Showing posts with label Zazen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Zazen. Show all posts
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Witness the process of death...
A bunch of us "jukai(formal precept taking ceremoney in Zen) brothers and sisters", went to visit one of our brothers, who is very sick. He has a terminal illness and might not live long. We sat zazen with him and chanted heart sutra. He is not able to talk any more but he was talking with his eyes. I have never been in presence of a terminally sick person before. It was a first one for me and brought out lot of emotions. I really admired his presence, his strength and his acceptance. There he was - trying to be present in every moment, trying to just be and he was doing it beautifully. It made me wonder how would I behave in face of such a situation. However much we might study or practice, I don't know if any thing can really prepare us for our own death. From my little life experience, even after sitting for so long, as soon as there is a threat to "my self", my defenses go up. Sometimes I am aware enough to see the process and let the defense drop but more often, I fight. Habit energy is there and it is there strong. Well, I should be thankful that I can witness the process some times at least, if not all times..:).
Sunday, February 1, 2009
What is Suffering? - The First Noble Truth
The first noble truth is - Life is suffering. Does it mean Buddha was preaching pessimism and telling every one life is not worth living because it is full of suffering?!? In my experience - nope - that is not what he was saying at all. What he is asking us to do is to analyze what is the so called happiness after which we run so vehemently? We chase happiness so fervently without ever stopping and thinking about its definition and characteristics.
We think of suffering as mental, physical, emotional or financial suffering - times when we are crying out of pain. Other times are either happy times because our ego is getting what it needs to feel good or they are neutral times - times when we don' care. And to us - life is a mixture of these three kinds of experience. However, the suffering when we are crying out of pain is the extreme form of suffering, one we cannot avoid. We endure the unhappy and sad times in hopes that good times will come again and that is what keeps us going.
Now, lets see what Buddha said about suffering --
"Birth is suffering, ageing is suffering, decay is suffering, death is suffering, sorrow, lamentation, pain, sadness, and discontent are suffering, being joined with any disliked is suffering, being separated from any liked is suffering, not getting what one wants is suffering, & getting what one not wants is suffering.." (http://what-buddha-said.net/drops/II/The_1st_Noble_Truth_on_Suffering.htm)
Lets analyze this a bit - see the pattern - anything we "don't" want is suffering. This is also the reason why your suffering is different from my suffering because our wants are different. It is not just anything we don't want, it is also the feeling that comes when we want something, get it and then we are bored of it!!! Now, we want something else. In effect, the happiness that you get by getting something leads to suffering again because either eventually you get bored of it or the thing gets destroyed for one or the other reason. This constant dissatisfaction is what is suffering. It is a subtle form of suffering, not so extreme and obvious which will make us cry, but it is always there, pricking like a thorn, like never quenching thirst - no matter how much water you drink.
When you sit zazen, you become witness to this dissatisfaction. You see for the first time if suffering is driving you or you are driving it. You see how your happiness almost always depends on gaining something, achieving wealth, fame, power, recognition, approval from others etc. Sitting zazen does not give you any magic pill to convert suffering to happiness nor does it result into some kind of "high" that makes you immune to pain. What it does is that it gives you a tool to analyze your definition of happiness and suffering. Hopefully, sooner or later, your definition will change, chase will stop and it will bring peace and contentment which results in true happiness (as per my definition of happiness, yours might be different..:)). It allows you to see the futility of running after impermanent things and renounce both extremes - getting and loosing.
We think of suffering as mental, physical, emotional or financial suffering - times when we are crying out of pain. Other times are either happy times because our ego is getting what it needs to feel good or they are neutral times - times when we don' care. And to us - life is a mixture of these three kinds of experience. However, the suffering when we are crying out of pain is the extreme form of suffering, one we cannot avoid. We endure the unhappy and sad times in hopes that good times will come again and that is what keeps us going.
