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Green_Dreads
14th April 2004, 00:41
I've heard a lot of ppl tell a lot of good things since I began Zazen. I've been told it will help my concerntration, my clarity of thought and ease my preception of reality. It will provide with a greater level of logic and more vivid ability to imagine and create.

While all this is very tempting I would like to hear from ppl who have actually been there and done that, and discovered first hand the benefits of meditating, regardless of school.

Thanks for any replies. Peace

Chrono
14th April 2004, 03:25
How long have you been meditating since this has happend?

I've noticed some things myself in the short time I've been doing it. Most notably was that I noticed that I was becoming more calm and relaxed. My patience, I think, has improved as well.

Jon

nicojo
14th April 2004, 03:48
Meditation doesn't work fast enough for me.












:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
(I have nothing to contribute but keep going.)

Joseph Svinth
14th April 2004, 07:07
How about learning to sleep sitting up?

From http://ejmas.com/jcs/jcsart_narimatsu_0101.htm

"From late February until mid-April 1961, aikido founder Morihei Ueshiba was in Hawaii. While visiting the Big Island, Ueshiba Sensei stayed at the Nonaka home, and as host, Mr. Nonaka took the Founder and Tohei Sensei to see the volcanoes. It is a long, boring drive, and so both passengers soon fell asleep. Ueshiba Sensei sat in the back seat, and his head bobbed like anyone else’s. However, Tohei Sensei in the passenger seat sat bolt upright, swaying from side-to-side like a Daruma doll. Later Mr. Nonaka told Tohei Sensei that at least in sleeping in cars, he was clearly the senior here. Tohei Sensei laughed and said that this was the result of his Zen training. Whenever he returned to Japan from abroad, he always went to a monastery for two weeks to restore his equilibrium. During free time at the monastery, you couldn’t lie down, but you could sleep sitting up. So he always went to sit near a waterfall. That way if he swayed too much he’d fall in the pond, and not liking to get wet, he had learned to sleep sitting straight up."

J.T. Hurley
14th April 2004, 10:15
Growing up, whenever I got one of my frequent ear infections I always slept sitting bolt upright in an unreclined recliner. Not only did it lessen the pain considerably, but it rested me as well as a regular eight hours in bed.

YMMV

Green_Dreads
14th April 2004, 18:05
Joseph, that's a fantastic story, but since it contains Ueshiba-sensei I'm doomed to find it interesting. My current garden doesn't have a pound and I've taken to sleeping either on a futon or in a bed, but then I'm yet to go to a Buddhist monastery so I'm safe for now.

not-I
14th April 2004, 20:44
Originally posted by Green_Dreads
I've heard a lot of ppl tell a lot of good things since I began Zazen. I've been told it will help my concerntration, my clarity of thought and ease my preception of reality. It will provide with a greater level of logic and more vivid ability to imagine and create.

While all this is very tempting I would like to hear from ppl who have actually been there and done that, and discovered first hand the benefits of meditating, regardless of school.

Thanks for any replies. Peace

Hi Stephen,

We met before in a similar thread. I've been practicing Rinzai Zen under a qualified teacher in the Myoshin-ji lineage for about five or six years now (so not really that long), and have done several Dai Sesshin (7-day monastic meditation retreats with lots of Zazen, Kinhin, chanting, formal meals, Koan practice, and little sleep).

While the initial effects of doing zazen regularly can include those you mentioned, and can be summed up in the experience of learning to step back from your "self," emotions, etc. with an increasing degree of objectivity and occassionally losing yourself in activities, they are not really the aim of Zen practice. If one continues earnestly on this path, the very idea of the "self" is called seriously into question and is ultimately seen as empty in the experience of Kensho (seeing your True Nature).

