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. 

From Self... Challenge to the Mind.

It is extremely challenging to look at the question, "who am I?"  Every answer just comes back to the question. There is no-one there! For how can the awareness of "I" possibly look at itself? It can only BE  awareness itself, which is everywhere and everything and words can merely point to what is already so, has always been so and will always be so. Timeless, therefore beyond reason, defying all attempts at analysis. Intelligence more powerful than the mind that creates a form of fear in the mind. That's the challenge Self puts before the mind. .  We can know it when we see it, but we cannot wrap it up in a perfect memory to draw on when we need it.  It is now.. All the time it is now. We are already there!

This is What We Do..

So this is what we do...

  Although through zazen or meditation it can become obvious that we sabotage ourselves with desiring this thing and that thing, we continue with the sabotage...  

The mind seems to make us forget our centre and when we feel the conflict and begin to suffer to a lesser or greater degree,  there is nothing we want more than to find our centre again. But that is a desire also.  What a neat trap! To observe ourselves getting into this pattern, is to realize the opportunity to end this pattern. But not by doing anything, but by being, whatever there is for us to be. 

In such circumstances, how can you just be? Who can just be?

Cycling With Who? or Playing with Essence? Give it up!

To me today Zen is saying, "for heaven's sake, give it up!"  Be ordinary for from the mundane comes  the profound knowledge that cannot be talked of, but can be transmitted - well so it is said.

I am asking myself,  have I ever transmitted it?

What a pointless question! The question of whether or not I transmitted is past experience.. But experiencing cannot be past at is now! The illusion of past experience is in memory, in the illusory mind!  Did I experience it? What a ridiculous question!

I am reminded of the Zen master, Wu Li saying, "Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water". So ordinary. So every-day!  So simple! So immediately NOW!  And in my zazen the silence... And then the disturbance... "For heavens sake, give it up!"

Practice the art of waiting. Letting go, yet staying alert. No ambition. Just being in harmony with what's going on in the universe out there. Out there?  In here? Nowhere, no place.  Things come and things go.

Rain… snow.. whatever... Just here. And each season has moves on through and out of its cycle - manifest and un-manifest whilst its essence remains.  The universe doesn't interfere with itself as the mind of humankind does.  There is an exchange. The earth gives, the sky gives. No reason. No worry or judgement about too much, too little, too violent, too weak, too strong.  But what of all this?  Indeed, what of all this?

So I aspire to wait in patience. Just allowing things to pass by. Times and seasons I don't like, will also pass, as will seasons I like. Who likes? Exactly!  No answer, just silence. The eternal self is emptiness. So pure.

Seeing into the truth. Working my way through, and not around the compromising mind. Getting past the politics. They are all illusions. I cannot say who I am. Saying, explaining anything operates in time.  So how can I use these words? They are already gone! Please share....

Who gets stuck in time?

Not-hing. Mu. Yu, Shunyata! Pure essence.

Awakening

Getting a higher state of awareness has its advantages AND its disadvantages.

The disadvantages are that I feel things much more deeply as I am getting more in contact with my conditioned mind that doesn't want to be awakened from its stupour!   The problem is that there is no knowing when full awakening will occur. It could be in a moment from now or in a few lifetimes from now.  It comes in its own time, when the practitioner has given up seeking for it. The paradox is that without seeking, it cannot happen, but the very seeking can be a barrier.

The advantages are that through zazen one can have many awakenings that words cannot describe. And then there is a spontaneous development of love and compassion. And understanding that cannot be learned, but is a gift from Self.