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SIT-A-LONG with Taigu: NO MIND

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SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: Xin Xin Ming - (VII) - Piecefull Moon

This passage of the Xin Xin Ming instructs us to not remain divided, and to drop ... through and through ... this and that, good and bad, beautiful vs. ugly, all the divisions of little 'self' from this life and world ...
... yet don't be caught there either, do not remain emptied into Emptiness, and bring the One down into/as/right through-and-through the Many.
When we do so, life's greatest obstructions and challenges, ups and downs, are not encountered quite as they were before.
Do not remain in the dualistic state
avoid such pursuits carefully [chasing after, getting caught by things].
If there is even a trace of this and that, of right and wrong,
the Mind-essence will be lost in confusion.
Although all dualities come from the One,
do not be attached even to this One.
When the mind exists undisturbed in the Way,
nothing in the world can offend,
and when a thing can no longer offend, it ceases to exist in the old way.
True "Stillness" is not merely a matter of stilling the mind, or of sitting still, or of feeling a heart that's peaceful and still ... but of finding the Stillness which is all stillness or movement, the Silence which sings both quiet and noise through and through. If one believes that "stillness" is found only in a stilled mind and heart, it is a bit like saying that the moon vanishes when hidden by clouds. This realization is Shikantaza.
To find the True Moon that shines when seen, when hidden, and right through-and-through the clouds ... Thus is Shikantaza.
I am reminded of a recent trip I took to the Tohoku region of Japan hit by the Tsunami. In one neighborhood, there is a vacant lot filled with hills of smashed and broken glass shards, broken shards all over. One sees represented there broken lives, homes, broken families, much as the shattered glass in that field. So ugly, so tragic, so impossible to ever fully put back together.
Suddenly, as I was standing to look at that vacant lot by night, the moon overhead glistened and was reflected on countless pieces, each fully reflecting a complete image of the moon expressed in its specific size and shape. It is much as Dogen writes of the moon in the puddles and dewdrops ...
Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water. The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken. Although its light is wide and great, the moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide. The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in dewdrops on the grass, or even in one drop of water.
Enlightenment does not divide you, just as the moon does not break the water. You cannot hinder enlightenment, just as a drop of water does not hinder the moon in the sky.
The depth of the drop is the height of the moon. Each reflection, however long of short its duration, manifests the vastness of the dewdrop, and realizes the limitlessness of the moonlight in the sky.
A field of countless jewels reflecting one into another, like the pearls of Indra's Net!
And then ... suddenly as the sky grew cloudy, the moon was gone! The ugly and broken fragments returned. Shattered, yet not.
If we think that "enlightenment" is only those moments when the moon is seen, when the field lights up like a glistening Buddha Field ... we miss the Truth. It is good to still the mind, to taste wholeness and quiet ... yet we must pierce the Wholeness and Quiet which dances the holes in life and the greatest din. As the Brits say, "Smashing!"
The Moon is shining all along, seen or unseen. A Peace of One Piece that holds all the broken pieces.
Today’s Sit-A-Long video follows at this link. Remember: recording ends soon after the beginning bells; a sitting time of 15 to 35 minutes is recommended

SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: Xin Xin Ming - (VI) - Armchair Buddha

We encounter again the instruction neither to become entangled in circumstances, nor fall into emptiness ... neither remaining in one extreme or the other, finding that which embraces both.
But it is not something merely to talk or philosophize about experiencing life this way, like some "ARMCHAIR BUDDHA". Rather, it is to pierce the wholeness of Zazen, carve such into one's bones, bring such to life in this ordinary life.
Thus, the Xin Xin Ming tells us ...

The more you talk and think about it,
the further astray you wander from the truth.
Stop talking and thinking,
and there is nothing you will not be able to know.
To return to the root [of emptiness] is to find the meaning,
but to pursue appearances is to miss the source.
At the moment of inner enlightenment
there is a going beyond appearance and emptiness.
The changes that appear to occur in the empty world
we call real only because of our ignorance.
The passage closes with a simple reminder that finding truth is not a matter of searching for truth. Rather ... dropping opinions, preferences, aversions and attractions ... neither caught in circumstances nor in emptiness, but knowing the wholeness of one as the other ... Truth is found.
Do not search for the truth;
only cease to cherish opinions.
Today’s Sit-A-Long video follows at this link. Remember: recording ends soon after the beginning bells; a sitting time of 15 to 35 minutes is recommended

SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: Xin Xin Ming - (V) - FULL EMPTY

