The opening paragraphs of Roshi O’Hara’s essay articulates the primary place so many meditators get stuck: thinking meditation is merely about the mind! Joko Beck once described zazen as “exquisitely physical,” and Dogen’s emphasis on posture in the Fukanzazengi, the root manual of Soto Zen meditation makes this clear!
Roshi speaks about feeling/thinking of her mind as some kind of balloon floating over the body. Years ago, I used to think that most of the students coming to my classes lived from the neck up. Nowadays, I think it’s more accurate to say that most of us living today live from our eyebrows up!
The phrase, “body and mind dropped away” can be confusing to those new to “Zen speak.” I remember when I first heard the phrase, I interpreted it to be a reference to some trance-out state of numbness with no sensation of the body and no mental activity. This is why I am grateful that Roshi provides a clear example of what she means by “body and mind dropped away” at the bottom of page 32 into the top of page 33: “The dropping away of all concept of body and mind is like a distorting lens falling away and what is left is a realization that I am the snow, the ice, the earth and sky, while I have not stopped being myself.” I offer a similar example of this in my book, Mindfulness Yoga, where I describe the “dropping away of body and mind” in a hatha-class, where I was the sound of the teacher’s instructions, the music she was playing, the audible ujjayi breath of us students, etc. This experience is most certainly not the blocking or suppression of body and mind.
We all use words, concepts, and there is nothing inherently ‘wrong’ with words and concepts. Our error is in forgetting that we are using them, and so they begin to ‘use’ us. Contemplate any weather related sentence: “It’s raining today,” “It’s really windy,” “It looks like it’ll be a sunny day,” etc. What exactly is the “It” that we are talking about? Is there really a subject separate from the rain, the wind, the sunshine? This is no different from the situation of using words such as “I,” “Me,” and “mine.” All serious practice comes down to “What is this ‘you?’”
The Korean Seon (Zen) Master, Chinul, would often exhort his students to ‘trace the radiance back.’ Illuminate the self to become clear about the nature of this ‘self.’ When you go beyond the labels you use to identify ‘yourself,’ (man or woman, teacher, poet, carpenter, liberal, conservative, white, black, yellow, Buddhist, Christian, atheist etc. etc.) what is left?
At the bottom of page 36, Roshi speaks of jijuyu samadhi, the samadhi of union. Many practitioners seek such a state, and don’t realize that striving for it can keep it from arising. But then, as she writes, “there is often an odd and surprisingly pleasant, joyful, and energetic feeling that arises. It is likely that in several tiny time spaces between effort and distraction there were moments of dropping away. The effort and distraction were never necessary, only the willingness to practice as it is.” These “drops of emptiness,” as Thich Nhat Hanh calls them, are indeed blissful moments of clarity, energy and joy. Over time, “we” find ourselves ‘dropping into’ such a natural state with greater ease and frequency.
Not to seem a killjoy, but the danger here is in becoming attached to this state of bliss; this state where body and mind drop into pure play. There are spiritual traditions that more or less drop us here and leave it at that. Roshi speaks for the Zen tradition in saying that this is not yet full freedom. As Chinul said, “It is not enough to be awakened; we must live an awakening life.” From here, we must step out and manifest the Body of Peace in all ten directions and nine times. The image Zen presents is the yogi who comes down from the mountain peak and enters fully into the market place. And goodness knows, the market place needs those who, having dropped body and mind, have seen through the delusion of separateness, and understand that we are all in this together! There is no way that your practice can be for yourself alone. Thinking that possible is itself based upon thinking you are encapsulated in the fathom-long skin bag.
So, thank you for your practice.
Metta,
Poep Sa Frank Jude
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ReplyDeleteHey Frank
ReplyDeleteI've been reading a fab book 'Balance of Body, Balance of Mind' by a Rolfer/Meditator called Will Johnson. Johnson offers a wonderful experiment in asking one to describe ones hand. The conceptual arises 'I have five fingers, a palm e.t.c' which is of course true but then to close ones eyes and then describe the hand, this is an awakening experience. One experiences the impermanent, vital experience of bodily fluctuation,sensations, that are inseparable from the environment in which the hand is.
