With palms together
Good Morning Everyone,
It is said Master Bodhidharma sat in a cave for nine years. He taught that Zen was a way beyond words and letters. He was pointing to a fundamental truth, the world we perceive is a perception, a construction of our mind, and the actual truth is not the perception. Thoughts are about something, not the thing itself. Concepts are our thoughts about our thoughts. Constructs link these together to form an understanding. It is easy to see that all of this, our construction of reality, is not reality itself. Understanding is just as false.
The fundamental truth, the absolute truth, is not to be conceived of, but actually experienced. Bodhidharma said, when asked who he was, “Don’t know.” When we “don’t know” we free ourselves to directly experience without the chimera of thought. So, we say, “just sit.” It is not the sitting that is key, but the “just.” When in a state of “just” or rather, in that place just before thought arises, the thinker is no longer present and only the experience, without the one experiencing, exists. So we say, “when walking, walk; when sitting, sit.” In other words; just walk, just sit. When in this place we reside in realization. We have “actualized” our practice, which is to say, we are fully alive.
What does it take to break free of the jailer, which is to say our Small Mind, the mind of perception and thought construction? Not much: just a willingness to sit down and shut up; a willingness to step out of the box of our constructed understanding to see without looking.
More easily said than done!
Our Rohatsu sesshin begins at 6:00 PM on Thursday December 6th. Please consider joining us as we practice the Buddha Way.
Be well.
Good Morning Everyone,
It is said Master Bodhidharma sat in a cave for nine years. He taught that Zen was a way beyond words and letters. He was pointing to a fundamental truth, the world we perceive is a perception, a construction of our mind, and the actual truth is not the perception. Thoughts are about something, not the thing itself. Concepts are our thoughts about our thoughts. Constructs link these together to form an understanding. It is easy to see that all of this, our construction of reality, is not reality itself. Understanding is just as false.
The fundamental truth, the absolute truth, is not to be conceived of, but actually experienced. Bodhidharma said, when asked who he was, “Don’t know.” When we “don’t know” we free ourselves to directly experience without the chimera of thought. So, we say, “just sit.” It is not the sitting that is key, but the “just.” When in a state of “just” or rather, in that place just before thought arises, the thinker is no longer present and only the experience, without the one experiencing, exists. So we say, “when walking, walk; when sitting, sit.” In other words; just walk, just sit. When in this place we reside in realization. We have “actualized” our practice, which is to say, we are fully alive.
What does it take to break free of the jailer, which is to say our Small Mind, the mind of perception and thought construction? Not much: just a willingness to sit down and shut up; a willingness to step out of the box of our constructed understanding to see without looking.
More easily said than done!
Our Rohatsu sesshin begins at 6:00 PM on Thursday December 6th. Please consider joining us as we practice the Buddha Way.
Be well.
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