Chris,
Thanks, Chris, you make some interesting observations about attitudes or
approaches to "fatigue" in meditation circles. I've never touched base with
anyone about it, and I wonder how it came up, and came to your notice.
Personally, I find that complete and thorough relaxation in sitting, and, even
a good measure of fatigue, say, at the end of a long, warm afternoon on sesshin
in the desert, is helpful to allowing the onset of Samadhi. So to me, fatigue
in this context has no negative connotations whatever in my personal experience
as a practitioner.
A handy but debatable "definition" of samadhi that I like to bandy- about is
that Samadhi is "Falling asleep with your eyes open." You see how fatigue
could be helpful there.
As an Observational Astronomer, I suppose I have trained myself in my work,
too, to maintain alertness in fatigued situations, as well as to live and work
on a changeable schedule and with extremes of wakeful time and very little
sleep. I find too that for me it is personally best to avoid stimulants of
every kind, and to reply on nutrition: in others words, nutrition versus
stimulation. Stimulants take a toll, nutrition does not.
On sesshin, I similarly avoid tea and coffee, and I wean myself off these -- if
I'm using them at all -- beginning about 10 days before sesshin. This way, I
show up at retreat "clean", and this is good for me and for all else who
attend, because we sit sesshin as a group, you know, even if it looks to an
outsider as if we practice alone. I know that some folks on sesshin would
never be without these stimulants, but I think it never helps anyone, and just
keeps people nervous. Terrible. Plus, it's called "addiction", and that's not
a good condition in which to keep the brain and nervous system, in a program of
practice like Zen meditation.
On Sheng Yen's Ch'an retreats, we drink plain hot water, from urns. I came to
call this "Sheng Yen Tea", and I drink it to this day. It's better for the
stomach, maybe, than drinking cold water, he used to say. And I think it has
other benefits, besides. Drinking it is relaxing, too, because we tend to
linger over it, unlike drinking cold water, which we chug down. ;-)
--Joe
> Chris Austin-Lane <chris@...> wrote:
>
> Posture and a little bit of yoga is pretty standard teaching even in the
> Soto lineages via Japan that have taught me.
>
> I have noticed one characteristic flaw that the youngsters make which is
> easier to avoid in through oldsters, which is a fearful attitude towards
> fatigue.
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