Just back from a few days of self torture at a zen retreat (never again! as I always say)
The 2 things the abbot said (in French) that I quite liked were approximately:
“Zazen is not a self-improvement program. It is the gift of self to the universe.”
“Turn the light inwards, towards yourself. But don’t get caught in your own preoccupations, don’t withdraw from the world”
My preoccupations are just one of the many tiny things that arise in an endless space we call awareness or love. When we feel our own pain with love, we are open to the pain of all beings.
By “love” I think we are pointing at selflessness, in the sense of : not being under the authority of what I believe/know.
A lack of reactive knowing, non-resistance, which in meditation comes from noticing one’s movement against (or for) reality - noticing one’s feelings towards the contents of our consciousness.
I’m not sure we should be so obsessed with what we know or imagine about love.
Isn’t the authority of the known based exactly upon that very obsession?
What I believe about love, or your belief about what I believe, and the reactions that these beliefs produce is what needs to be seen.
Can we see that we are behaving mechanically? Lashing out like (emotionally) wounded animals fighting for our lives?
My (or your) preoccupations seem like they are the whole of existence, is it not possible to notice the space around them - that they appear and dissapear if given less importance?
I’m sure I know nothing about selflessness and love, and that those of us who presume to know anything about love are full of themselves.
Can we see that we are behaving mechanically? Lashing out like (emotionally) wounded animals fighting for our lives?
Of course.
My (or your) preoccupations seem like they are the whole of existence, is it not possible to notice the space around them - that they appear and dissapear if given less importance?
As long as I decide, choose, what’s of most serious concern, I am all that matters.
So if I think I know what love is, I am God.
Awareness does not necessarily imply choice - as choice arises, this too becomes an opportunity to see ourself at work, to see both “space” and the “things” within the space.
Yes we are conditioned to latch on to (“choose”) and be engulfed by the known (eg. my pain, my dogma and other things) - is it possible to not react mechanically (do what must be done for and by me)? Is it possible to see that me and my preoccupations are just some passing things in the space?
Who is reading this? Maybe the same mysterious non-entity? Zen is curiosity about this question.
Maybe you are saying that the institution of zen (monasteries and such) are trying to force us to look - but I assure you, they cannot. In fact, it is traditional to turn people away (those that want to become monks that is)
We could say : Curiosity.
Which just kicks the can down the road.
I did read something by K the other day about this that struck me (because it seemed to align with what I keep saying ) - namely words to the effect that we must be so deeply affected by this suffering business, that we can’t avoid the issue, crafty dodges just won’t cut the mustard any longer.
If it isn’t clear that my suffering results from my choosing to be self-centered (and thereby duplicitous), I am still escaping, fragmented, and time-bound.
True - as its true for any form of identification and authority - be it religious, political, cutural (eg. Buddhism, Communism, Anarchism, Krishnamurtiism etc)
) - namely words to the effect that we must be so deeply affected by this suffering business, that we can’t avoid the issue, crafty dodges just won’t cut the mustard any longer.