When i first started, i meditated regularly at the zendo and at home, and after a few months, i began to notice some of the subtle effects you mentioned. (A banal example: I was watching a speech by a politician where i normally would have been cursing and throwing things at the TV, and suddenly noticed i was only vaguely irritated). As i had just come out from a nasty break-up and a period of depression, i took the practice very seriously, and started to go on retreats, starting with one-day Zazenkai and weekends, and then a Go Sesshin (5-day retreat), and finally Dai Sesshin. This is where the actual practice hit full force. With the effort and pain of sitting half-hour periods of zazen for hours, the resulting concentration, the lack of sleep (about 4 or 5 hours), and the stress of following the strict forms, the individual interviews with my teacher became brutal confrontations with my self, or rather, with my idea of myself, i.e. my ego. Many of my own preconceptions, delusions, and self-deceptions (there are still many more, and most of the ones i thought i was "over" continue to pop up)were made so blindingly obvious, that i often felt like just breaking down and weeping.

After one of these Sesshin, i had an experience that i will not call kensho, but which definately shook me and my conception of the world. I will not try to describe it in detail, as it would probably just sound weird to most people, but suffice it to say, it began with someone ringing the doorbell which turned into a gong ringing into infinity and it was like the bottom dropping out of a water-filled barrel. For a day or two there was no fear of death and the world appeared in a kind of grey moonlight. People, plants, and even objects were full of life and not separate from "me." The experience was so powerful that i found it hard to sleep and began thinking about it too much, leading to a brief loss of touch with reality (i suppose psychologists might call it a psychotic episode - although i was rather harmless and only got on my friends' nerves), which lasted about a week.

I now think this experience was rather shallow, but it definately left lasting changes in my conceptions. My teacher never directly confirmed this experience, but later said, "Anyone can get enlightened. The point is to integrate and live the insights gained in practice in daily life." Nowadays, i'm not so worried about "getting enlightened," but simply concerned with getting and keeping my life in order on an everyday basis and peeling away more layers of the ego-onion, which is hard enough. I continue to practice, but with much less idea of trying to gain any specific benefits from it.

This was a very personal account, and the first time i've really written it down, but i think that's what you were asking for. My point though, is that sitting zazen at home once or twice a day will likely make you calmer, more objective, and concentrated (and probably improve your MA practice as well), but it is only a glimpse of a formal practice with a teacher that is both the adventure of a lifetime (a wild, dangerous, and very rough ride on the way to answering the question "What is my self?" with the rug repeatedly getting pulled from under your feet) and, at the end of the day, an empty form that only becomes more ordinary as you stick with it (just like martial arts in a good dojo).

Neil Yamamoto
14th April 2004, 21:49
Omori Roshi of the IZS and his account of enlightenment.

My experience is not very impressive, so I don't like to talk about it, but.... I finished zazen and went to the toilet. I heard the sound of the urine hitting the back of the urinal. It splashed and sounded very loud to me. At that time I thought, "Aha!" and I understood. I had a deep realization.

"I AM," I thought, and I was very happy. But it was not a showy or flashy experience. It was even not very clean ....

Green_Dreads
15th April 2004, 01:17
Neil, thank you for sharing that story, I found it very impressive. It sounds like you have the kind of interest in Zen to actually reach Enlightenment or at least understand what it means - which is more than most of us can hope for.

I have discovered some benefits from both attempting traditional meditations and simply through 'not trying' to meditate, but just letting it happen. Whether this is a seperate technique to Zazen I don't know, but rather than thinking about the breathing and the route to Zazen from normal mentality... well I have a way of doing it that seems to be working better for me, and since I discovered this method I've had a lot more benefits.

I've tried writing things down and trying to make sense of my mind through self-pyschoanalysis, but whether this can be seen as effective is entirely up for debate. I'm a happy man, 19, bright future, doing well in studies, in budo, reasonable social life, nothing too heavy. I do get a little fustrated when forced to confront realities around me though. Why are humans so evil to each other, for example? In Luton, there are Thailand sex slaves, drug addicts mugging ppl daily, domestic violence... there's other things around that bother me. The evils of the sex trade, reality TV, the drug trade, the cost of human pleasure.

I intend to find a teacher to help me further my practise.

