my life is broader and more inclusive than what I think and percieve it to be is a tangible action. Somebody effectively does it as opposed to someone, say, who does not do it and so, as Dogen put it, 'there are buddhas and there are ordinary beings'. Beings exist, and the doing of realisation has a real effect on beings, on their being which allows them to do. There is a doing, and there is a real effect of that doing on a being who has autonomy to do or not do.
Master Dogen expresses Buddhism from the angle of 'S/self' very well I think:
"To study Buddhism is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things. To be enlightened by all things is to be free from attachment to the body and mind of one's self and of others." (from Genjo-koan).
"And let me put it in more zen terms. Remember Hishamatsu's koan: whatever you do will not do, what do you do?
You don't answer to this koan in a blog, nor even in dokusan. You cannot just come with an answer and hope to receive an aproval."
We can try *sincerely* wherever and however we like and see fit, and we'll be wrong, and if it is not enough for Hishamatsu, then maybe he's a silly old dead bastard who ain't doing anything worth talking about.
Regards,
Harry.
"Finally, it's not about trying sincerely, that we answer the silly old bastard's koan, but by actually answering and answering again when we "realize" (oh no, that again!) that it "didn't go"."
ReplyDeleteWell DJ, it is certainly about sincerity for me because I see so many people 'talking the zen talk', but with no great evidence of their really 'walking the zen walk' and being able to say a word or two about it.
Shallow negation and iconoclasm is a zen sickness that we testy youth in the West have taken to all too readily. I think we need to try harder and *do* something more substantial than that and all the 'Buddhist' posing that goes on on-line.
p.s. I don't know what happened there. My earlier post seemed to disappear, and then come back in a different place! Spooky.
Regards,
Harry.
Hi Michael,
ReplyDeleteTaking medicines when you are not sick could have nasty effects, but taking vitamins help to keep us healthy.
Hi Michael, and everyone.
ReplyDeleteI have three answers for your question:
1) When you are ill, you take medicines. Some people, mistakenly, stop taking their medicines once the symptoms are gone, but that doesn't end the causes. The doctor (here, the Buddha) asks us to take the medicine until the causes (i.e. tanha/craving) are gone, or else the medicine will be of no use.
So, are we gonna be good patients? :)
2) As I heard Dosho Port say once, "dukkha is like having a wheel with the spoke misplaced: it can still turn, but you can tell there's something wrong". My life is quite pleasant: my studies go well, I have an incredible girlfriend, my family loves me, my friends don't let me down...certainly, I can't complain. But does that mean there is no stress/dukkha? No. Everytime someone says something I don't like, everytime I finish an ice-cream, everytime the weather is colder than I'd like, there's that feeling there, saying "I don't like this, I don't want things to be like this, I want things to change!". There you go, dukkha. The wheel still needs to be repaired; therefore, I still need to practice.
3) Practice is both a blessing and a refuge, but...who said practice is just limited to sitting on your cushion? Who says chewing the bark of your apple trees is not practice? If you want, everything is practice. Sitting is just one manifestation of the path, one that makes you comfortable and see things differently, but it's not the only one. If you feel you don't want to sit for a while, and instead want to enjoy chewing the bark of your apple trees, then do it! Experiment, see where that takes you: does it make you happier? or doesn't it? do you feel it okay not to meditate? don't you want to use your good times to train and be better prepared for the bad ones? It's all up to you to decide.
For me, the work is not done, the task is not ended, there is still much to do in this world. So, as my karate teacher said last Monday when asked how to master our katas: TRAIN, TRAIN, TRAIN.
Pablo, I think you've hit the nail on the head. What is practice?
ReplyDeleteHernan, I think you too have hit the nail on the head. Medicines and vitamins!
When I "should" be sitting zazen before I go to work, if instead I'm taking my wife breakfast in bed or finding the time to show my son I value him, I'm taking my vitamins. If, in Harry's terms, I'm spending the time being rather less Mahayana, it shows I ended my course of antibiotics before the disease was cured.
Hey, David, don't worry about writing long posts - reading them is part of our practice!
I think that as long as we think of our practice as something we do separate from our daily lives, then we will find the need to “take time” to practice. Practice is not just meditation; practice is constantly awakening and living by the eight fold path. We do not follow the eightfold path as something we do separate from our daily lives. Taking breakfast to our wives or spending time with our children is not something we do outside of practice, it is what we continue to do as practice. Taking time to meditate is just like taking time to eat or taking time to sleep. When our practice becomes totally incorporated into our lives, so that each breath is understood as practice, then nothing more is needed.
