If we run away from our pain in life, we are running away from something that has great potential. In zazen pain often manifests in the emotions and in the body that is responding to those emotions, especially when those emtions are not in full awareness. The body may be acting to mask the emotions that we don't want to look at.
What was prominent in today's zazen is that it is through pain and struggle that the "best" spiritual growth comes. Therefore, I need to accept and witness and use any discomfort or pain as a tool for concentration and focus, allowing my awareness to expand.
Awareness needs first of all to move through my karma. Karma is stuff that I have not let go of.. It is easy to let go of pleasurable situations, yet the struggle to build the "spiritual muscle" come more effectively from the pain encountered in zazen. If I do not resist my pain, if I accept it, and go deeply into the core of it and from there, I can release it, and expand my awareness a little more. Undoing karma? Possibly, but there needs to be no goal or achievement in Zen.
Makyo
I find that the Osho Zen Tarot often gives me something to focus on. It is all stuff on the ego-mind, I recognize, but sometime the makyo involved is quite uncanny. In Japanese Zen the word makyo means, (ma- devlish) and (kyo - phenomenon or objective world). It is a distraction. Little "devils" of thoughts, ideas, ambition, achievement, entertainment that tempts me out of the present moment. Tempts me out of mindfulness. Anyway, I looked at my card which was VIII Courage.. The courage of the small seed to transform into a fragile plant with all the risk that that entails. It could be eaten or a gardener may decide that it needs to be uprooted.. Just two of many risks it would take.
So I was looking at an 8 card. Since the age of 10, I have had a weird connection with 8, always expecting something profound to come from it…
No differences.
There are no differences, as life in the world is a dream of separation. What is now, is no more now and yet is always now - no differences.
For This Moment
Zen is a paradox so not many things make sense. What comes up today? My whole life has been a preparation for this moment. And now it's gone! Always! Is this just a state of mind? It can be or… It is just a state of being. Always has been. Always will be.. Always… Just now. What else can it be? Yesterday was and therefore is not. Tomorrow simply is not. It is nothing. It is now. How can one think about nothing? Not possible. Nothing can be realized, not theorized.
Judging: Three Questions and more... How long? But there are a lot more...
Today in zazen, came lots of thoughts - also known in Zen as makyo. But should I judge and condemn makyo? Should I condemn the thinking mind? I think to much.. Ah! Another judgement! A neat trap.. Or is that a judgement?
We take other people (and situations) into our awareness. This is so. Can't get away from that statement. We can know others from our own awareness.. That must be so, as we cannot know them from their awareness!
We see something that we cannot agree with. We condemn it. We are aware of that thing we cannot agree with, therefore it is bound to be within us! Another neat trap. We condemn our Self! The more we judge as liking this, disliking that, attracted to this, repelled by that, the more disintegrated we become. Whether it is good or whether it is bad, makes no difference.
Zazen then, is the task of reconnected with those disintegrated parts of our Self (or self, there are some who say that Self should not be capitalized - just more judgement, just more makyo to get stuck in - but I don't care what they say - I forgive them! Do I really? ). We reconnect to our fragments by forgiveness of Self which is forgiveness of others.
I think of all the incidents in my life when I must have judged and condemned in my mind. There are loads! I probably think too much, I say again! We walk along the Zen path (or some other labelled path) and we come to a space, to a situation, to the memory of a person, to.... whatever.... We are not happy with it, and we want to forgive for our own sakes, but we don't know how to do it. We cannot do it! Of course we can't do it.. Because it isn't doing.. It is being. Being forgiving. We can only be willing, and then go within and wait in patience for the experience of forgiveness to come to us. Or if you prefer, the experience of closure; or the experience of completion. If not, another part of us, greater or smaller, will get stuck in this space on our journey. And we may find ourselves running around and around in this space. It could be temporary, but it can last... How long? I don't know.. Best not to add another judgement! How long is a piece of Zen string?
We take other people (and situations) into our awareness. This is so. Can't get away from that statement. We can know others from our own awareness.. That must be so, as we cannot know them from their awareness!
We see something that we cannot agree with. We condemn it. We are aware of that thing we cannot agree with, therefore it is bound to be within us! Another neat trap. We condemn our Self! The more we judge as liking this, disliking that, attracted to this, repelled by that, the more disintegrated we become. Whether it is good or whether it is bad, makes no difference.
Zazen then, is the task of reconnected with those disintegrated parts of our Self (or self, there are some who say that Self should not be capitalized - just more judgement, just more makyo to get stuck in - but I don't care what they say - I forgive them! Do I really? ). We reconnect to our fragments by forgiveness of Self which is forgiveness of others.
I think of all the incidents in my life when I must have judged and condemned in my mind. There are loads! I probably think too much, I say again! We walk along the Zen path (or some other labelled path) and we come to a space, to a situation, to the memory of a person, to.... whatever.... We are not happy with it, and we want to forgive for our own sakes, but we don't know how to do it. We cannot do it! Of course we can't do it.. Because it isn't doing.. It is being. Being forgiving. We can only be willing, and then go within and wait in patience for the experience of forgiveness to come to us. Or if you prefer, the experience of closure; or the experience of completion. If not, another part of us, greater or smaller, will get stuck in this space on our journey. And we may find ourselves running around and around in this space. It could be temporary, but it can last... How long? I don't know.. Best not to add another judgement! How long is a piece of Zen string?
Mind and Awareness
As I entered zazen today, I became aware of the here-now and my mind racing around with thoughts of what should and what should not be. How zazen should feel and how it should not feel..
Again came the judgements. And then every now and then, for a split second, I was observing that I had plunged into the mind. It was so very subtle and I noticed that there were moments when I had lost the awareness of the mind, and had become the mind. When the mind believes its the being, or the being believes it's its mind - works both ways, but awareness is the key here!
One cannot get enlightened from the mind, only from awareness, and that awareness is tricky as we have to make the distinction of what is awareness and what is mind..
Or there again, if all is One.... See what I mean!?
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