In teaching Yoga I often invite myself and my students to 'Listen with our bodies, not thinking about what we are feeling but sensing and feeling it.' This really is a wonderous experience to move beyond concepts to a direct experience of the body, of reality. To dwell within and from this sensitive awakened body.....
Am going to re-read the chapter as I read it a while ago and return to post. There were images within it that really spoke to me. Back soon....
Rosie
Hmmmm.....I find myself returning to a prior reflection on 'both internal and external' and how important this reflection is.
ReplyDeleteOne of the transitions that I have made in the last years is from 'my' practice, focused on working with ‘myself’ and processing stuff to 'thIS' practice, an open, inclusive approach to whatever is in front of me. This change in orientation means that my existence becomes semi-permeable. I affect and am affected by the world I am in. Practice becomes about being attuned to and sensitised to what life is.....
Roshi speaks of the 'ceremonies of everyday life', I love this, life as art, craft.... practice a refinement of ones capacity to be an articulate instrument of this life. ‘The fletcher whittles his arrow….’
I looked up ceremony on my computer dictionary, which I love as it gives one the roots of words. This is what it said:
ORIGIN late Middle English : from Old French ceremonie or Latin caerimonia ‘religious worship,’ (plural) ‘ritual observances.’
I do err on the ‘religious’ side I guess, I am in awe at the mystery of it all. As Tagore wonderfully says in one of his marvelous poems, ‘The mystery remains dumb’. I am not so interested in filling in the gaps, filling the dumbness or silence, but I am happy to dwell in awe and to surrender as best I can to the ‘life of the boat’. I love this image from Zogen, of the boat and the waves, ‘dropping the separation between boat and sailor, going directly to the life of the boat’ reminds me of part of a poem by Juan Ramon Jimenez, ‘Oceans’:
I have a feeling that my boat
has struck, down there in the depths,
against a great thing.
And nothing
happens!
Nothing….Silence….Waves…
It has taken a while for me to begin to play with this, that the sacred, the ceremony is in the washing up, folding laundry, the compost heap and all those other smelly, ‘mundane’ places that life asks me to be within, working patiently with ‘other’ peoples loud conversations on mobile phones on the bus – separation, until I recognize that these sounds are in me, what do I do with them???? This is where my practice is, these are the waves…… this is the boat… I love Merton’s description of ‘ this experience as no longer being involved in the measurement of ones life “but in the living of it.’
Bliss…aah the joy of a smile, the beauty of words, the taste of a good meal……..Not some transcendental ideal somewhere else, beyond this life, but the radiant nowness of this life, the gravity and the grace.
WIth gratitude Rosie
Hi Rosie!
ReplyDeleteI LOVE Will Johnson's work. In fact, his book, "The Posture of Meditation" is a big influence on the program I teach called "Body of Peace." The exercise you describe is similar to something I have my students do whenever I introduce the Second Foundation of Mindfulness: Feelings. In our culture, the word "feelings" is often used as a synonym for "emotion," but the word the Buddha used (vedana) actually refers to both the physical sensation AND the hedonic or felt-sense. For instance, when I place my hand in a bowl of ice water, the sensation of cold and the pleasure or discomfort I experience are all part of 'feeling.' Emotion is more accurately understood as an aspect of the Third Foundation.
SO, what I have them do is sit with their eyes closed and with their hands palm down on their thighs. I ask them to spend some time connecting with how it feels to sit there, physically and energetically. THEN, while paying attention, I ask them to turn their palms up. Again, I invite them to really tune in to what they are feeling. And then again I invite them to turn their palms down.
When asked if they felt a difference, they of course nod their heads (often enthusiastically) and then share the gamut of feelings from 'open,' 'light,' 'spacious,' and 'vulnerable' for palms up to 'heavy,' 'dull,' 'grounded,' 'stable' with palms down. It's a quick way for them to get the felt sense of experience and it clarifies the distinction between feelings and emotions.
As for the ceremonies of daily life, that is a bit of what I am hoping will gradually come across with the monthly "Daily Practices" that I am offering here through this blog. John Daido Loori called it the 'liturgies of daily life.' I loved that because so many folk are reactive to religious terminology -- perhaps mainly because they separate it so from daily life -- yet as Daido often explained, we all have our own personal and social liturgies. Even the "seventh inning stretch" at a baseball game can be seen as a social liturgical movement.
