In zazen, the sounds come to me from without. A bird call, a creak from the building, the sound of my breathing. Who is it that is receiving these sounds?
There has to be a space into which the sounds can flow. That space is the silence. The stillness. The context of all contexts. The emptiness into which the sounds will flows.
Expanding consciousness can see the soundless emptiness that contains all sounds that come and go. Accepted in this way, all sound is transformational, so open up to the sound, whatever it may be. Zazen is not about shutting out anything, but accepting it, embracing it fully. It is not about bliss or angst, but the silent emptiness in the centre of all - no-thing, mu, shunyata, breathing. The space that contains all the sounds.. I am.
See the sound enter the space of I-am. Silence now. Just a moment.. Silence
Part of the Herd
Trust
Trust to take the leap of commitment, because once a commitment is taken, it is kept - else it would not be a commitment. Trust the process of experiencing. Respond accordingly and ascertain if such the response is a true authentic response or conditioned response. Just be aware. Do nothing, but watch and witness. Practice zazen. Look at life and see what self is reflected back. Don't believe! Know what you are watching, breathing into it.
Expanding Awareness
The future isn't formed yet. The past can be remembered, which is the same as saying that it can be imagined. Therefore it is the imagination. In this way the entire story around the experience is an illusion created in the mind and imagination. Whether the events happened or not at this level are irrelevant, but don't seem to be so because the mind is a great convincer!
If there is some negativity, best not suppress or deny. There is always a choice to be aware and look into any sensitivity that is being guarded and protected, any sensitivity that is being clung to as if it was something of great value, as if it was now. But time is relative, not relevant. Now is timeless, for it is now gone… now gone.
Just be aware if the past seems real. Can it be that it is a matter of "I am hanging on to it"? Expanding awareness more and more to this will come to a point of just witnessing, and this will end the clinging to the story, bring an end the conflicting thoughts and ideas entangled in different narratives and beliefs. Next what is left is the raw feelings. And then, without effort... Let it go. Now is now and for the moment, free from karma.
Just an exercise in expanding awareness.
Response - Reaction. Make a Distinction.
Observe any reaction and notice that it is machine-like.
Observe awareness. Notice it is a responding.
Look at response. Look at reaction.
Note the distinction and be aware - no matter what the subject is..
It doesn't matter!
It is only awareness that enables us to transcend the reaction.
Sometimes I am a machine, so I had better be aware!
But surely the word "better" is no different than the word "should"!
I need to drop it all by being aware of it, not squashing it or resisting it
as that is just another reaction... Programmed as a computer?
When I Am Dreaming
Whenever I am judging, I am dreaming. The mind is the dream. I am not owning my dream whenever I am judging. I am a player in the dream, totally identified with it. To be aware of the dream is to wake from the dream, but one needs to be fully aware, not just have an idea that it MAY be a dream, not just a belief, but an actual experience.
When I am dreaming I am so convinced that I am in reality that I cannot see that this is a dream. What else can it be if right now is immediately gone and I am not seeing the phenomenon? If I am merely thinking that the moment I began this sentence I am writing is gone and I am not getting it?
So... Shakespeare wrote that "all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death." And that life is a "walking shadow" - shadows are not reality! And that life "is a tale told by an idiot…." And "signifying nothing". Did he use the term "idiot" to shock? Are the unenlightened, idiots?
Yes, the judgements that it is the fault of this and that, him and her.... I do not own these feelings, they own me! I am electing what I believe is outside of me as cause of the way I am! Unless I first of all fully accept them as projections that I am creating and then realize that it is all awareness and awareness is me.
Realizing the dream. In the heart or in the head, it is just more dream-work, but in the reality of existence. In experience that is neither the heart nor the head but within the context of who I really am. This too, whatever it is, is a dream. For it is already gone. So now what?
Zen: No Easy Living Here!
Zen is a difficult practice that defies belief! Beliefs won't work in Zen anyway.. A lifestyle that is yet so rewarding and liberating at times. But (as Zen practitioners) we have to look at what we want to be liberated from and looking at karma, is well…. looking at karma.
Karma is karma and we do not need to look at the pleasurable karma in our lives as because it wasn't resisted, it's disappeared already. The stuff that sticks is the stuff that we have not resolved and we didn't resolve it because it more than likely, contained pain. What we resist we get attached to. Stuck. Unable to move. Operating mechanically and reactively from conditioned minds.
What we are attached to, we will, sooner or later, Zen practice or no Zen practice, be revisiting to resolve it. Zen offers a tremendous challenge that is certainly not for those who seek bliss or easy living, although bliss and easy living can exist, enhanced in a Zen life. Zen doesn't judge or favour anything.
In Zen, Living here and now with mindfulness, we will bring up much karma to be resolved, in the here and now. But we will not be creating more karma in such mindfulness. But we may have many lifetimes of karma to resolve. But if we could just really get it, that all the past, a few moments ago and past lives, are gone. They are an illusion. Then, if we can really see this, beyond reason, we can transcend karma. Unreasonable, I know.
The Body as a Device.
The vehicle of experience, yet I can get that I am more than this. But what am I without the body? Simply, I-am. I can experience this providing I do not strive to do so, for to strive to do so takes me out of reality. What reality? The only reality there is. Here and now - is that not all there can ever be? And now the paradox...
Striving takes me into the mind that draws me into the future... out of the here and now, the only reality.
Just let the experiences of the body be right now. Just observe them and see if you can detect where your Self is? In your head, in your arm, your foot.. anywhere? Can you see that you are no-thing - the awareness that is observing? Is it too uncomfortable and does the mind want to get back to something that is more reasonable?
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