Improving Your Zazen

[@franksijbenga3724]

My teachers' teacher used to say that if meditation was about not having thoughts, tables would be better at it than humans.

[@edgepixel8467]

There's always some smart alec out there.

[@zenjazzplayer]

What is it like to be a table?

[@troopygino]

But can a table be aware that it has no thoughts, not the same

[@MrBreadisawesome]

“I know my opinion on that, I don’t need to rehearse it anymore” great way of putting it hahah.

[@trifoliumrepens3981]

“It never gets easier, you just get faster” - Greg LeMond

[@petermartin9806]

My Dude! I'm currently a student at Kent State University, doing a paper on the Zazen-gi. So glad to have learned about your channel.

[@HardcoreZen]

@@petermartin9806 Wow. In my day I couldn’t even get college credit for a class about Zen at KSU.

[@petermartin9806]

@@HardcoreZen I wouldn't say it's much different now. I'm choosing to write about the Zazen-gi because of my interest in Soto Zen, but the topic is technically translation. Are you at all involved with the "Kent Zendo"? I've found references to it online but the website is no longer active. If not, I'd love to connect.

[@HardcoreZen]

@@petermartin9806 I don’t know what’s going on with the Kent Zendo. I thought it was still a thing. Maybe try Facebook. It seems like Tim is still on there & maybe the guy who maintained his website flaked on him like he flaked on me (same guy did both our sites, I think, and he totally flaked out on me years ago).

[@petermartin9806]

@@HardcoreZen I will call the number online. Thank you. I sent a message to your Facebook page!

[@ukerocker]

That was just so eloquently answered! Thank you, Brad!

[@danielpont3907]

There's a great difference between thinking and ruminating : thinking might be required sometimes. But it can be very tricky to notice the difference between a useful mind process and a useless one. In that zazen helps a lot indeed... provided you're willing to put some effort into it, as with every valuable thing in life

[@dinninfreeman2014]

I would say that personally, I would characterize my practice as me learning to get out of my own way

[@cyrilgcoombsiii]

ah, it’s the universe sending the universe another video about how to see the universe 😂

[@edgepixel8467]

Funny. Here's the universe commenting about the universe commenting about the universe sending the universe another video about how to see the universe.

[@MrBreadisawesome]

And heres a person saying that you two made me laugh

[@XenKat]

Weirdos

[@pen64]

Interesting... I really notice that rehearsing my narrative type thinking when I tell someone about a situation where I felt wronged, or I relate something I think is interesting enough that I think everyone should be impressed by it. At some point - sometimes a day or two later, if I’m honest - I’ll catch myself rehearsing that story yet again and part of me thinks, “you’re still banging away at that?”. I really have been trying to be proactive at changing or stopping that narrative flow. As amazing as it seems to me, even I can bore myself to tears! Such an energy drain, too...

[@saralawlor780]

Someone in our zen Buddhist group said the mind secretes thoughts! Mine certainly does, even after many years of sitting. I think you have answered the question very well using the analogy of the gym and also the chewing gum. Thank you Brad. I find sitting varies a lot from day to day, from manic mind to still mind. I think you are so right about our notion of improvement being a big obstacle. 👍🙏🏽

[@gunterappoldt3037]

Changes can be qualitative/quantitative, fast/slow, deep/superficial, ...; seems also to apply to zazen-practice as kind of wéi wúwéi/为无为/doing non-doing.

[@gra6649]

I remember the first time I noticed not thinking. I was still counting the breaths, and then all thoughts, and even the numbers just disappeared. It took a few seconds for it to register. When I did, I went, "holly shit there are no thoughts". And that's when the tsunami of thoughts hit. But it was cool to observe just mind. And I agree with your views on, for lack of a better word, the progression of Zazen.

[@revdrjon]

"It look me 20 years to finally get as good at zazen as i was when i started." :}P>

[@diversity27]

Once again, you killed it. This is another gem I’ll be sharing and revisiting often. It just might be the ultimate drop the mic moment. Thank you Brad.

[@windhorse23]

Very helpful. Thank you Brad.

[@gregwallace552]

I've found that I'm better at pausing my thoughts for short periods. Sometimes they just stop by themselves when I'm sitting. This is a big relief as I sometimes wonder who this guy is who keeps telling me the same old stories again and again. Returning to silence is always nice.

[@fhilbo1701]

One can't disparage "comparing mind" without undulging in "comparing mind."

[@HardcoreZen]

I guess so.

[@markbrad123]

Seiri: To separate needed tools, parts, and instructions from unneeded materials and to remove the unneeded ones. Seiton: To neatly arrange and identify parts and tools for ease of use. Seiso: To conduct a cleanup campaign. Seiketsu: To conduct seiri, seiton, and seiso daily to maintain a workplace in perfect condition. Shitsuke: To form the habit of always following the first four S’s.

[@zenjazzplayer]

Seitan: Wheat gluten

[@superdeluxesmell]

Cool cardigan.

[@mattrkelly]

I feel like the way you make your thoughts stop is you give yourself to your life... if you're just doing, then there is no gap to have your opinion interrupt your life!

[@marymidkiff7846]

Peace of the river to you thank you 😳

[@katring.8155]

Thank you

[@purpledoo]

I wonder to what extent is actual progress and not just people getting older...