Again, thanks for your thoughtful comments!
metta
frank jude
This chapter has really resonated for me. I keep going back and re-reading parts of it. I especially am drawn to the idea of body and mind dropping away "naturally". What is left is the "wholeness of life right here." I want to incorporate that practice with the October daily practice. Just sitting with my drink and experiencing the "wholeness of life right here".
ReplyDeleteHi Susan
ReplyDeleteI love your post...Body and Mind dropping away became so clear to me as I read it......morning.....cup......steam......lemon.....sensations of contact......breath.........sounds........mmmmm
And Frank....Yes, feeling and emotion, it's interesting reflecting on words, the words that we've inherited, the world views and ideologies embedded within them, and how in teaching one needs to refine ones use of words, to be able to articulate with clarity. Experiential practises like the one you've kindly shared with us offer a direct and immediate way to communicate that's beyond words.....words and beyond words......the words and the conceptual world that they deliver can steal our experience if we are not aware.....curious,open,receptive...
I want to share that I am receiving so much from the sharing and the sharings on this blog. It is a beautiful practise and one of the eight limbs I believe Svadhyaya.
I'm off to my ceremonial morning drink :0) What a blessing...
Thank you Rosie
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ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this essay, most of my prior exposure to Zen was from Japanese Soto sources (Suzuki Roshi and heirs, Joko Beck).
ReplyDeleteI read it twice and, as usual, was confused by the seeming contradiction of the teaching. On the surface the essay discusses feeling pure sensation without the extra mental activity of labeling the what/where. However, Roshi starts by describing Dogen's detailed instructions for how to sit zazen, but then tells the story of Mazu (sitting zazen for its own sake, "Buddha has no fixed form"), and finally the comment that "the mind is not telling the body to perform in any way". Clearly there is effort to sit upright in zazen, or otherwise we would do shavasana, so how can this be?
But then I was reminded of a recent insight from our dharma discussions, that perhaps this teaching is not a "way to do/be" but a "way to see", that is I am not trying to change my self/behavior (learning a new way to act), I am changing my perspective (or a "change in orientation" as Rosie calls it above), dropping the conceptual differentiation between body and mind. As Roshi says of Mazu's revelation, "It is not the body, it is not the mind; it is you". My initial understanding of the essay's title was of dropping concepts around body, dropping concepts around mind, but implicit in those "separate" activities is dropping the distinction between body and mind. Without that distinction, then body cannot tell mind what to do. Is this "right understanding"?
Matt,
ReplyDeleteFirst, as you point out in your first paragraph, there IS effort it sitting upright. And yet, sitting zazen 'for it's own sake' is also there, understood as the manifestation of one's 'buddha-nature.' Suzuki Roshi would often say that when the 'form' is right, one has the right state of mind; that there is no special state we seek to attain.
This relates to your second paragraph and your question. I think it 'endearing,' to use Roshi O'Hara's word, that you echo Mazu's own question, "What then is right?" AND, I have to echo Nanyue's response and further question "Do you hit the cart or the ox?" What is the cart? Is the body the cart? Is it perhaps the mind? What would happen if you hit the cart? Are ox and cart two?
These are questions we are meant to sit with, to see through to less some answer or solution than a resolution. In Sanskrit, it's a paravritti, and in Greek a metanoia: a turning (revolution) in the mind/of the mind. And again, what and how might that happen. A Zen priest I know once said that in Zen, the teaching/practice is often to change what we do, and in so doing, we eventually change how we think. Change your mind? Change your activity? Are these two?
I was feeling a bit confused about mind and body dropping away at first, but my understanding of it now is that these words describe the fundamental state of non-duality. Reading the paragraph where Roshi describes her walk in the snowy woods seemed to clarify things a bit for me. When her foot broke through the ice to the muddy ground beneath, she also broke through her commonly held perceptions of reality to a state of oneness with her surroundings. Matt's comment about the conceptual differentiation between mind and body, sparked the thought that "dropping away" might also be the dissolution of our personal concept of self as separate from all else. The differnces between answer and solution or resolution is very helpful for me.