Chrono
15th April 2004, 03:21
Originally posted by not-I
and have done several Dai Sesshin (7-day monastic meditation retreats with lots of Zazen, Kinhin, chanting, formal meals, Koan practice, and little sleep).


That sounds like fun. I assume you enjoyed it since you kept going to them. Why so little sleep, though? I thought that would help with the relaxation.

Jon

not-I
16th April 2004, 06:45
Originally posted by Green_Dreads
I have discovered some benefits from both attempting traditional meditations and simply through 'not trying' to meditate, but just letting it happen. Whether this is a seperate technique to Zazen I don't know, but rather than thinking about the breathing and the route to Zazen from normal mentality... well I have a way of doing it that seems to be working better for me, and since I discovered this method I've had a lot more benefits.

Counting breaths, focussing on a point on the floor, etc. are simply exercises to quiet thinking in zazen, especially at the beginning. If you can already "just let it happen," that's wonderful, go for it! It's not a seperate technique, it IS zazen. Just remember to keep posture, and when thoughts crop up, as they often will, let them pass and return to those basic techniques. Again, these are the kind of questions that a qualified teacher who knows you and your practice can answer with much more pertinence.

Good Luck and Gassho!

not-I
16th April 2004, 07:09
Originally posted by Chrono
That sounds like fun. I assume you enjoyed it since you kept going to them. Why so little sleep, though? I thought that would help with the relaxation.

Zazen is relaxing and refreshing, but within Zen practice as a whole, it is primarily a tool for realization. Sesshin ("collecting the mind") are not designed to be enjoyable or fun. Despite impressions that they might be nice, relaxing retreat-weeks, they are designed to be as intense and stressful as possible (within a specified traditional form) in order to provide the framework for concentrated practice and possible breakthroughs to actual insight. After your knees and shoulders are on fire after several days of sitting, you have trouble remembering correct form and staying awake, you're desperately trying to solve a koan such as "What is your True Self before your parents were born?" and your teacher has little mercy for your tender ego, the concept of fun becomes irrelevant.

The moments where we feel we can't go on any more are the same moments where we may discover that we can, and learn something in the process.

There is an old Zen saying about scaling a ten-meter pole -- Now climb another meter up.

Chrono
17th April 2004, 01:29
Originally posted by not-I
you're desperately trying to solve a koan such as "What is your True Self before your parents were born?"

That is exactly the same question my philosophy professor had asked me when I was in her class. I had no answer for her, no one did.


Originally posted by not-I There is an old Zen saying about scaling a ten-meter pole -- Now climb another meter up.

I don't know, I kind of like that attitude. I think I would enjoy a weekend like that, even though I may not show it.

Jon

Joseph Svinth
17th April 2004, 03:03
Y'all are making this much harder than it needs to be.

Who was I before my parents were born? Four words: "Before Abraham, I am."

For the tree falling in the forest, there are several reasonable replies. Most of these gasbags get annoyed by detailed discussions of acoustics, so try this more amusing response instead: "Gee, Doc, if I'm at your house screwing your wife, and you aren't there to see it, are you still being cuckolded?" If he says yes, you reply, "Damn," and if he says no, you say, "Whew, that's a relief."

For one hand clapping, you have alternatives. One is to immediately bitch-slap the questioner, and then say, "Want to hear it again?" Alternatively, rub your fingers against your palm, in the universal sign for baksheesh, and say, "Aha! The true meaning of the Buddha revealed."

Cynical? How so? If the purpose is to defeat Ego, then a small first step involves eliminating the Confucian notion of respect and filial loyalty. Thus, the true meaning of "Meet the Buddha on the road, kill him."

As for sitting and breathing, alternatives include not-breathing, which tends to make you turn blue, and doing something constructive, such as chop wood, carry water, drive freeway. Much to be said for the latter.

***

Almost forgot. Climbing 11 meters up the 10-meter pole? That's the moment for modesty. You bow graciously, and say, "After you."

nicojo
17th April 2004, 05:12
:laugh: :smash: :laugh::smash: :laugh: :smash:



Much appreciated, all.

