The Art of Just Sitting

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

Alfred Joyce Kilmer "Trees" - This poem was first published in Poetry: A Magazine of Verse Vol. 2 (August 1913).

When someone asks you if you're a god, you say 'YES'!


Wait!!!! no fair editing!!!

" Those who are blocked by phrases are bewildered. "

There is no tree.

Mark Peacock wrote: Case 1 of the Digital Cliff Record, "Shargol's Cheese".

Layman Shargrol addressed the assembly thus, "I don't think of Zen as non-intellectual understanding. I think of it as poetry-code for deep, nuanced understanding."

Master Marti overheard and demanded "A deep, nuanced understanding of what?"

Shargrol replied "Is there cheese in that trap? I'm hungry."

Master Marti clicked the Smile button and said "There is only my bottle of whine."

The hua t'ou, did Layman Shargrol go hungry, or not?

(The scribe is one of the awed and befuddled among the assembly.)

I know I'm behind on reading this thread, but I thought I was doing well up until we got to this point. Can someone step in and use small words and short sentences (in English, not whatever is being spoken above) to explain what's being discussed?

This is definitely the new drunk thread.

andy wrote: I know I'm behind on reading this thread, but I thought I was doing well up until we got to this point. Can someone step in and use small words and short sentences (in English, not whatever is being spoken above) to explain what's being discussed?

" Those who are blocked by phrases are bewildered. "

WHACK!

Get yourself an Ox here:

Tom Otvos wrote: I would like to reel this in and get back on topic (please) because one drunk thread is enough. I guess I started it with the "cypress" comment, which I regret, but I took Chris' dharma slap-down to heart and only want to clarify by saying that I don't intend to derail my current practice with this interest (which is far from sudden, by the way) in shikantaza. I am sure that I will have other comments and questions as I read the book, but I'll try and hold back the "WTF" questions on classic Zen for another time.

Several points were made in this total thread, about which I would comment.

Seemingly contradictory or nonsensical Zen statements: Koans (e.g., "What is the sound of one hand [clapping]?") and the like are meant to stop the discursive mind. For a moment, at least. After that moment passes, it is up to the student/practitioner to maintain. The first is actually not so hard. The second is where "the rubber meets the road." I have used this technique (with and without an actual, classic koan) to get students to "stop the mind" and then told them about the challenge of maintaining. They acknowledged what I said. But so far only one was able to maintain. At that time. But this is why it's called a practice, you know? Persevere.

Prerequisites for Zen: It has been said that Zen is direct pointing to Reality. (Who said it first? I don't recall. But it's on my Zen Center of Las Cruces business card.) That directness is both simple and difficult. It is simple because, in practice, it is uncomplicated. It is difficult because it is not easy. Brad Warner said "Zen is boring and pointless." Right! Zen eschews dawdling in the blissful planes of the jhanas, and it does not aim for any "thing" of experience. As such, Zen is tricky to explain (better not to try) and hard to "sell" (the blissful states are easy to sell!). Nevertheless, it can be useful to begin with some other type of meditation (not zazen / shikentaza) in which there are graduated levels of attainment; breadcrumbs along the path, as it were. After all, this is exactly how Shakyamuni's path led to Buddhahood. Only when he despaired of every other means did he go under the Bodhi tree and try the "just sitting" which he recalled having done one day as a child. So if you have reached the point where Zen now seems attractive, you may be ready for it.

Humor: This is the Internet, so of course people make jokes and quips and sarcastic statements a lot. Humor can even be part of the Dharma. But don't try this at home, boys and girls! Zen Master makes joke and light goes on over student's head. Student makes <weak> joke and Zen Master whacks student with stick.

Final and most important Point: Books cannot give feedback on your practice. Online friends can give all sorts of advice and feedback, but you really have no reliable way to separate the good from the bad. Find a teacher. A teacher with some degree of Bodhi (many have none, but they put on a good show).

Tom Otvos wrote: Thanks, Mike. It is always great to hear from you.

I guess I would only ask this one follow-up question, that is still a little OT but it came up earlier in this thread and started the derailing process. Back in post #10887, I quote two paragraphs on the ox cart. If you were to rewrite that in a way that was more understandable, what would you say? Or is my question presuming something that you don't actually agree with, and that the lack of understandability is the point?

