Archive for the ‘Zen’ Category

I can’t believe I’ve wasted so much time and energy trying to be happy.  It reminds me of a Taiji book called “There are no secrets.”  It seems that the root problem lies in clinging to a sense of self – identity and identification.  Enlightenment is our birth right.  It’s who we are.  Yet, it’s the sense of self that creates clinging to desire and to anger and to a sense of being disconnected.

We can put so much energy into ending wanting and ending anger.  And some good can be done that way.  What greater good is there in abandoning a sense of self!  Not good in some pseudo-intellectual way.  Good in what makes us happy.  What is the point in feeling anxiety?  I really like Shantideva’s observation

All those who fail to understand
The secret of the mind, the greatest of all things,
Although they wish for joy and sorrow’s end,
Will wander to no purpose, useleslly.

Therefore I will take in hand
And well protect this mind of mine.
What use to me are many disciplines,
If I can’t guard and discipline my mind?

Thank you.

It’s Sunday morning. The neighbours are asserting. The birds are singing. I took this body to bed 11 hours ago and it is still exausted.

Meditation is so very useful and it’s not necessarily what happens during meditation. Although the stilling of the mind does help. But here’s what I think for what it’s worth.

A common view is that practice has two wings:- emptiness and compassion. I think there’s another way of looking at it, which are the three marks of existence:- impermanence, selflessness and suffering.

It goes something like this. Our suffering is cause by clinging to a sense of self. You feel anxious or stressed, there’s a sense of self behind it. In other words “I am the direct cause of my suffering,” or put slightly differently “When I cling to a self, I suffer.”

Here’s the irony in the situation. The I is an illusion. No matter where you look you can’t find it. Meditation on emptiness, or even meditation on being reveals this. The I is a construct, even a constellation of constructs of beliefs and views, an impermanent phantasm created within our own minds.

The instrument of our suffering has no inherent existence.

In other words. You are free.

Now the nice thing is that meditation develops the precious treasure of mindfulness and extends the time between impulse and action, giving us a spaciousness within action. That’s how we can see that anxiety is linked to self while we’re feeling anxious.

So, if there’s no self, what is there? Whatever it is…

And that’s why right now I’m going to go and sit on my mat.

Ancestor Nagarjuna said: ‘The mind that fully sees into the uncertain world of birth and death is called the thought of enlightenment: bodhicitta. Thus if we maintain this mind, this mind can become the thought of enlightenment. Indeed, when you understand discontinuity, the notion of self does not come into being. Ideas of name and gain do not arise. Fearing the swift passage of the sunlight, practice the way as though saving your head from fire. Reflecting on this ephemeral life, make endeavor in the manner of Buddha raising his foot.’
Dogen