Sitting.

For anyone wanting to understand how the form of sitting in meditation relates and doesn't relate to Zen, this is a great story.

During the K'ai-yuan period of T'ang Dyansty (713-742) Mazu was practicing samadhi at Ch'uan-fa Monastery in Heng-yueh. There he met Venerable Hua-jang, who immediately recognized him as a Dharma-vessel. Huai-jang asked him, "Why are you sitting in meditation?"

Mazu replied, "Because I want to become a Buddha." Thereupon Huai-jang took a brick and started to polish it in front of the Mazu's hermitage. Mazu asked, "Why are you polishing that brick?"

Huai-jang replied, "Because I want to make a mirror."

Mazu asked, "How can you make a mirror by polishing a brick?"

Huai-jang said, "If I cannot make a mirror by polishing a brick, how can you become a Buddha by sitting in meditation?"

Mazu asked, "Then what shall I do?"

Huai-jang asked, "When an ox-carriage stops moving, do you hit the carriage or the ox?" Mazu had no reply. Huai-jang continued, "Are you practicing to sit in meditation, or practicing to sit like a Buddha? As to sitting in meditation, meditation is neither sitting nor lying. As to sitting like a Buddha, the Buddha has no fixed form. In the non-abiding Dharma, one should neither grasp nor reject. If you try to sit like a Buddha, you are just killing the Buddha. If you attach to the form of sitting, you will never realize the principle."

Upon hearing this Mazu felt as if he had tasted ghee. He bowed and asked, "How should one's mind be so that it will accord with the formless samadhi?"

Huai-jang said, "Your study of the teaching of the mind-ground is like planting a seed. My teaching of the essentials of the Dharma is like heaven bestowing rain. Because you have natural affinity, you will perceive the Way."

Mazu also asked, "The Way is without form; how can it be perceived?"

Huai-jang said, "The dharma-eye of the mind-ground can perceive the Way. It is the same with the formless samadhi."

Mazu asked, "Is that still subject to becoming and decay?"

Huai-jang said, "If you see the Way through such concepts as becoming and decay, meeting and parting, then you do not truly see the Way. Listen to my verse:

The mind ground contains various seeds,
Which with rain will come to sprout.
The flower of samadhi is formless,
How can it decay or become."

Mazu was awakened and his mind become detached. He stayed to serve Huai-jang for ten years, gradually deepening his understanding of the profound mystery.

...

Mazu came to this conversation with natural affinity; he genuinely wanted to become a Buddha and was sitting of his own volition (based on his intellectual understanding of the Way.) This conversation begins with Mazu's sitting and his teacher shows him that true samadhi is not sitting or lying down but is formless. That is NOT a rejection of the sitting that Mazu was doing; it's an expansion or transcendence of it, and, ultimately, a detaching from it.

Here's a question: Since Samadhi is formless couldn't he have been doing another practice than sitting? Meaning, what is it that makes something into a practice? What is the essence of what Mazu had going into this conversation, either intrinsically or was doing overtly, that made him a dharma-vessel?

Submitted August 01, 2016 at 06:38PM by tostono http://ift.tt/2ac4mSH