The Posture is Beyond Thinking

I read this passage today from Issho Fujita via Kyoshin Samuels excellent Jodo Shinshu/Zazen blog "Echoes of The Name". I highly recommend Kyoshin's blog. I've really become intrigued with Shinran through Kyoshin's blog. Taigen Leighton also has a number talks on the similaatities between Dogen and Shinran on his sight.

"When we refer to the qualities of.....beyond thinking(hishiryo).....we mean that the sitting posture is (itself) beyond thinking and has no thought,.....not that we ourselves are. We will never be beyond thinking.....What we can do is sit with the faith that zazen posture itself is Buddha, that zazen posture itself is beyond thinking. We tend to think that we are sitting zazen. This is not the case. The entire universe is sitting zazen."

How awesome is that?

Al

The Mudra

It's been a while since I've posted anything.



For one, I've been extremely busy( a good thing) at work and I was away at Sesshin at the Milwaukee Zen Center w/ Rev. Tonen O'Conner. Tonen is one hell of a teacher and is the dharma sister of my teacher, Toshu. MZC's library is excellent. I stayed awake most nights reading instead of sleeping. It was worth it.



One of the things I've been paying attention to quite a lot lately is the cosmic mudra while I sit. I read Warm Smiles from Cold Mountains by Reb Anderson recently and was inspired by a particular passage in the chapter "Listen to The Body". The passage reads, " I would also like to take this opportunity to mention again the wonderful practice of touching your hands to each other in this mudra we call the concentration, or cosmic mudra. Please keep this mudra in contact with your abdomen while sitting. Actually touch the hands to the abdomen, and keep actual tactile contact there. "



Reb goes on to explain how the hands drifitng away from the abdomen is an "advanced gaurd" against drowsiness and probably more reliable than the eyes closing. My experience since reading this is that he is absolutely correct. Almost every one has been told that what the mudra looks like is a mirror of what the mind is going through during zazen, but the suggestion about contact with the abdomen was new to me. I'm glad I've been made aware of this as it has been really helpful.



A few observations: First there may be something very physiologically profound about this. If you look at a Motor Homonculus one of the first things you will note is the size of the hands. For those of you who don't know what a Homonculus is, it is a chart that shows what if would look like if the human body were built in proportion to the amount of brain power needed to "motor" a body part. If we were proportioned accordingly, our hands and mouth would be our biggest body parts.



Interesting huh? What does this tell us? For one it says sit down and shut up. Next it tells us that the hand position may in fact be the most important part of the zazen posture, not the spine, head, neck, etc. My recent experience has shown me that if my mudra stays "energized", nuetral, and against my abdomen, then my spine stays effortlessly erect, my neck stays free and relaxed, my breathing deepens and my mind quites down without any manipulation. My sitting "sits" in the mudra.

Of course I need to be careful not to come across as sounding as if this is a technique, but I do find it interesting that in the "zazen world" so much attention is placed on other parts of the body while nueroscience clearly shows that the hands are much more responsible for a larger consumption of brain activity. Looking at this as a feedback loop and refering to my experience, I think that the hands may play more important of a role than they get credit for in keeping the zazen posture whole.

Issho Fujita Audio Talk

I found a talk by Issho Fujita(along with a bunch of other gems) over at Taigen Dan Leighton's website. It is talk number 64 and is titled "Zazen is Not Learning Meditation". What an inspiration! Enjoy.

http://www.ancientdragon.org/dharma/dharma_talks_audio

Issho Fujita

Here is an excellent two part video introduction to Zazen by the Reverend Issho Fujita.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_pryjchBis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zme-93kzv

For those of you who don't know of him, Rev. Fujita was a practitoner at Antaiji before moving to Massachusetts to help guide Antaiji's satellite, the Valley Zendo(he moved back to Japan a few years ago). The Valley Zendo website has the notebooks of Rev. Fujita and in my opinion should be deemed required reading for all of those who practice Shikantaza. Rev. Fujita has explored in his writings the physical aspects of sitting in a very unique way. He is always trying out new forms of bodywork to expand and deepen his understanding of Zazen.

Here is an interview where he discusses this and an article of his on the differences between Zazen and meditation.

www.dharma.org/ij/archives/documents/v24InsightJournalSpring2005.pdf
www.dharma.org/ij/archives/2002a/zazen.htm

Enjoy.

Sodo Yokoyama-Distracted Thoughts

Here is a wonderful article from Sodo Yokoyama aka; "The Leaf Whistling Monk". Yokoyama was a disciple of Sawaki Roshi and the dharma brother of Uchiyama Roshi.

Distracting Thoughts

"All you have to do is decide that wherever you are is the best place there is. Once you start comparing one place to another, there's no end to it." -- Sodo Yokoyama

"My teacher, the late Sawaki Roshi, often made the following self-evaluation: 'I am an eternally deluded person. No one is as deluded as I am. I am deluded with gold trimmings. How clear it is to me when I do zazen!'

