On Death and Matters of Spiritual Practice

Friends, Romans, countrymen — and zennists! — lend me your ears.

I'm not looking to dispute Zen doctrine. I come at you with a sincere heart, so please listen.

I believe what I'm about to say is somewhat related to the Buddhist philosophy. There's only one reason why one seeks: suffering. When fully involved in life, you are not compelled to question your own existence, because the experiences are enough. You are in a state of contentment (forgetting you're gonna turn blue and die one day!)

Life is made good from experiences (stimuli). So all is stimuli (family, nature, society, this forum, bright lights, talking, going out, dating, having fun). Except for eating, shitting, having sex, sleeping, which are activities of the survival order, all else is stimuli.

So the sage or whatever realizes that all stimuli passes, in other words, all appearances are temporary. So one is to find that which isn't temporary. The Buddhists of old (even Bodhidharma) tried this by meditating. Why keep chasing clouds? I suffer, then I'll just freaking stop doing things altogether: choosing a sort of homeostasis, a stabilization that is immutable.

Well now, having stabilished this ground, I ask of you, dilligent practitioners of Zen doctrine: is the lack of stimuli the death of the heart? Because to do spiritual practice like the sages (and Buddhist monks) of old and just zazen, vipassana, wall stare etc. all day looks like indifference to me. To meditate is to train indifference.

And therefore, this being the truth, is there no escape then from the sufferings of the world? Or one is entangled in earthly matters, attatched to the bone, or one is a dying, wall staring zombie? Suffering makes one rise above his current state of mind, to question himself and his existence. It must be then that happiness I mentioned in the beggining of my post is stimuli, and also temporary. One reaches a stage in life when he's forced to inquire into deeper aspects of existence, meditate and become... indifferent?

Is spiritual practice death training?

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"Both the whip and the line which you have used to train the ox have become unnecessary. The person who was awakened and the Dharma to which the person was awakened have all turned into emptiness. All have been swept away leaving not a speck of dust. [...] No matter what you are doing, go straight into the samadhi of Mu, die cleanly and then do it. It is because you are still trying to save some breath that you fail. You must throw your life away, then there is no self that remains; not even so much as the tip of a hair's worth of self remains. Not even the Mu! that you have been working on remains. There is neither training hall nor sanzen, just an empty mirror, honed and polished. Not even that remains."

Lectures on the Ten Oxherding Pictures, Yamada Mumon Roshi (Zen Master)

Of course, someone is gonna come and say this guy isn't a zen master yada yada which will miss my point entirely and waste my effort writing this post. Just a little prediction here. I know this guy isn't your legit zen master. The guy is part of the Zen Buddhist religion or whatever. I just quoted him to illustrate the idea.

Submitted February 05, 2020 at 06:47PM by costabueno1 https://ift.tt/2OthqoU