#10887

Nan-yüeh replied, “When a man is driving a cart, if the cart doesn’t go, should he beat the cart or beat the ox?”

Now, when we say the cart doesn’t go, what do we mean by the cart’s going or not going? For example, is the cart going [analogous to] water flowing, or is it [analogous to] water not flowing? [There is a sense in which] we can say that flowing is water’s not going, and that water’s going is not its flowing. Therefore, when we investigate the words “the cart doesn’t go,” we should approach them both in terms of not going and in terms of not not going; for it is a question of time. The words, “if [the cart] doesn’t go,” do not mean simply that it does not go.

Should he beat the cart or beat the ox? Does this mean there is a beating of the cart as well as a beating of the ox? Are beating the cart and beating the ox the same or not? In the world, there is no method of beating the cart; but, though ordinary men have no such method, we know that on the path of the Buddha there is a method of beating the cart, and this is the very eye of [Buddhist] study. Even though we study that there is a method of beating the cart, we should give concentrated effort to understanding in detail that this is not the same as beating the ox. And even though the method of beating the ox is common in the world, we should go on to study the beating of the ox on the path of the Buddha. Is this ox-beating the water buffalo, or ox-beating the iron bull or the clay ox? Is this beating with a whip, with the entire world, the entire mind? Is this to beat by using the marrow? Should we beat with the fist? The fist should beat the fist, and the ox beat the ox.
Ta-chi did not reply.

Mike: When did you stop beating your wife?
Answer: I didn't!

Mike: So you are still beating your wife?
Answer: No!

Mike: So you stopped beating her?
Answer: No! I never…

Mike: You never stopped beating your wife?
Answer: That's not what I meant! I never beat my wife.

Mike: Anymore. When did you stop?
Answer: I never…

Mike: Ahh! So you lied when you said you stopped.
Answer: I never said I stopped.

Mike: No wonder she left you.

COMMENTARY: The Chinese Ch'an text is rife with allusions (e.g., iron bull; clay ox; marrow) that are part of a large literature with which few of us are familiar. So these allusions are lost on us. So too the metaphorical use of cart and ox. The cart could be the body. The ox could be the mind. Which, as I recall, is what Chris said earlier. In Nan-yüeh's talk, who is the man riding the cart and driving the ox? He is the only one with fists. Nan-yüeh's last lines give the clue: "Should we beat with the fist? The fist should beat the fist, and the ox beat the ox." This is equivalent to Dogen's "think not-thinking." It is a negation. It is the admonition "do nothing." Easier said than done! And -- to make a bad situation worse -- not at ALL what it seems. This is because we try to "do" nothing, rather than allowing no-thing to be. If I have now reached the point of not making sense, then my work here is done.

Only tangential, but too good not to share-- came in via a list I'm on:

A monk asked Zhàozhōu to explain the fundamental principle of Chán.
Zhàozhōu said, "Excuse me, but I have to pee. It is a trivial matter,
but I must do it for myself."

Some of those Zen stories are the antithesis of obscure.

At some level all practices are the same: They are just elaborate ways to try to exhaust the student's obsession with wanting to do something to change their experience or bang them on the head til they pay attention to right now. The reason the silliness is meaningful (to some) is for exactly that reason - the fretful obsession about practices (which most of us have experienced) - is such a uselessness. The practices are not important in and of themselves. And once you see that, it's really very funny. (Or, funny and serious are not in opposition to each other.)

Ah-- but, you see, what I heard was: "I have to do it for myself."

A wonderful passage from Dogen-- I'm sure he never produced anything else.

For myself-- I didn't give it the right inflection: "What is the difference between awareness of X and awareness of Y?" And I left out the part that Vajrayana makes clearer than perhaps any other yana: what is to be seen is the "nature of Mind (awareness)"-- not the contents. Nothing wrong with the contents, or with preferring some to others: they are just "irrelevant, immaterial, and leading to the Witness, Your Honor."

"Just sitting" is our best shot at stumbling on to a glimpse of that simplest commonality below all the hubbub of differences.