"What a strange thing this zazen is. When we practice it, distracting ideas, irrelevant thoughts — in short, delusions, which ordinary people are made of, suddenly seem to feel an irresistible temptation to arise and appear on the surface. Then there is a desire to drive these thoughts away, in irresistible desire to which our complete effort is added. Those who don't do zazen know nothing about this. Why is it that when we practice, deluded thoughts continue to surface one after the other? The reason, which we learn from Zazen, is that each one of us, from prince to beggar, is an ordinary (deluded) person. The attempt to drive these deluded thoughts away — delusion being so much nonsense (interfering with the happiness of oneself and others) — is also something brought home to us through zazen. We tentatively call this zazen that guides us in this way, 'Buddha'.

"According to this teaching, simply the awareness that you are deluded, which comes from practising zazen, makes you, in reality, a Buddha. It's zazen that teaches us that we too are deluded, and hence delivers us from this delusion. When we actually practice zazen and look carefully at all the deluded ideas that keep popping up, we realize how ordinary we are and how little we have to be proud of or to brag about; nothing to do other than quietly hide away. This is, after all, what we truly are.

"Satori is being enlightened to the fact that we are deluded. There is then the desire, however small, to stop these deluded acts. That is how ordinary people are saved by zazen. So we realize, beyond a doubt, our ordinariness through our zazen practice, and any departure from zazen (Buddha) will give rise to the inability to deal with these delusions and hence we will lose our way. We can say that the world has gone astray because it can't deal with its delusions...All the troubles in this world, political, economic and so forth, are created from situations in which the awareness of one's ordinariness is absent.

"Sawaki Roshi said, 'Those who are unaware of their ordinariness are from a religious point of view shallow and comical.'

"The devil — that is, illusion — when seen as the devil, can no longer exhibit its powers, and disappears of its own accord.

"Shakyamuni was enlightened beyond all doubt to the fact that he was an ordinary person and became a Buddha. Then he began to live the life of a Buddha. When you realize your ordinariness, you are a Buddha, and when you are a Buddha, no matter how many distracting ideas and irrelevant thoughts appear they are no match for a Buddha and hence no longer remain obstacles. Delusions that no longer obstruct us are called fantasies. The Buddha way — the way of peace — is turning of delusion into fantasies."

— Sodo Yokoyama 1907-1980

My Life

Sawaki Roshi: Human beings don't seem to wake up unless they are compelled to compete with each other for a prize. It would not be strange to run a race if we were ostriches; it would not be strange to swim a race if we were fur seals; it would not be strange to scramble for a ball if we were kittens.

Uchiyama Roshi: Spectator sports are popular now. Some people watch games all the time and make a big deal out of them. They hardly have any time to reflect on themselves. I wonder about them. If they say that it's just entertainment, I agree with them. But entertaiment, like everything else must be judged must be judged form the perspective of a constant questioning of the value of the content of our lives.

Sawaki Roshi: Because their bored, in order to kill time, people are always agonizing , falling in love, drinking wine, reading novels, or watching sports; they are always doing things randomly and living from hand to mouth. For them this world is ukiyo (floating or transitory world). It is the place were people are always wobbling, window shopping, and going by detours.
****
Sawaki Roshi: Everywhere in this world, people feel bored, so they go to war brandishing deadly weapons as if they were children's toys, saying, "Right Wing" or "Left Wing." They do so because they think there must be something to it. But there isn't. Only the grave waits for us.
****
Sawaki Roshi: Human beings boast that Man is the lord of creation, but in fact human beings don't even know how to take care of themselves and watch sports or pursue other vapid forms of entertainment to avoid facing themselves and then justify it all by saying that they are just like everyone else.
****
Sawaki Roshi: When children nag about something, their parents scold them and tell them they are being unreasonable. These parents are also being unreasonable. This is Mumyo, ignorance of the true nature of existence, one of the twelve links in the chain of dependent origination.

In the Family

Sawaki Roshi: Too often, the home is nothing more than a place where husband and wife, parents and children, spoil one another and bind each other up in fatal ties.

Uchiyama Roshi: I don't think I'm qualified to give advice to other people, but this world is a strange place. I say that because there are many people who come to me for advice about their familt problems. They open their hearts to me and tell me about their home lives, sometimes travelling a great distance only for that purpose. Since this is a temple, they feel safe here, thinking that what they say will not leak out to others. I have been listening to them one by one for a number of years, frequently hearing the same story. People often get married only out of mutual sexual attraction. Although they reach fifty and their sexual passion diminishes, they treat each other like strangers or even hate each other and share a disordered house. They want to divorce, but cannot, because of the opinions of others, or their children, or their economic situation.

Consider the relationship between parents and children. No matter how much they hate each other, they are "similar figures" and when the corners of similar figures come into contact, there can be trouble: passionate mother and passionate daughter, stubborn father and stubborn son, greedy parent couple and greedy young couple, unfeeling parents and unfeeling children. It would be good if they could realize they have horns pointing in the same direction and sympathize with one another. If they continually butt one another, its just endless trouble. In order to create a home that is truly a place of rest, consideration, and love, we should respect each other's feelings and opinions, reflect upon oursleves, and make an effort to live in harmony with others.