ReplyDeleteP.S. Willow bark is better medicine than apple bark. However, apple bark made into a tea can help with hyperacidity and heartburn.
Did the Buddha teach a method of keeping stress out of our lives? As a form of medicine, that sounds as watered down as baby aspirin.
ReplyDeleteThe conditional world is the conditional world. Circumstances are ever favorable, unfavorable, easy, difficult... circumstantial. If you think you've found a happy hunting ground, look again, it's gone.
There is a difference between symptom management and true vitality. Any form of being has leaves and roots and branches. Any adept of any art or practice doesn't stop cultivating their art with some momentary piece of satisfaction. Practicing to alleviate stress or suffering is not what i would recognize as an art. It's more like a band-aid, a way of refining lying to one's self. There is always ever deeper, more profoundly here. Best to keep practicing.
If such a practice is engaged in relation to the ups and downs of life's conditions, the effects of the practice as a medicine, will be as profound as temporary pain relief.
So, "what should a Buddhist do when life is going well?" There's really no confusion.
What precisely is "true vitality"?
ReplyDeleteThinking maybe I'd wandered off the path and was rightfully being slapped by Shojin, I dug deep into sutta. (Being of a Zen nature, this is something I rarely do - but I wanted to check I wasn't talking what I believe Americans call "hogwash".)
ReplyDeleteNow here it is in the Anuradha Sutta, 22.86:
"...Both formerly & now, it is only stress that I describe, and the cessation of stress." You can see this translation by Thanissaro Bhikkhu at
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn22/sn22.086.than.html .
Maybe it's a strange translation of "dukkha"? So I checked out the translator, Thanissaro Bhikkhu, on Wiki. English is his first language and he appears about as qualified on the Pali and Nikaya fronts as one can get.
So let's be honest here, even if we don't like what we see. Buddha said, "...Both formerly & now, it is only stress that I describe, and the cessation of stress."
Personally, having come to Zen from the Taoist end of the spectrum rather than the mainstream Buddhist end, I suspect I have a lot in common with Shojin's striving for "true vitality", whatever we mean by that. (e.g. Kayaking, a man at one with nature, is a key part of my practice, as is the directing of misplaced chi - but how Buddhist is that?)
Buddhism has grown. Gotama himself states that he sought ONLY to describe stress (i.e. its causes) and the cessation of stress. Later on other people (with whom, for what it's worth, I agree) added stuff like the Bodhisattva frame of mind and exceptionally helpful concepts such as sunyata.
But by definition, when practising Buddhism you're trying to do what Buddha taught - and that, in his own words, was stress relief - hence the question about what a temporarily stress-free Buddhist should do.
"But by definition, when practising Buddhism you're trying to do what Buddha taught - and that, in his own words, was stress relief - hence the question about what a temporarily stress-free Buddhist should do."
ReplyDeleteGotama pointed to the definitive end of suffering, that is, Nibbana. If you feel momentarily at ease (as you said in your first post, you knew this favorable situation is not going to last forever), then you haven't found Nibbana yet. Then, keep practising. As Shojin said, no confusion.
Somebody open a window in here!
ReplyDeleteWe would not even qualify to practice 'what the Buddha taught' to novice monks as we live with our families (and, I suspect, we will continue to). Thankfully, for us home-staying people, things have moved on since what the Buddha MAY have said was written down.
At any rate, I'm afraid your textual fundamentalism re Buddhism as 'what the Buddha taught' is thoroughly unconvincing (and I hope you're not as convinced as you sound) as a book/scroll or spoken instructions or values never clarified a single definition on their own; and there has been a couple of thousand years of it being practiced, clarified, verified and transmitted in many diverse ways in many diverse circumstances to diverse people.
If Buddhism is really ultimately about what the Buddha taught then it died over 2000 years ago. Maybe it did!...That shouldn't interfere with our own efforts of course. We should clarify it together with a buddha if we're unsure.
Regards,
Harry.
No, Harry, I have to argue with you here.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a fundamentalist (and I'll blow up anyone who says I am!)If I were a Buddhist fundamentalist, I'd be a Theravadin. Whilst their approach isn't for me, you have to respect their clarity. "I'm a Buddhist, Buddha taught X, so I do X." And the texts of what he said are, as far as any ancient texts go, pretty reliable. No mud in their waters.
But in the answers above, there's been a hell of a lot of muddying of the waters. My wife's just watched a Tibetan Buddhist ceremony - and she reported that it a lot more to do with Bon and Tibetan culture than it had to do with the philosophy and phsychology propogated by Gotama.
Occasionally we need to not just open the window - but open the curtains too! Have a look! What am I doing? And why?