Green_Dreads
17th April 2004, 13:46
Joseph - fantastic. ^_^

The final meaning of the universe: its all a big joke, so there is no suffering. Now, just to convince the religious folk...

Joseph Svinth
18th April 2004, 21:47
I'd hate to tell six million Jews and a million Gypsies that Auschwitz, Dachau, and Treblinka were all the Universe's idea of a joke. There *is* evil in the hearts of men, and when things go wrong, it is not only The Shadow who knows it.

And that, IMO, is the point of that last conundrum. Things we take seriously at the time (success in business, a new love, heartbreak, bankruptcy, the death of a loved one) generally are not all that big a deal in the greater scheme of things. Instead, that is life. On the other hand, the evils that we ignore, hoping that they will go away or because we don't think they are affecting us personally (or worse, help us personally) often turn into big deals. Thus, the famous dictum attributed to Martin Niemoller: "In Germany they came first for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me--and by that time no one was left to speak up."

For some reading try "Buddha from Korea: The Zen teachings of T'aego," by JC Cleary, http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1570626677/qid%3D996554610/sr%3D1-1/ref%3Dsc%5Fb%5F1/002-6536450-2756052

See also this, from http://ejmas.com/jcs/jcsart_narimatsu_0101.htm :

While traveling with Ueshiba Sensei, Mr. Nonaka asked questions and if the Founder felt like answering, he did. On technical topics, Mr. Nonaka found that Ueshiba Sensei usually gave explanations that were too esoteric to make much sense. However, one part of Ueshiba’s philosophy that Mr. Nonaka really liked was this analogy, which compared life to a flowing river: "Human beings are in the river," said Ueshiba Sensei. "Some swim nicely and others are struggling. If you jump in to save the ones who are struggling, you might be drowned. But if you stay on the bank, then maybe you can throw them ropes or warn them of cataracts and waterfalls ahead. The purpose of aikido is to throw ropes to people who are struggling, to give them tools necessary to avoid hazards."

Green_Dreads
19th April 2004, 14:08
Joeseph, I find it interesting that you believe in good and evil (I don't mean that sarcastically, I'm just used to these Zen types refusing anything as good or evil). As for the Jews and gypsies, well I can say what I think - tell them their wrong if their wrong. If we can't prove their wrong, let them be right, for now. I did this with my Catholicism - since I disagree with the Catholics on certain political grounds I wrote to the church at which I was Baptised and actually requested they remove my information regarding my Baptism. They wrote me back saying I was a member of their 'club', and unfortunately wanted to tally me up amoung their numbers anyway. Like any cult, they'd be short of numbers if you could just 'leave' officially when you found difference with them.

A little off-topic here, but then someone mentioned Jews. Also I like the idea that crossed me that Enlightenment is simply laughing at stuff and pretending it doesn't matter. (No I'm not being serious there, just some satire).

not-I
19th April 2004, 23:41
Originally posted by Green_Dreads
[...] I'm just used to these Zen types refusing anything as good or evil).

A potentially inflammable discussion about this issue has just spun off of the "Takuan" thread in the Sword Arts forum. I've thrown good judgement and caution to the winds and have posted a few things there. Come join the fun if you like.

Joseph Svinth
20th April 2004, 01:37
Well, if the Zen types don't believe anything is wrong, then next time you're at the retreat, take the money from the collection plate, right there in front of everyone, and stick it in your pocket, saying, "Hey, the Universe provides. Cool."

Nothing is wrong, nothing is right, so whatever you do must be okay, right?

Maybe.

However, I prefer the philosophy attributed to John Bernard Books, protagonist of Glendon Swarthout's novel, "The Shootist": "I won't be wronged. I won't be insulted. I won't be laid a-hand on. I don't do these things to other people, and I require the same from them."

not-I
20th April 2004, 02:23
Originally posted by Joseph Svinth
Nothing is wrong, nothing is right, so whatever you do must be okay, right?


