29.7.16

Shikantaza

Shikantaza has a couple of versions. There are those who teach it as a body-centred practice, where the posture is the most important. There are those who teach it as a concentration practice where one focuses on the breath and the abdomen. There are those who teach it as practice-enlightenment where there is neither grasping nor releasing of appearances. And there are likely a dozen other forms as well.

If you focus on the body/breath, keep your attention there. If your practice is enlightenment, you have nothing to do with thoughts, they leave on their own anyway.

There is actually a simple logic at work here. If you concentrate on breath/body, you don't meddle with thoughts and other sensory inputs, but let them come and go. If you are stable in your recognition that there is nothing to grasp, you have left behind the intention to fixate on anything, in other words, dropped body and mind.

Sometimes there are thoughts, sometimes there are no thoughts. To favour one or the other is falling into the extremes of existence and annihilation. That's why the practice is neither-thinking / no-thought - if a thought comes, OK; if no thought comes, OK.

There are the ideas to do something and not to do something. It is of course quite normal, but then one should be clear about how to do that properly, and that means learning the Dharma. If you want to go with the ideal form of zazen, there is nothing to do at all, no state to accomplish, and no experience to get rid of. As you sit you have to immediately recognise that all the six types of appearances are such, there is nothing to improve or decrease, and there is no one to do or know anything either.

Just sitting does not mean sitting still. It means not conceptualising sitting. You cannot sit still anyway, unless you're a corpse.

The practice is the experience confirming that all things (sights, sounds, smells, tastes, bodily feelings, thoughts) are such, that is, they appear and disappear on their own. There is no one controlling or perceiving them, as they are all dependently originated ephemeral, illusory instances of experience. That is why there is nothing at all that can be grasped, as attachment itself is a conceptual fabrication of a subject grasping an object, while if you actually look at the experience itself there are no subjects nor objects.

18.7.16

Unfolding Jhanas

As I see it, the rupa jhanas have a specific object on what one rests the mind on, and only with the arupa jhanas one changes from specific object to a "non-object", like infinite space.

As for the progression of jhanas, it moves from holding a specific object of focus, through the enjoyment of the peace coming from one pointedness, until one arrives at an unmoving mind. So the first jhana is about returning again and again to the object, the second and third about the pleasure of the stable mind, and the fourth is just the stable mind. The formless absorptions are about abandoning the experiences as identities. So, here is my model.

Access Concentration

I don't use this category. Here could be mentioned the usual requirements to begin meditation.

First Jhana

Vitakka and vicara are present to establish the mind repeatedly on the object, and this is the primary element to work with, while the others are supporting factors. Piti is the joy of resting, like when one can lie down after a tiring walk. Sukha is the contentment of peace, like when one is finished with a task and there's nothing more to do. Ekaggata is the one pointedness of attention, the quality of being focused internally on the body and mind.

Second Jhana

With the mind further withdrawn and stabilised, there is no need to remind oneself of the object of attention, and one is absorbed in the joy of rest, with contentment and one pointedness in the background.

Third Jhana

When the more intensive joy is let go as well, one rests content within the seclusion of internally focused mind.

Fourth Jhana

The feeling of contentment with peaceful abiding abandoned, there is just the one pointed mind that is unmoved by appearances.

Infinite space

With the mind that is stable in peace there is no need to hold any sensory objects, thus the senses go unfocused and they rest open and unmoved.

Infinite Consciousness

The attention moves from the lack of objects to the lack of senses, hence consciousness itself is unbound and uniform.

Infinite Nothingness

Without object to focus on, or a specific state of mind to maintain, one comes to the experience that there is nothing at all.

Neither Perception nor Non-Perception

But holding that there is nothing is still something perceived, one realises that experiencing itself is unreliable, and abandons that as well.

15.7.16

Emptiness, transcendence, God

Emptiness means simply that all the experiences of the six areas - whatever is seen, heard, smelt, tasted, touched, thought - are without an abiding, independent nature, that phenomena are not something that one can identify with, call a self. It is not some sort of transcendent experience or realm, and such an interpretation is a mistake. Therefore ideas about God are just ideas, and there is no place for it in Buddhism. Enlightenment is awakening to the lack of any substance in appearances and of any substratum beyond them. When there is no essence imagined, then there is no basis for grasping at or abiding in anything, and without grasping or abiding there is no dissatisfaction and delusion. To conceive emptiness, the absence of substance, as a distinct reality, is just another form of self-identity.