"Right speech" is a core element of Buddhism - and lumping together all your practice and calling it Buddhism just isn't honest.
Hi Michael,
ReplyDeleteThat's fine, if it works for you. But what is the criteria by which we should look at our practice? Some book? Or what you or I think and say? We're living in reality. We are talking about realising reality (albeit from a number of perspectives, you see that it should have some personal end as a criteria, for example). There is a very substantial and obvious criteria right there that we can adopt as a rationale without resorting to the choas of scriptural validation. I don't need a book or scripture to live my life. That may be an inverted way to look at the purpose of Buddhism (I think).
Besides, there are countless Buddhist scriptures, commentaries and records. We could likely justify anything we do with some line or other from a Buddhist text. We need a more reliable criteria, a more reliable refuge say. Gautama Buddha gave us criteria (although it has clearly changed a lot in outward form over time), and it was his intention that we make this our standard. If we aren't clear on it we can clarify it directly with a teacher who has.
'Buddhism' as you or I imagine it, or as it is written in a book or scripture, is simply not a reliable refuge because for each person, and for each book, there will be a different 'Buddhism'. Thankfully, I think Buddhism is essentially more substantial than this, and this substantial core unites all valid forms of Buddhism regardless of their relative buttons and bows (ceremonies, hierarchies, textual emphasis etc etc etc)
Regards,
Harry.
Actually, I just came across a nice quote as soon as I open the 'Zen Community' blog aggregator page. This sums it up pretty well for me today:
ReplyDelete“I take refuge in the place for learning the truth, which is every place.“
- A Thousand Hands of Compassion
Regards,
Harry.
Hi Harry,
ReplyDeleteI'd be the first to say (well, the second, cos you beat me to it) that we're seeking to realise reality. Totally. And as you say, there's so, so many ways to do that - maybe even a unique one for each of us. That's cool.
Part of the process of realising reality is trying to understand the mechanism of our minds. Buddha was really into that - all those aggregates and dependent arising and so on. In the same spirit with which he dissected dukkha and its causes, I dissect my practice and its causes - because in both cases, if you want to understand how something really works, you need to find out how it's put together.
Ok, it's more Abidhamma than Zen, but I feel it's useful to note, "This practice I'm doing is one that Buddha taught; whereas this one is more Taoist," because the fruits of different traditions are not the same. Know precisely what you're doing and why and you increase your chances of getting decent fruit from the karma of your practices.
Of course, behave in such a reductionist way in a Zen community and you run the risk of being lynched for a public display of dualistic thought!
"Know precisely what you're doing and why and you increase your chances of getting decent fruit from the karma of your practices."
ReplyDeleteHi Michael,
I think we cannot recognise our own mind. We cannot think or percieve our own mind as it already exists everywhere before our intention to think it or understand it or comprehend it or whatever.
I mostly practice shikantaza in the Zen tradition that, in latter times, has come to be characterised more as 'Soto Zen'. That doesn't impress me really, but it doesn't bother me as I've more important things to be actually doing. The 'actually doing', and the effect/ non-effect, is the important matter that leaps free of 'Soto Zen', 'Buddhism', 'buddha', 'enlightenment' or whatever I like to think the result might be.
The matter of karma and 'fruit' in Buddhist practice is a very subtle one that demands a lot of direct clarification in practice. There are a lot of koan about this and it's what the famous Wild Fox koan is about, as you know.
'Is the person of great practice beyond karma?'
S/he may be, and s/he will manifest the effects of not being bound by his/her personal karma right within the cause and effect of doing it. At any rate, in terms of clarifying it, it is not a matter of what we think, or aim at, or expect, because not being prone to our habitual conditioning is just not that sort of 'getting it' effort. It's unconditioned effort that is not prone to, or bound by, what we think or want. That's why it may be useful to think of it in the 'not two' terms of effect/non-effect.
It's an important point I think as it is the standard throughout Buddhism and is the real, substantial basis of broader Buddhist values such as anatman, renunciation, home leaving, extinction of desires etc etc.
Regards,
Harry.
Michael,
ReplyDeleteThe fruits of Tao and Buddhism (or Gotama's Buddhism, if you prefer) are different? I understand very little of Tao, but what I've read (and some of the Ch'an/Zen texts I've read which I'm told are very influenced by Taoism) seemed to be compatible with my Buddhist practice. Is there something I misunderstood?
"But by definition, when practising Buddhism you're trying to do what Buddha taught - and that, in his own words, was stress relief - hence the question about what a temporarily stress-free Buddhist should do."
ReplyDeleteBe a temporarily stress free Buddhist!