Whatever.

One can talk about relative and absolute perpectives on the right/wrong, good/evil issue or simply reject the possibility of the latter out of hand. One can pour scorn on koan as nonsense to hoodwink brainless disciples or consider them as tools to realization.

Whatever makes your boat float.

But i see no point in a non-discussion based on polemic posturing.

Green_Dreads
20th April 2004, 02:29
Joseph, this idea of 'do unto others as you'd like them to do unto you' is a commonly preached one in several religions, although far less often practised by ppl.

I believe good and evil is defined by the simple logic that tells us what will cause harm and not cause harm. If I kill someone, then why won't someone kill me, or someone I care about? This extends to everything - if I attack someone in the street for their money, why won't others do the same to me, etc? Likewise, if I feed the homeless with my money, whose to say someone won't do the same for me when its my turn on the streets if for whatever reason things turn out that way? To me there's nothing mystical about it, I just know how things could work ideally, and how benefitting everyone to the maximum extent is good and dissaffecting others is obviously wrong.

I will take u up on the whole 'steal the collection plate' idea though. Why? Just to see what they would say. 'But my dear Zen monk, surely, you told me you were free of the worldly desire of money?'.

not-I
20th April 2004, 02:42
Originally posted by Green_Dreads
I will take u up on the whole 'steal the collection plate' idea though. Why? Just to see what they would say. 'But my dear Zen monk, surely, you told me you were free of the worldly desire of money?'.

Go for it, there's even an old story about something along those lines:

One evening as Shichiri Kojun was reciting sutras a thief with a sharp sword entered, demanding either his money or his life.
Shichiri told him: "Do not disturb me. You can find the money in that drawer." Then he resumed his recitation.
A little while afterwards he stopped and called: "Don't take it all. I need some to pay taxes with tomorrow."
The intruder gathered up most of the money and started to leave. "Thank a person when you receive a gift," Shichiri added. The man thanked him and made off.
A few days afterwards the fellow was caught and confessed, among others, the offence against Shichiri. When Schichiri was called as a witness he said: "This man is no thief, at least as far as I am concerned. I gave him the money and he thanked me for it."...

Joseph Svinth
20th April 2004, 03:31
But i see no point in a non-discussion based on polemic posturing.

***

At last, Grasshopper: Enlightenment.

***

The collection plate story is actually Yiddish.

After the service, the Rabbi was seen throwing the money in the air, then picking it up and putting it into his pocket. "What are you doing?" he was asked.

"Offering the collection to G-d," replied the Rabbi. "Everything He doesn't need, I figure must be mine."

Green_Dreads
20th April 2004, 23:53
"Offering the collection to G-d," replied the Rabbi. "Everything He doesn't need, I figure must be mine."

Very stereotypical Jewish, lol. I love the one about the Zen monk - that's a story everyone should read! Like.. about a million other Zen stories.

Ehipassiko
1st May 2004, 20:45
hello everyone. I read this meditation board. I found some good information, however i thought i had some things that would help.

The word Zen comes from the chinese Chan.
These are two schools of buddhism that focus on certain meditation techniques. Chan is a misnomer for Jhana.

Jhana is a pali word. The language used by Theravada buddhists. This word comes from the Pali Cannon. The word Jhana means: TO BURN.
The burning here is the difilements in the mind.
The hindrances are, sense desire, ill-will, sloth/torpor, restlessness/worry, and skeptical doubt.

When these hindrances are removed one experiences great tranquility and calmness of mind.

I will include a passage from the Pali Cannon. This passage comes up again and again (with good reason):

Quite secluded from sense pleasures, secluded from unwholesome states of mind, one enters and dwells in the first Jhana, which is accompanied by applied thought and sustained thought, with rapture and happiness born of seclusion.


I hope this information helps you out. Ive been working on an essay regarding meditation within the martial arts. If anyone is interested in giving it a read when i'm done it would be helpful. maybe beginner questions to address etc etc.

may you be well, happy and peaceful.