In support of daily practice

If you read this, you are not practicing right now. I will return to this a bit later.

All of us sometimes experience this feeling, this knowledge, that you are not ok. Something squeezing your chest, not allowing you to take a free breath. Something you want to get rid of, which disallows you to rest freely. With or without a reason - this feeling makes many people I know unhappy. It makes them slaves to fear that this feeling can come at any moment.

What if I told you, that you can forget this feeling, this depression in one exhale? Literally, a few seconds - and you can't find a trace of it. For me personally it's enough to remember, that I didn't ever decide to worry about this depression. Not like I try to accept it or something, I just ask myself - if I never made this decision, to see bad feelings as a problem - why do I hold so fast to this aversion, support it, treat it to be myself, and try to get rid of it? What is this thing, which tells that something is wrong with me on my behalf? To ask "what is it" and to try to take a look at this thing, which whispers to my ear "I am you and you suffer" as usual is enough.

Literally, it takes 3-5 seconds or so. Next inhale is free. After these 5 seconds you can't imagine what it is - to suffer. You don't know how it feels to not be able to take a full breath, to have a concern about what the fuck to do with this crap - to get wasted or check YouTube, discord, reddit - whatever, it's not the point.

Maybe your practice, your question or method is different - that's fine, if it works. For me it's the most miraculous, wondrous and mystic thing. You are just free to live and have no concern at all. You don't need Zen, don't need Buddha, teaching, dharma, whatever - because there is nothing to apply them to - there is no no thirst to quench.

However, I moved too far from the topic. And the topic is that this "5 seconds trick" doesn't work, when I didn't practice for a several days. For me this practice is a kind of silent illumination. Just watch what happens in your mind and all the stuff vanish under your sight. Including your self. It's another topic again. When I practice regularly, this "vanish" of unpleasant feelings happens almost automatically - all day, not only in meditation. When I don't - it takes way more effort to let it work, and aftermath isn't that long.

And silent illumination works better after jhanas practice. Frankly speaking I hate this practice and I think it's stupid. I hate to sit and watch my breath. Even though some interesting things happened, like lucid dreams, and overall to experience bliss is definitely nice - it's another story again. BTW, there is a good book about the subject - "Right Concentration: A Practical Guide to the Jhanas", you can check it on Amazon - my recommendations. And there is also one site - b-ok[dot]cc, for those in a hurry.

So these jhanas bring my silent illumination back to life, they make it insightful, and the latter makes my life free. Note that Baizhang, the disciple of Mazu(Baso), the teacher of Huangbo and Linji(Rinzai) in his records, mentioned jhanas as their school practice. And note that Mazu had 100+ enlightened disciples - arguably no Zen master before or after him had more.

So what I wanted to say. I think some practices are stupid. I don't like them, from my POV it's a waste of time. But if you believe that you can reach something without some form of meditation (again whatever you practice - self inquiry, sufi dance or chanting) - most likely you are wrong.

Do your practice, if you want to be free, whatever you think about the practice. Correct it, change it (if another works better), just don't be too lazy. Otherwise some day you may not be able to breathe freely; and all you will have is time to experience it.

Submitted October 23, 2019 at 07:44PM by mojo-power https://ift.tt/35ULosR