But by definition, when practicing Buddhism, i am trying to do what the Buddha taught... and, i'm just pretending. When i'm awake i'm no longer practicing Buddhism, just doing what the Buddha taught.
"The fruits of different traditions are not the same." This is not necessarily so. Just as the fruits of the same tradition are not the same. Just look at two alleged Buddhists, or two alleged Buddhist blogger's posts. Sometimes apples grow on grapevines. And if they haven't before, they will soon.
Here's another definition stolen from a website, stolen from a book that simply won't do;
Zen -
"A direct understanding outside of scriptures; apart from tradition, with no dependence on words or letters. Pointing directly to the human mind, seeing into our own true nature and being awakened."
book wrong
ReplyDeleteHi Pablo,
ReplyDeleteAre the fruits of different practices the same or different?
Well, there's long-term effects and short-term effects. (Apologies - I'm going all Abidhamma again!)We can all of us experiment on ourselves to taste the short-term effects. I suspect it's a little different for each of us, but Zen practice generally tends to make me calm and unattached to outcomes; on the other hand tai chi generally tends to leave me with a more dynamic equilibrium. How is it for you?
Long term, you just have to find someone who almost always does the same practice, and has done so diligently for many years, to see the difference. One of my sangha has spent a fair deal of time with the Dalai Lama and reports that his Dzogchen has left him overflowing with metta, but also personally serene, whereas reports I've read of Jain arhat implied she was utterly, utterly serene, but also exhibiting metta. Same stuff, of course, because in many ways the practices are similar, just a different balance in traits owing to a different balance in the practices.
As you said, the various practices are not incompatible. Indeed, this is what prompted my initial post, for I see the various practices as various medicines (and, as Hernan said, vitamins). If you've just given blood, quick, eat a lot of pumpkin seeds! If you're about to do sport, eat a Mars bar! If you've a headache, take an aspirin; but if you've just had a whisky, avoid aspirin!
My answer to my own question would be that if you're a temporarily unstressed Buddhist, don't do a practice designed to remove stress - no point! That's like taking an aspirin when you don't have a headache! But there are, of course, a huge number of other ongoing maintenance jobs to be done on the human mind and body and greater society, so the time freed up by the lack of shikantaza can be spent to great benefit on tai chi or kendo or shiatsu or spreading the dhamma or visiting a lonely aged aunt.
Hi Michael,
ReplyDeleteTalking about spurious Buddhism and 'muddying the waters' as you put it earlier: No teacher I have ever heard of has taught shikantaza as a means of temporary stress relief, or as a practice that we should stop when we are not feeling stress. Needless to say that idea would not get a warm reception among other teachers, probably because it challenges some latter day sectarian assumptions but also, and more importantly, because it is not what shikantaza is about at all. I think that is just your own spurious idea arising from a conclusion you are coming to by combining a few ideas from Buddhist traditions together (in the wrong way IMO).
Personally I think if you practiced more then you would see more reason to practice. You were sitting for half an hour a day right? Frankly, that's peanuts compared to the amount of practice that buddhist teachers and serious practitioners generally do (regardless of how they feel). I hope your students, or those who practice with you, are not too influenced by this spurious idea.
I've met you. You may be feeling stress relief at the moment, but you are not an actualised buddha. Sorry, but your ideas seem to warrant a very honest and direct response.
If you feel you are an actualised buddha who no longer needs to practice in times of stress freeness then I suggest that you present this to a realised teacher and see what s/he says... better go to one that doesn't use the stick... ;-)
Regards,
Harry.
Hi Harry,
ReplyDeleteNo offence taken. I know I'm not an actualised Buddha. But then again, neither is anyone else.
These supreme beings - they don't exist. We can all be an actualised Buddha for a finger-snap of a moment if we're practising well in that moment (even me!) but then we're faced with the dualistic choices of human life. To eat now or not to eat now? Either/or. Unavoidable. Choose "eat", choose "not eat", choose both, choose neither - you've still chosen and that choice will have been conditioned by blood sugar levels or family dining schedules or monastery rules or good manners or ascetic intent...and in the moment of choosing, no matter how serene you may try to come across to others, you're not an actualised Buddha. You can make a selfless choice and that selflessness can have been conditioned by the training of shikantaza, but in that moment of choice you're in dualistic either/or samsara so you're not a Buddha.
That's why monasteries are so regimented - they reduce the burden of dualistic samsaric choice-making on the part of the trainee. You make one conditioned choice - to obey the rules - then get on with it.
Anicca! Actualised Buddhas last for a moment, then have to start again. Human, all too human. And even if you found a Buddha, he's not a Buddha. "Avalokiteshvara, when meditating deeply on Perfection of Wisdom..." - you know the rest.
