Dear Mel, Thank you for the time spent in writing and thoughtful post. I don´t have the material time right now to read in depth and reciprocate your kindnest but I have acknowledge you. Thank you.
Mayka --- On Wed, 12/1/11, Mel <[email protected]> wrote: From: Mel <[email protected]> Subject: [Zen] Not understanding mindfulness To: [email protected] Date: Wednesday, 12 January, 2011, 6:19 > I simply mean that thinking about things and experiencing things are different. Even experiencing thinking is different from thinking about thinking. I may have been hoping to let the lurkers know my observation that sittting zazen does make the shift in attention easier, so I notice the experiencing before it is covered up in thinking easier when I've sat recently). ---------------------------------------------------------- MEL: Yes, it does make it harder to describe or talk about the experience in an internet forum without actually having had the experience. For example, JMJM had posted a link to a cartoonized version of zazen on video. I can relate to that very much. Flies aren't the problem where I am. Mosquitoes are, especially when they carry malaria...but one still carries on. I got up one time with multiple mosquito lumps While doing zazen, one experiences that nothingness, but the 'small' Self eventually take over every once in a while because..well....we lose our posture(which I did a few times) due to tiredness, or simply just falling asleep. Dualistically-speaking, the 'big' Self is responsible for the natural breathing, as it is for other bodily functions we have no control of. Making the effort to straighten the spine however, is an act of the smaller variety. Falling asleep during zazen can be embarassing(due to snorring) when at the temple The nothingness one experiences is nothing, but something at the same time. It's not easy to put into words, but one knows it. In fact, you see it. You can't possibly miss it. Is it anything special? Well, it's just...nothing... ---------------------------------------------------------- Scrutinizing the peach and biting into it are not mutually exclusive choices for different points in time. The 'choice' one makes for any moment in time is whatever appears to oneself to be the most appropriate choice for that moment. ---------------------------------------------------------- MEL: Of course. Yes ------------------------------------------------------- Almost anyone here could give others repetitious advice on how to run their lives, and their intentions, like those of fundamentalist religionists, would no doubt be motivated by good intentions; but, guided by current cultural mores, at least in English-speaking countries, most abstain from such well-intentioned speech. ---------------------------------------------------------- MEL: Yes. However, due to past Semitic influences of most Westerners, that evangelical attitude somehow manages to find itself into even..well...Zen practise. Whenever one joins a spiritual and/or religious forum of sorts, one does eventually get this. I got such in pagan/NewAge, Christian, and especially in Islamic online forums. I had a purely intellectual interest in the Qur'an and I donated Islamic books to the local mosque as I didn't need them anymore. My intention was to drop the items there, and then go. That didn't happen. I was basically lead to sit down and explain myself why or how was it that I still wasn't a Muslim after all such reading In any case, you're quite right of course --------------------------------------------------------- > Much, much short cut to eat the peach rather than to have the poetry and > much more often the speculation by the ones who read a lot about what look > like the taste of the peach but never tried, tasted or even see a peach in > their life. ---------------------------------------------------------- MEL: Ideally, yes. Unfortunately, not all are suited to zazen practise for all sorts of reasons. There will always be those from the Semitic fold(Christian/Muslim/Jewish) who will have nothing more but an intellectual interest in all things to do with the Buddha or Tao. On the other hand, one also finds self-confessed/declared atheists in biblical forums who also have the same purpose. But...to touch something of the divine instead of researching it...that is different indeed even for Zen which has no god to rule over a nation or people I've seen and experienced it from multiple-spiritual angles(but forget Pentecostal...no thanks...*big laughter*), but I've made a choice of coming back to Zen this time. There are no morals or god(s) involved and one has basically a complete, free hand in peace Mel