We continue from last time's passage of the Xin Xin Ming ...
Live neither in the entanglements of outer things,
nor in inner feelings of emptiness.
...
As long as you remain in one extreme or the other
you will never know Oneness.
Those who do not live in the single Way
fail in both activity and passivity,
assertion and denial.
To deny the reality of things
is to miss their reality.
to assert the emptiness of things
is to miss their reality.
Neither entangled in things, nor a captive of sweet emptiness. Rather, encountering each as one ... stillness in motion ... the sweetness in the bitterness ... the silence speaking assertion and denial ... the things of the world as a dream, as real ...
This echoes other chants and writings ... The Heart Sutra ...
Form is not other than emptiness, emptiness no other than form
... The Identity of Relative and Absolute ...
To be attached to things is primordial illusion;
To encounter the absolute is not yet enlightenment.
... The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch ... reminds of how to live with Wisdom in a word of good and bad, beautiful and ugly .... Do not throw them aside, nor cling to them or be stained by them ...
Do not sit with a mind fixed on emptiness. If you do you will fall into a neutral kind of emptiness. Emptiness includes the sun, moon, stars, and planets, the great earth, mountains and rivers, all trees and grasses, bad men and good men, bad things and good things, heaven and hell; they are all in the midst of emptiness. The emptiness of human nature is also like this. Self-Nature contains the ten thousand things..."
"Although you see all men and non-men, evil and good, evil things and good things, you must not throw them aside, nor must you cling to them, nor must you be stained by them, but you must regard them as being just like the empty sky. ...
Seeing through-and-through this dusty world, even as we live and roam this dusty world.
Today’s Sit-A-Long video follows at this link. Remember: recording ends soon after the beginning bells; a sitting time of 15 to 35 minutes is recommended

October 1st, 2011- OUR MONTHLY 4-hour ZAZENKAI!

The Talk this time will be on Master Hongzhi's 'Guidepost of Silent Illumination' ...
http://www.treeleaf.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=4226
A little more about Master Hongzhi (Wanshi in Japanese) here ...
http://www.elqui.mailworks.org/Hongzhi-Zhengjue/index.html
And for our true "Dharma Wonks", an essay by Soto teacher, translator and historian Taigen Dan Leighten on ...
Hongzhi (Silent Illumination), Dogen and the Background of Shikantaza
http://www.ancientdragon.org/dharma/articles/the_art_of_just_sitting
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SIT-A-LONG with Taigu: Wonder

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SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: Xin Xin Ming - (IV) - EYE OF STORM

TODAY'S SIT-A-LONG WAS PRE-RECORDED LAST WEEK BECAUSE JUNDO IS IN NORTHERN JAPAN TODAY, IN THE REGION HIT BY THE EARTHQUAKE/TSUNAMI/NUCLEAR ACCIDENT AND HIT AGAIN BY LAST WEEK'S BIG TYPHOON
Daily life is filled with many storms. They blow around us great and small, and the circumstances of life can sometimes knock us right off our feet! They blow within us, as the mind reactively rages and storms with emotions and thoughts about those circumstances ... fears, "what if's", anger, clutching, resistance, all manner of mental lightning and thunder.
Today's passage of the Xin Xin MIng counsels us not to become mentally entangled in the outside storms. Be serene, allow, 'let go', do not judge ... experience the wholeness of life, both clear and sunny times and storming days. However, neither seek to remain trapped in the calm, quiet, still, boundless "eye" at the center of the storm which Zazen reveals. Rather, know BOTH AT ONCE, AS ONE ... the calm that is the storm, the stillness at the heart of each and every chaotic gust, a subtle serenity and 'allowing' even when terrible and deadly winds rage within and without. Find the wholeness of 'Eye' and 'Storm'. Neither seek to be totally unmoving, stiil, frozen or passive, nor let life and the mind blow one around wildly here and there. Rather, live stillness in action.
Live neither in the entanglements of outer things,
nor in inner feelings of emptiness.
Be serene in the oneness of things and such erroneous views will disappear by themselves.
When you try to stop activity to achieve passivity your very effort fills you with activity.
As long as you remain in one extreme or the other you will never know Oneness.
Sometimes I remember when we used the live in Florida, and some literal hurricanes came our way. One would try to take action while remaining calm and collected ... neither panicked nor passive, gathering water and supplies, battening down the windows. A time for action, yet hand-in-hand with inner stillness and balance, pre-storm Samu work practice! On the other hand, should we try to artificially "stay calm", try forcibly to hold down the mind, the thoughts-emotions might start running even more like a freight train! Instead, I remember spending a couple of nights huddled in a dark closet with my family, the walls shaking and windows breaking. Moments of fear might come and go, and thoughts of "what if the roof comes off!" ... the mind's storm reacting to the storm outside. However, one could also know calm and "allowing" amid the terrible noise and commotion, not entangled by the circumstance, calm even as the storm did its worst. I would sit Zazen there, and at some point just let the storm do what it would ...
... as if throwing out one's arms, merging into the sound, letting the wind carry one where it will.
Today’s Sit-A-Long video follows at this link. Remember: recording ends soon after the beginning bells; a sitting time of 15 to 35 minutes is recommended
Please visit the forum thread here!

SIT-A-LONG with JUNDO: An URGENT ANGO CAUTION!

I would like to offer an important reminder and CAUTION to ALL THOSE UNDERTAKING ANGO, RAKUSU SEWING FOR JUKAI and such at Treeleaf ...
... both those who say "it is all going well" ... and those who say "it is not going well" ...
... those who say that "all has been smooth as silk" ... and those who have encountered bumps and places to trip ...
... those who say they have met every goal they set for themselves ... and those who have not.
Do not forget about "Goalless Goals", about having no place to fall even when we trip and fall! There is no place not the "place for Ango" when lived as such!
BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU SAY!
Today’s Sit-A-Long video follows at this link. Remember: recording ends soon after the beginning bells; a sitting time of 15 to 35 minutes is recommended.