John (Lee) Pendall wrote: Just sitting isnt just sitting. Not some idle, vegetative state. Thats called watching TV lol ........................................ (Johns longer original version of the OP:) John (Lee) Pendall: Just sitting isnt just sitting. Not some idle, vegetative state. Thats called watching TV lol. Sitting is spacious attention without discrimination or discernment. This is what distinguishes Shikantaza among other Buddhist contemplative practices. In Shikantaza, there are no questions. No looking for certain phenomena like rising and falling. No labeling things, Thought, Sound, etc. It really is just simple and spacious awareness of everything and no thing at all. Yet its not spacing out, or getting lost in the mind theater. Robert Epstein Thats one of the big problems with shikantaza though, isnt it? People often dont know how to sit with strong awareness that is not focused on something. In fact, a lot of people think thats literally impossible, and I guess they will not be good candidates for this practice! Of course objects of attention will arise in just sitting unless one has gone into deep samadhi, something that Im not very familiar with in zen, though Ive experienced some extent of it in Taoist meditation and yoga. (Mainly I havent had enough time in meditation lately, but thats another story. Gee - long post... Maybe Im doing shikantaza right now and dont realize it...) But what is important is how objects of attention are regarded when they arise. Master Sheng yen makes the point that just sitting is NOT mindfulness meditation. One is not interested in the object of the moment but in awareness itself in a more global way, and his advice is very clear and specific on how to regard arising objects, in a way that I think is great: he advises that one acknowledges the noticing (eg, left leg getting numb) but then instead of paying attention to it and getting into it as you might in mindfulness meditation, you integrate that noticed sensation into the global awareness of the entire body just sitting. So objects are never emphasized and selected out above others. Ive been using that as a practice modicum and I really really like it. Its both concrete and global at the same time. So much for thinking this would be a short post! Well, Ill force myself to stop. (Good thing I dont have a thinkin problem lol.) Robert Epstein And of course the alternative is just sitting without awareness and letting the breath and mind get more and more relaxed, which leads to an emphasis on autonomic function and sends one into a trance state. And that is the opposite of Buddhist meditation, but can be mistaken for it. Thats what Hui Neng and Lin Chi complained about with passive sitters. The Buddha himself, master that he was, taught deep deep deep samadhi combined with very strong awareness. He expected monks to go into the most refined states of equanimity and be able to see that even those states had the three marks. Then instead of resting in that state, the monk would be inspired to let it go and move into the next deepest state, eventually and inevitably leading to full enlightenment.
Posted on: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 23:42:14 +0000
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