breathing and freedom

"If you are concentrated on your breathing you will forget yourself, and if you forget yourself you will be concentrated on your breathing. I do not know which is first."

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Shunryu Suzuki

Our respiratory system is part of the involuntary nervous system and also of the voluntary nervous system. Therefore by breathing consciously with awareness we also affect our complete nervous system in a beneficial way. If our awareness is on our breathing there is no place for anything else and thus we experience relief from the hamster cage of our monkey mind.
This is how Shunryu Suzuki speaks of it:

“If you seek for freedom, you cannot find it. Absolute freedom itself is necessary before you can acquire absolute freedom. That is our practice. Our way is not always to go in one direction. Sometimes we go east; sometimes we go west. To go one mile to the west means to go back one mile to the east. Usually if you go one mile to the east it is the opposite of going one mile to the west. But if it is possible to go one mile to the east, that means it is possible to go one mile to the west. This is freedom. Without this freedom you cannot be concentrated on what you do. You may think you are concentrated on something, but before you obtain this freedom, you will have some uneasiness in what you are doing. Because you are bound by some idea of going east or west, your activity is in dichotomy or duality. As long as you are caught by duality you cannot attain absolute freedom, and you cannot concentrate.

Concentration is not to try hard to watch something. In zazen if you try to look at one spot you will be tired in about five minutes. This is not concentration. Concentration means freedom. So your effort should be directed at nothing. You should be concentrated on nothing. In zazen practice we say your mind should be concentrated on your breathing, but the way to keep your mind on your breathing is to forget all about yourself and just to sit and feel your breathing. If you are concentrated on your breathing you will forget yourself, and if you forget yourself you will be concentrated on your breathing. I do not know which is first. So actually there is no need to try too hard to be concentrated on your breathing. Just do as much as you can. If you continue this practice, eventually you will experience the true existence which comes from emptiness.”
Source: Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginners Mind, p. 112, 113

I like how Shunryu gives us a taste of the playfulness of Zen that may not often be sensed in most of the basic classic Zen texts. "Just do as much as you can." This expresses the Zen attitude that each of us must find our own true way. It cannot be found in any teaching of book. Enjoy!

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stop the sound - zen

"step by step

I stop the sound

of the murmuring brook."

 

Shunryu Suzuki

How can I stop the sound of the tumultuous river we are now immersed in and find Peace, if I cannot stop the sound of the murmuring brook of my own thoughts? Peace is the key to freedom. 

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In my experience I don't so much "stop" my thoughts as that I step out of the stream of conditioned consciousness, of the dualistic perspective as me and objects that surround me. Stepping out of this "murmuring brook" I simply release my interest in any thoughts and where they might lead me. Any "problems" to solve are left for later, and soon I find myself in a space of peace. This space is always available and it is for me always a new experience to find myself in it. I do know that I am never in that space when there is much tension built up in my mind-body-spirit complex, so to relax is always good.

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We say, “Step by step I stop the sound of the murmuring brook.” When you walk along the brook you will hear the water running. The sound is continuous, but you must be able to stop it if you want to stop it. This is freedom; this is renunciation. One after another you will have various thoughts in your mind, but if you want to stop your thinking you can. So when you are able to stop the sound of the murmuring brook, you will appreciate the feeling of your work. But as long as you have some fixed idea or are caught by some habitual way of doing things, you cannot appreciate things in their true sense.

source: Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginners Mind, p. 112

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wondrous being - zen

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Everyone comes out from nothingness moment after moment. 

Moment after moment we have true joy of life.

So we say shin ku myo u,

"from true emptiness,

the wondrous being appears."

Shin is "true"; ku is "emptiness"; myo is "wondrous";

u is "being" :

from true emptiness, wondrous being.

Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind p.109

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my comments:

When I leave all phenomena

if even just for a moment

I am then cleansed of all residue of the past.

Will I remain in that place of 'no phenomena'?

Apart from phenomena there is no place.

"I" is really the name for the Universal Being.

As beings in the realm of limited consciousness

we mistake "I" for the single form that we perceive

as long as we are focused on single forms.

The answer is,

"Yes,

I am always in that place of the cessation

of all phenomena when I am still."

Be still every so often

so that you can be empty and fresh

for all phenomena.

Then life is wondrous.

Try it, don't doubt.

Then you will know what I mean.

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related article: Shift-in-perception-a-real-time-report

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hsin hsin ming – poem of trust

source

 

  hsin hsin ming

verses on the faith-mind

by Sengtan, the third Zen Patriarch

[excerpts] presented for your contemplation:

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To deny the reality of things

is to miss their reality;

to assert the emptiness of things

is to miss their reality.

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 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.

Do not search for the truth;

only cease to cherish opinions.

Do not remain an the dualistic state;

avoid such pursuits carefully.

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 even be attached to this One.

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To live in the Great Way

is neither easy nor difficult,

but those with limited views

are fearful and irresolute:

the faster they hurry, the slower they go,

and clinging (attachment) cannot be limited;

even to be attached to the idea of enlightenment

is to go astray.

Just let things be in their own way,

and there will be neither coming nor going.

Obey the nature of things (your own nature),

and you will walk freely and undisturbed.

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If you wish to move in the One Way,

do not dislike even the world of senses and ideas.

Indeed, to accept them fully

is identical with true Enlightenment.

The wise man strives to no goals

but the foolish man fetters himself.

