group... woh! all that group awakening...sounds suspicious...i don't believe it for one second..why is the world so "f" then?..merle Mike,
Like you, I too believe that the historical Buddha... -- as far as the annals of History can accurately go -- ...spent the remainder of his life after awakening in endless samadhi. Who knows how he maintained it and perpetuated it. It's true we don't know what his practice was or how regularly he kept his nose to the grindstone. ...Unless we read the scriptures, but their historicity may not be undoubted, as is unlike the case of the Holy Scriptures of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. ;-) Why, ...in Zen practice, we have Kinhin, too, called by some "Walking Meditation". The Buddha is said to have walked around a lot. Slowly. I believe there's evidence he practiced continuously. You could see it in his eyes; in his Ajna; and in his Nimbus, or aura. He had giant group meetings with Arahats, Devas, Bodhisattvas, and others, where it is noted that they were all in samadhi, and all became awakened. Pretty good batting average, better than most sesshins I've been on, but I guess it all depends on the clientele and the Teacher. ;-) So, yes, it's documented that the Buddha practiced. Regarding our Ch'an retreats, BTW, Sheng Yen told us once during retreat that he does not practice as we do while we are holding retreat. He told us that paying total attention to all of us, and taking care of all of us, was his practice during those 7 or 8 days. Now, the Buddha had a flock of millions or billions. He was the "World-Honored One", and who knows how broad that world was, as conceived and reported in those days. So if his practice, his meditation, was to hold in his heart all those beings, he must have had a very strong practice indeed. Practice, meditation, takes many forms. Once one has awakened, it *may* go on endlessly, except, perhaps, as I have noted, in cases of intermittence caused by accident, ill health, over-work, poisoning, etc., conditions or catastrophes that mangle the body badly. Yep, he practiced, I mean to say. --Joe > uerusuboyo@... wrote: > > Edgar, > > It doesn't even matter to me whether the historical Buddha existed or not. > But I still see you think meditation only consists of sitting cross-legged > under a Bodhi tree.
