Stream of Conscious or Just Plain Mind Antics...

At touch of stream of consciousness here.. Or maybe better to call it the narratives of the mind…

I am aware of the need to focus on the here and now, to be aware of when my mind gets totally absorbed in the daily tasks that I perform. Totally engrossed in the material world and leaving behind the spiritual awareness that I have developed in zazen.  I am thinking right now of zazen.  But is that the zazen what was, and not zazen of the here and now? The mind being aware of itself?  What tricks!

Of the mindfulness that I attain in zazen...  I can recognize that I am closer to centred-ness in zazen than I am when the world sucks my attention into itself. Or perhaps truer to say that the world doesn't do anything as it is after all... me!

It's just that when I am sucked into the world, I am a space filled with the physical story of my existence and not giving my attention to...  I - the being who is experiencing experience.

However, right now I am aware that there is a fight already beginning within me. A "reasonable" fight where a part of the mind is saying, "I have done my zazen already, therefore it is important that I get on with life and write this." 

What a crazy statement! Obviously comes from my mind as if zazen isn't part of my [other] life. So how do I stop this?  I don't…   It is all me.

For to resist is to desire that I change whatever is so in my existence of any given moment.  To try and change is a form of desire to rid myself of desire in the secular world. 

Desire [no matter what it is for], is the source of all suffering. So said the Buddha. And I am seeing proof after proof of the truth of it.  But enough of so many inadequate words.  This is Zen.

How Can This Date "Thing" Get To Be So Real?

Well, here I am at the 2nd Day of December. That is just a name. Just a label. Is just a story about December. A story I hold in my mind. A unique story, but a story that I share with the rest of humanity - well the majority of humanity that shares the concept of a calendar that is believed to be real. .  My narrative that I have learned. That is nothing new or mysterious unless I move into the question about it. What is it really? 

Numbers on a piece of paper on a wall. But where else is the actual reality of the calendar.  I can look outside and see frost on the grass and that tells me it is December?  No… Naturally speaking that tells me it is cold outside.  So I say this is the date.. What is?  It is not anywhere to be found except for in my concepts.  In my mind.  A idea created to help us know… what?  The date of course! And everybody else who knows about dates will agree with me that it is the 2nd Day of December right now.  But we've invented it! A concept. An idea... and we call it reality.  It doesn't exist anywhere else outside of the mind.  How could this date thing get to be so real?

In zazen, if I completely drop the idea of "date" existence continues.  If I could possibly throw it right out of my mind and forget that it ever exists, there are some people who would say that whether I know it or not, the days come and go, and that means that the days have dates and they come and go.  But to me they have been forgotten.  We need to forget our self, so that we can remember who we really are.. How much more "Zen" can one get?

The Illusion of Paradox.. Letting It BE.

Whatever is happening right now, could be a response to a past situation or indeed a past life.  In Zen, it is named makyo, yet it is what is so with or without the name.. It has come to awareness therefore it is of value to see how I got it wired together in the here-now?

In reality,  the past is gone, but the reactions may remain.  No, it is the concept of the past being gone (or not) as the past is an illusion and an illusion cannot exist, therefore another paradox. Name it and that isn't it. Name it illusion, and drop that thought... Now what!? Sucked right into the paradox there! And further paradox...

Accept what is already being accepted. For nothing can be in awareness without such acceptance! So there is no acceptance when one already accepts!.

How do I work this out? I do not work it out!  If past lives are gone - they are illusions, yet illusions are what are preventing me from awakening?  If illusions are not resolved, do they not continue to influence our lives?  Probably.  But that too, is illusion.

If I ignore all this without looking, then that will not work. If I seek then that will not work. So, without seeking and without not-seeking... Living again with paradox.

Roles "I" Play

I know that I play a role of my own created narrative.  I just need to know that I know it.  I know that my narrative is created out of my identification of the body-mind.   I know that night-time dreams and daily living in my "waking state" generate identical responses in my body mind.  So what to do?

No "doing". Listen and watch as Self. Practice zazen. What else?

I am Self taken on human form and this "I" is nothing reasonable or intellectual, it just observes reason, knowledge or any other phenomenon. In fact it is not "it" at all! I am I. Nothing to do with the story that I have created about who I am.  So who am I that contains all such narrative? Crushing the narrative won't "work" either! I still remain.

Opening Up

I would say that we need to open ourselves to all that we experience as we experience it.  Not making it happen, but allowing it to unfold for life often teaches us things we prefer not to learn about, and those lessons can be delayed, not lost, but will always come back to us, perhaps in a more intense form that we may pay closer attention.  We can choose to be great explorers of life itself, or otherwise prevent ourselves from growing and learning.

Stuff and Business

Yesterday I did away with busy-ness, but what came up was that there seems to be some-thing every day? Some-thing to do... Some-thing to achieve.. I cannot include zazen in that, because zazen is being, even when it feels like doing...  Of more value in Zen... there needs to be nothing. No thing. Drop stuff.  Notice... 

There may be some resistance to just being in no space experiencing no-thing. But we can be gilling life with a sense of Self, not stuff. 

I may feel that I need my stuff, but more correctly the mind wants my stuff and doesn't need it at all. How wily the mind can be in its addiction to stuff! Solid stuff of illusion!

Self: Emptiness

In zazen, the mind gets tremendously resistant and thoughts will intrude immensely. We cannot fight the mind, it has had a life-time of conditioning, some believe that is also has previous life-times of conditioning. I prefer to look at NOW and see this enormous "mountain" in front of me, that is probably etched into my genetic memory.  

We are looking at a universe with the small space of awareness of what is left to us, that is the Self.  Perhaps sharing with you may help... 

I get the incessant voices in my head, but there is a small space that can look at those voices and by connecting with that space, it will expand. Slowly or sometimes not so slowly. Sometimes profound and sometimes not so profound.  

When the mind is overpowering, I give up and go with it. I deliberately "choose" to have it the way it is. Thoughts may racing around and around. What I have to do today, what I wish I had done or not done, yesterday. By choosing it as it is, I am making it happen, rather than having is happen to me.  It's a paradox.  

We cannot reach that space of Self as conquerors. We have the long and hard lesson of learning to be patient as we wait for it to come to us. Giving space in our awareness to let be whatever is there, whatever is being. It is totally in the present moment. The mind can only operate from past conditioning, even if it has the illusion that it can form the future. The past and future is never present, it is therefore an illusion.  

Enlightenment and Self awareness can only come in this way.  It is not created in the mind, because it already exists in all of us and encompasses the mind and all it contains - all the racing, random, trivial thoughts.  It is IN our Self (awareness) not encompassing our Self. Self IS awareness. 

Sometimes when the mind seems to race around, a question like, "who is watching all this racing around?" can be quite revealing. It is important not to look into the memory, or rationality and to  keep discounting whatever the (rational) mind will answer. The only answer that is left then is emptiness. There is nothing (no-thing) there! As self is not a thing.