[@philipsmart1453]

Yoka Daishi: 'The real nature of ignorance is the Buddha-nature itself; The empty delusory body is the very body of the Dharma' Yoka Daishi: 'Who is said to have no-thought? And who not-born? If really not-born, there is no no-birth either; ask a puppet and find out if this is not so; As long as you seek Buddhahood, specifically exercising yourself for it, there is no attainment for you.' Shih-t'ou's: 'How does one get emancipated?', 'Who has ever put you in bondage'. Huang Po: 'To simply right now suddenly comprehend that one's own mind is fundamentally Buddha, without there being a single dharma one can attain and without there being a single practice one can cultivate- this is insurpassable enlightenment, this is the Buddha of suchness.'

[@andreasandersson8141]

Maybe we can say that whereas the practice of zazen - being undivided and quite distinct - doesn't change, the practitioner does?

[@lainerbug]

I’m not sayin it was aliens, but it was aliens

[@joshuazalipski2715]

I’m still workin on my sittin’ muscles.

[@joshuazalipski2715]

I definitely get the pins and needles and numbness in my legs, I also find that my center back area gets fussy. I accept it as much as I can, but sometimes I just have to wiggle around a bit.

[@erkanerken95]

It’s always aliens

[@snudgegalbraith3447]

So how would you encourage someone to keep practising zazen?

[@edgepixel8467]

I guess it's "live the kind of life and be the kind of person that makes them go 'hey, zazen actually isn't bullshit.'"

[@snudgegalbraith3447]

@Ed Gepixel I suppose so. I sometimes wonder why people stick with it. I was pretty much forced to aka i had no other choice basically.

[@gunterappoldt3037]

Maybe some background informations could be helpful: Long before the "invention" of Zazen/Zuòbì/... by the Chán-movement, human beings were now and then "just sitting" (--> general cultural anthropology). Only the Lotus-position seems a bit special (and is even, strictly speaking, not generally obligatory, as far as I know). Same applies for the "framing" (i.e., contextualizing, structuring, etc.) in the Zen-style, which, e.g., David L. Preston (1988) characterized as a form of "ritualised meditation", especially strongly marked inside the "arena" of organized Zen-settings, whereby the core phase of Zazen shows, among other things, some characteristics of "liminality" (--> Preston thereby references to the "patterns of passage" as formulated by the cultural-anthropologist van Gennep).

[@snudgegalbraith3447]

Perhaps chairs fucked it all up. I find the more i sit zazen the harder it is to explain stuff lol. In a way its annoying cos my rational mind wants to just say exactly what something is.

[@CuddlyPsycho1134]

There is a story Riveting explanation Pontification There I go again Telling stories to no one A tale of zazen

[@zenjazzplayer]

"The man who stopped his thoughts": Are you thinking of this video by Ken Wilber ("Integral Theory") from 2006, kzbin.info/www/bejne/gnepfqenasxrhJY "Ken Wilber Stops His Brainwaves" while connected to a Mind Mirror EEG feedback machine?

[@wladddkn1517]

Does Brad feel kinda ashamed with Ziggy?

[@andywatson-j3u]

For sure repetitive thinking about stuff in your life, past present or imaginary future is habitual.

[@zenjazzplayer]

You don't know what's in Ziggy's mind. That's a koan for you: "The mind of the dog." Kind of like "Does a dog have Buddha nature?" Here it is spoken in 1987: savageheart.com/dssounds.htm#vocal and three pages of "A Dog Has Buddha Nature" at savageheart.com/dsblue1.htm from 1996.

[@JRF2k]

I've been meditating for four years and I've not had any "enlightenment" experience. I've not had any dips into bliss or jhana or anything of the sort. I feel like I don't know what I am doing most of the time so I just sit which everyone tells me great you're doing it right, but it just doesn't feel like I am progressing towards those things samadi, jhana, bliss, etc., but I continue to sit. I hope that I can try to go on a retreat this year or the next and maybe then I won't feel so lost.

[@enterthevoidIi]

one big problem with shikantaza is that there are no clear insturctions on how to do it, which is why i stopped and switched to rinzai meditation techniques and i must say it has been very beneficial. "sit and think not thinking" or "sit an do nothing" are really not clear explanations

[@lancecole7191]

My experience has been like yours, but I have been at it for at least 10 years. At some point I stopped worrying about all that and learned to appreciate my experience for whatever it was. Your experience will be your own. Even if you had one of those experiences, it wouldn't be like anyone else's or even like what you expect anyway. You just keep going because it matters. To me it is the most important thing, yet I could not even tell you how or why. Just keep going and appreciate your experience of it for whatever it is.

[@JRF2k]

@@lancecole7191 I don't worry about it much. I just don't know how far along the path I am. Like a map I can say ok I am here and want to be here so I need to do X. Like Brad says in the video, my experience has been like when I first sat down to meditate only slightly different now.

[@JRF2k]

@@enterthevoidIi How are Rinzai techniques different than Soto?

[@macdougdoug]

Your "not knowing technique" sounds good to me - IMO kensho type experiences correlate strongly to "great doubt" and say at least 2 hours regular daily zazen.

[@flashrobbie]

Real Buddhists all say that zazen is the best thing ever.

[@snudgegalbraith3447]

Lmao