You mention the term "serious practitioner". A serious practitioner (and I include you amongst them) doesn't accept orthodoxy and cry "heresy!" when someone posits a heterodox view. They consider the idea on its own merits as a means to aiding or ailing the human condition. That's all. A serious practitioner follows Gotama's example of putting the search for truth above and beyond everything else, overriding the insecurities that make us grasp for the certainties of a religious faith. When Gotama accepted that bowl of rice pudding, it was far, far worse than posting an unorthodox idea on a blog - it was the rejection of all he and his colleagues had been striving for. Makes me look positively diplomatic.
I'm just examining ideas, in public, as that's what blogs are for - a long-distance time-delay group discussion. If I was trying to get followers I'd put on a serious face and say orthodox stuff and try to come across terribly Zen. Instead I experiment with ideas and lay them open for discussion. If anyone feels I'm pissing on their god, they need to sit face-to-face with that feeling and find out where it came from.
By all means, continue to provide "honest and direct" responses. Don't tell me a fully realised master wouldn't approve, because I don't believe in them. Tell me you don't approve and you immediately have my attention.
All I ask of anyone responding is to try to abide by "Right Speech" - and please, please accept my apologies for when I fail, for I know my own directness sometimes goes too far.
What is "Right Speech" in a blog? I believe it means to critique a person kindly - whilst showing their ideas no mercy at all!
"...and in the moment of choosing, no matter how serene you may try to come across to others, you're not an actualised Buddha. You can make a selfless choice and that selflessness can have been conditioned by the training of shikantaza, but in that moment of choice you're in dualistic either/or samsara so you're not a Buddha."
ReplyDeleteHi Michael,
I'm not at all sure that the state of actualising buddha is inhibited by having to make choices. I think a person actualising the state of buddha is free right within having to make choices otherwise the state of buddha would be completely alien to human beings who have had to, or have to, live in the real world as human beings just like us.
I hope you realise that I'm only critique-ing your ideas and not a person.
When I said a 'realised master' I didn't mean to imply that the person need to be 'fully realised', but that s/he need understand directly (through his/her own efforts) the meaning of zazen/shikantaza. This, as far as I'm concerned, is really what is transmitted and one of the criteria of it is continuous practice even after we have imagined that our work is done.
Re 'kind speech': It's hard to find a consensus on this I think as different people have different values and ways of addressing each other in general and in certain situations. For example, I'm quite thick skinned, so I act as everybody else is. However, I think we can actualise buddha within our relative spheres of range and conduct because the conduct of a buddha is not limited by any circumstance, but we have to do it.
Long may you throw stuff up here to rock the boat. I'm all for it.
Regards,
Harry.
Harry said, " I think a person actualising the state of buddha is free right within having to make choices otherwise the state of buddha would be completely alien to human beings who have had to, or have to, live in the real world..."
ReplyDeleteI can see how a Buddha could live in the real world as an individual, with attachments neither to self nor to attaining specific outcomes. Throw in people one loves and I'm not sure if that works. Would it be enlightened behaviour to let go of attachment to your child's welfare? Can a Buddha be a good husband?
But that's a whole new post - and maybe I've caused enough trouble for now!
Signing off for the time being. Harry thinks I should do more shikantaza, so I'll go warm that cushion...
Michael: "Signing off for the time being. Harry thinks I should do more shikantaza, so I'll go warm that cushion..."
ReplyDeleteDoes that mean you're feeling stressed again? :D
Anyway, I don't see why the act of choosing is incompatible with being free of suffering/stress which, as I understand it, is what a Buddha is.
Pablo, Harry might argue with you there because he says I'm not a Buddha - and the starting point of this exchange was that I was temporarily free from stress!
ReplyDeleteI loom forward to Harry's prostrations...
Micheal dear...
ReplyDelete"gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha..."
It is now mid-October. Even if you are still "temporarily free from stress" you may be experiencing a cold or flu virus, courtesy of the student population you work with.
I believe it was Pema Chodron who referred to the Heart Sutra as "The Heart Attack Sutra". Why? Because it was addressed to followers of the living Buddha....many of whom were "blissed out" (& perhaps expecting to be congratulated for this achievement!)
Instead the message (via Avalokitesvara) was:
"Go Beyond...Go Far Beyond...."
Continue your practice. Always.
If the form of your practice seems tiresome or unproductive (sitting zazen, writing exhaustive blogs...!) consider other options.
A walk in the autumn leaves perhaps....
It's YOUR practice. Just continue on.
That's all.
I look forward to seeing you very soon!
Fondly,
Kaizen