Posts Tagged ‘enlightenment’

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Practice and enlightenment

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

Dogen Zenji who lived betweeen 1200 and 1253,  founded the Soto school of Zen.  His basic tenet as far as I could tell was the unity of practise and enlightenment.  Suzuki Ryoshi who wrote the well known Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind was a soto practitioner.

I like just sitting.  I wrote post on Silent Illumination recently, which talks more to this I think, bry this from the back of Dogen’s Beyond Thinking

Spiritual practice is not some kind of striving to produce enlightenment, but an expression of the enlightenment already inherent in all things.

What a very packed sentence. Try these on for size:

  1. All beings are inherently enlightened, so when you practise, your expressing the enlightenment of all beings, not some individual enlightenment.
  2. Enlightenment is not dependent on striving, but on removing the sense of separation.
  3. To practise being aware of the enlightenment in others is the practise of enlightenment.
  4. Enlightenment is.
  5. If you are aware of the enlightenment inherent in all beings you come across in your daily life then you can help bring out that inherent enlightenment, that is the practise of enlightenment.

I’m sure there are more. Though I do like the sense of non-separation that comes through so loudly and clearly. Or is that just me ;-)

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Going about our lives.

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010

Vimalakirti was a householder, or as some call him, a lay practitioner to whom is attributed the Vimalakirti Sutra. Of all the heros of Buddhism he is my favourite precisely because he was a householder. Whether he existed or not is moot. My read on the sutra is that he must have had a lot of material possessions. The point is that he achieved enlightenment (now there’s an oxymoron) while going about his everyday life. Zen emphasises the ordinary and here he is.

Actually, I’m writing this having just got back from putting the rubbish out. And I’m going to go and sit on my mat in a minute.

I think the point is that our everyday lives are meditation practise too.

Some people break the eightfold middle path down into three sections:- prajna (wisdom):- right view, right intention ; sila (ethics):- right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort; and samadhi (meditation):- right mindfulness, right concentration. But I think it’s really just one practise – extending the emptiness of meditation into the emptiness of our daily lives. Strange as that may sound.

When we sit in meditation, realising that the stuff in our minds is just stuff is much easier. It’s much harder in everyday life. I think that it’s the waking up from a train of thought in meditation that points the way to waking up in our daily lives. And, at least in meditation in the little way I imagine I know it, it really does feel like waking up.

Thanks for the inspiration, Vimalakirti.

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Not so interesting

Saturday, November 21st, 2009

This is really a note to self this time. I just don’t want to lose these thoughts over the next while, even though I know this is being read. And even though thoughts are themselves impermanent and arise within emptiness. So, I apologise if this is a bit boring. After all it’s in my blog and it should be interesting. What is this addiction to interesting anyway, but that’s another topic.

The first thing I should like to note is that emptiness equals spaciousness and not allowing thinking to concretise. Thinking needs to be kept flowing and not become a thing, that keeps the mind free. Just like a tree is not a tree, but a process given rise by causes and conditions. The same is true of ideas. They have no truth in themselves. The mind part of heart mind.

The second is metta bhavana. It strikes me that it is true that what you’re wishing for all beings is what you’re wishing for yourself. And this makes metta bhavana the other side of the coin of zen as this is unity from another angle. The heart part of heart mind. And this creates a spaciousness towards other beings.

Thirdly, unity cannot be conceived by the dualistic mind anyway. Every thought is rooted in dualism. Even the word unity is dualistic because it implies there is that which is not dualistic. So how can you hold unity as an object of thought? The root delusion is that we see ourselves as separate, but we need to break through our thinking to get to it. And this is the illness that zen is attempting to cure.

And lastly, trying to reach enlightenment. What is that? It can’t be done. Here and now. This is enlightenment. You can’t find enlightenment by sitting on a mat. You can’t find enlightenment by doing anything. Fully present with a spacious heart and a flowing mind, that’s what love is.

So if you bothered to read this, I hope you got something from it, after all may your heart mind awaken and be free.

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