There is one Dharma, not many;

distinctions arise

from the clinging needs of the ignorant,

to seek Mind with the (discriminating) mind

is the greatest of all mistakes.

source and link to full poem

source

Translated from the Chinese with an introduction by Richard B. Clarke

Translator’s introduction

“What are we to say of a man’s life... of this man’s life and its relevance to us... Sengtsan, called Sosan by the Japanese? That he lived and that he died, and that such and such tales are told of him, and certain words attributed to him. His death is said to have occurred in the year six hundred and six of our counting of time. His birth date is not recorded... who after all was to know... to know what? Tao-shun does not give him a biography, only mentions him. He apparently wandered as a mendicant and during the persecution of Buddhists fled to the mountains. He is said to have been notably kind and gentle and to have come to the dropping away of all bondage and all illusion... with the help of Huike, his teacher, thus realising in himself the fullness of man’s possible light. He became the third Chinese patriarch of Zen and continued a poor wandering monk. Nothing special. And he is said to have written this piece... the Hsinhsinming, perhaps the first Chinese Zen document... tentatively translated below. The title’s first character Hsin shows a man standing by [his?] words and is often translated as faith or trust. The second Hsin depicts a heart and has come to mean heart, mind, soul, etc. and sometimes Buddhanature.

So...”

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related article: Shift-in-perception-a-real-time-report

I cannot express what I feel

born out of nothing

The roaring silence of the diamond. What do I want here on this planet as I see every view that anyone holds as true and valid. There is only emptiness as all views are conjured up by the beholder’s repertoire of images. Combinations of what each one projects as per their personal distortions. We all are fragments of perception, each from a unique standpoint. As such we do see what our individual perceptions mosaic together. It’s a living kaleidoscope and we want to give what appears in a given moment a meaning. It is as if you took thousands of frames of a film and then took one single frame and said “this is the movie”.
 

It means just what it is as the Moroccan coffee in the short glass sweet, bitter and strong. As the gaunt mother in her purple jelleba daughter on her hand, it’s the first day of the new school year, and the daughter kisses her mother’s hand. The mother approaches the table next to mine on the sidewalk and asks for the water glass for her daughter, just out of school across the street and she drinks greedily, then smiles and exclaims “Hamdullah” – thanks be to God!

I am finished dunking my spiral pudding pastry into my coffee as I am used to from Italy with their brioches. Now the sheer mountain cliff that defines the ‘Blue City’ captures my view – such a contrast to the bustle of this market street and the mountain immovable rock. Bright sunshine of autumn on the white wall with the blue trim across from the café and the deep blue sky in the space above between the roofs – yes, this planet is beautiful in so many ways and also everyone caught in the irksome mesh of their minds and thoughts.

To put my attention on which thoughts are “true” and which are “not” already means I’m caught in the mesh and as dead. To even enter in to the movement of discriminating between “this” and “that” pulls me into the abyss of identification with some aspect of manifestation. How to remain in the ‘Pure Land’? The only aliveness is free from the “knowledge” of feeling myself as one of the many objects within this manifest field that sees him/herself as a subject.

This duality of imaginary forms (that are empty of substance) deluded into believing our existence as subjects and individuals is strange and amazing. How could any fragment of consciousness engaged in this magical creation fail to appreciate how wonderful this manifest consciousness world is? Unbelievable even to entertain the notion that this is really ‘just’ a mysterious projection of electrical charges upon a screen that allows living images with names and forms to become manifest, i.e. visible and experienceable.

Therefore all that can be perceived, conceived of, imagined, thought of, or felt in any way is true: it is a true projection. Is there anything of more substance, more reality than these physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and multi-dimensional holographic projections?
Yes, and we call it “the roaring silence of the diamond of wisdom” for short. It is the awe-inspiring Absolute, which is what infuses all aliveness with Aliveness, all consciousness with Consciousness and all awareness with Awareness.

Anything that catches your fancy and seduces you to partake and consume of ‘yourself’ as part of this totality of manifest consciousness is the Absolute. It is that without form, and so we call it ‘empty’ and so any form can take on Its taste, Its perfume, Its enticing and seductive shape and texture, Its touch, Its whisper and Its siren song so sweet.
And yet the moment you lose sight of It and fall into the trance of the holographic self-hypnosis, you are lost. This being lost is so sweet, like the oblivion in your lover’s arms just after the act. And a moment (or an eon) later the craving for >>more<< returns to obsess you – you “love to be”.

Where is the freedom? The ultimate release from this bondage to form? Is it as the eternal Subject that sees Itself as all manifestation and is still free of its tethers, such as the Big-Mind state of Zen? Does that state exist for more than a split millisecond at a time? Or is it the acquiescence to this eternity of living in form, just allowing oneself to continue swimming in the River of Suchness that does not differentiate between Itself and others?

I open my eyes and am astonished and surprised at all the strange and wonderful sights that my Eye beholds. I care for all manifestation, all of this World because I know that it is conceived and born out of nothing – the “child of a barren woman” as it has been called. I am Life and I serve life. I am Time and I will always bring forth time. This Eternity is the roaring silence of the diamond. I cannot express what it is I am feeling.

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Charon

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the roaring silence of the diamond

a short excerpt from Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac

While waiting for his next freight train (the "Midnight Ghost") to jump for the ride up to L.A. Ray Smith heads out from the railroad yard in El Paso, Texas, out into the desert:

There just isn't any kind of night's sleep in the world that can compare with the night's sleep you get in the desert winter night, providing you're good and warm in a duck-down bag. The silence is so intense that you can hear your own blood roar in your ears but louder than that by far is the mysterious roar which I always identify with the roaring of the diamond of wisdom, the mysterious roar of silence itself, which is a great Shhhh reminding you of something you've seemed to have forgotten in the stress of your days since birth. I wished I could explain it to those I loved, to my mother, to Japhy, but there just weren't any words to describe the nothingness and purity of it. "Is there a certain and definite teaching to be given to all living creatures?" was the question probably asked to beetle-browed snowy Dipankara, and his answer was the roaring silence of the diamond.

source: Jack Kerouac,  Dharma Bums, p. 157 

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