Now, lets see what Buddha said about suffering --
"Birth is suffering, ageing is suffering, decay is suffering, death is suffering, sorrow, lamentation, pain, sadness, and discontent are suffering, being joined with any disliked is suffering, being separated from any liked is suffering, not getting what one wants is suffering, & getting what one not wants is suffering.." (http://what-buddha-said.net/drops/II/The_1st_Noble_Truth_on_Suffering.htm)
Lets analyze this a bit - see the pattern - anything we "don't" want is suffering. This is also the reason why your suffering is different from my suffering because our wants are different. It is not just anything we don't want, it is also the feeling that comes when we want something, get it and then we are bored of it!!! Now, we want something else. In effect, the happiness that you get by getting something leads to suffering again because either eventually you get bored of it or the thing gets destroyed for one or the other reason. This constant dissatisfaction is what is suffering. It is a subtle form of suffering, not so extreme and obvious which will make us cry, but it is always there, pricking like a thorn, like never quenching thirst - no matter how much water you drink.
When you sit zazen, you become witness to this dissatisfaction. You see for the first time if suffering is driving you or you are driving it. You see how your happiness almost always depends on gaining something, achieving wealth, fame, power, recognition, approval from others etc. Sitting zazen does not give you any magic pill to convert suffering to happiness nor does it result into some kind of "high" that makes you immune to pain. What it does is that it gives you a tool to analyze your definition of happiness and suffering. Hopefully, sooner or later, your definition will change, chase will stop and it will bring peace and contentment which results in true happiness (as per my definition of happiness, yours might be different..:)). It allows you to see the futility of running after impermanent things and renounce both extremes - getting and loosing.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Emptiness - what the hell is it?
When I started sitting at the Zendo, I was handed the Sutra book and we were all supposed to recite certain sutras together. It was considered voice zazen - becoming one with voice. I was at a point where I did not want to take part in anything that would even remotely resemble any kind of ritual. In my search, I had found Zen centers to be the least ritualistic institution and since I needed a place which could provide me company for my sitting practice, I figured I would play along with a little ritual.
I chanted the heart sutra for the first time and it made no sense at all!!!! What do they mean when they say everything is empty? All phenomena are empty? There are no eye, ears, nose, tongue or that there are no perceptions and feelings? I have all of these and I feel and touch them, how can they be empty???
Answer came to quite a long time after I started sitting with this question of emptiness. A big part of misunderstanding had to do with the translation of the word in English. By being empty, we usually mean an object to be empty of something. A cup is empty of tea, a glass is empty of water etc. The emptiness that is mentioned in Heart Sutra is not this kind of emptiness. It essentially means that any object does not have an independent existence by itself, it is empty of an independent existence and hence it is subject to impermanence. An object comes into existence based on conditions, for example, an unpleasant feeling happens when conditions such as these are present - criticism, not getting what one wants etc. In the physical world, if we take example of the cushion - we can say that it exists because of cotton, cloth and sewing.
Once we start seeing that objects or people do not have an independently existing self, we stop associating attributes to an object and start to look into conditions instead. This is a big shift in paradigm - to be able to look into contents and understand then rather to look at a certain object as one single thing existing by itself. Looking into contents enables us to understand the "why". Why a certain object or a certain person is behaving in a certain way. With this shift, it is not possible to call anything good or bad. Everything happens as a result of conditions that came together. There is no absolute identity that creates itself.
I chanted the heart sutra for the first time and it made no sense at all!!!! What do they mean when they say everything is empty? All phenomena are empty? There are no eye, ears, nose, tongue or that there are no perceptions and feelings? I have all of these and I feel and touch them, how can they be empty???
Answer came to quite a long time after I started sitting with this question of emptiness. A big part of misunderstanding had to do with the translation of the word in English. By being empty, we usually mean an object to be empty of something. A cup is empty of tea, a glass is empty of water etc. The emptiness that is mentioned in Heart Sutra is not this kind of emptiness. It essentially means that any object does not have an independent existence by itself, it is empty of an independent existence and hence it is subject to impermanence. An object comes into existence based on conditions, for example, an unpleasant feeling happens when conditions such as these are present - criticism, not getting what one wants etc. In the physical world, if we take example of the cushion - we can say that it exists because of cotton, cloth and sewing.
Once we start seeing that objects or people do not have an independently existing self, we stop associating attributes to an object and start to look into conditions instead. This is a big shift in paradigm - to be able to look into contents and understand then rather to look at a certain object as one single thing existing by itself. Looking into contents enables us to understand the "why". Why a certain object or a certain person is behaving in a certain way. With this shift, it is not possible to call anything good or bad. Everything happens as a result of conditions that came together. There is no absolute identity that creates itself.
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