ReplyDeleteI am so looking forward to this month's daily practice! I continuing with my morning and evening gathas and am finding, as you said, frank jude, that if we work with this over time, it can be transformative. I don't think that I'm transformed yet but after sort of an awkward beginning with these recitations, it's starting to feel like a solid foundational practice.
Thank you,frank jude and Rosie for mentioning Will Johnson's work in such a positive light. I have now ordered his book, Mahamudra.
Judith
"When you go beyond the labels you use to identify ‘yourself,’ (man or woman, teacher, poet, carpenter, liberal, conservative, white, black, yellow, Buddhist, Christian, atheist etc. etc.) what is left?"
ReplyDeleteI think, what is left is a gentle and resounding YES, an awesome expansiveness and an outpouring of love and gratitude. All without words, of course, just feeling and being. As Roshi said: "I have not stopped being myself," yet myself is not separate either in this experience of dropping away.
I have had such experiences a few times, most recently in shavasana at the end of a yoga class. For a long time after the first time, I kept wanting, wanting that experience again and feeling somehow wanting for not "getting" it. And also questioning whether it was really real what I experienced or just a figment of my imagination. And certainly, Frank, as you say, that "wanting" got in the way of any dropping away again.
Actually, I think it was in one of your mindfulness yoga classes at Tucson Yoga that I came to see that I was grasping after this dropping-away experience, and really to begin to understand the whole notion of grasping. And to start examining how I do that -- boy, do I ever! -- in my daily life.
I also like what Roshi says about pain, moving toward it and investigating it rather than trying to block it out. I have chronic pain and this is a very helpful suggestion for me.
But I had to laugh, too, because my feet and legs tend to fall asleep if I sit for a while, and in the beginning of my meditation practice, I would get so angry and frustrated (at my own feet!) and try to do exactly like the dharma student she talks about: "obliterate the bottom half of (my) body." Then I went to a sit where the dharma teacher addressed just that issue: What to do when you experience persistent pain while sitting in meditation, and it is impossible to focus on the breath. He suggested several things, but the one that struck me was: make the sensations the focus of your meditation. I had never thought of that before, but I have used that in my practice and it is a great teacher.
Anyway, I am one of the folks who is new to "Zen speak," as you put it, so this article was hard for me to understand at first. The discussion here has helped me get much more out of my rereadings of it.
"When you go beyond the labels you use to identify ‘yourself,’ (man or woman, teacher, poet, carpenter, liberal, conservative, white, black, yellow, Buddhist, Christian, atheist etc. etc.) what is left?"
ReplyDeleteI think, what is left is a gentle and resounding YES, an awesome expansiveness and an outpouring of love and gratitude. All without words, of course, just feeling and being. As Roshi said: "I have not stopped being myself," yet myself is not separate either in this experience of dropping away.
I have had such experiences a few times, most recently in shavasana at the end of a yoga class. For a long time after the first time, I kept wanting, wanting that experience again and feeling somehow wanting for not "getting" it. And also questioning whether it was really real what I experienced or just a figment of my imagination. And certainly, Frank, as you say, that "wanting" got in the way of any dropping away again.
Actually, I think it was in one of your mindfulness yoga classes at Tucson Yoga that I came to see that I was grasping after this dropping-away experience, and really to begin to understand the whole notion of grasping. And to start examining how I do that -- boy, do I ever! -- in my daily life.
I also like what Roshi says about pain, moving toward it and investigating it rather than trying to block it out. I have chronic pain and this is a very helpful suggestion for me.
But I had to laugh, too, because my feet and legs tend to fall asleep if I sit for a while, and in the beginning of my meditation practice, I would get so angry and frustrated (at my own feet!) and try to do exactly like the dharma student she talks about: "obliterate the bottom half of (my) body." Then I went to a sit where the dharma teacher addressed just that issue: What to do when you experience persistent pain while sitting in meditation, and it is impossible to focus on the breath. He suggested several things, but the one that struck me was: make the sensations the focus of your meditation. I had never thought of that before, but I have used that in my practice and it is a great teacher.
Anyway, I am one of the folks who is new to "Zen speak," as you put it, so this article was hard for me to understand at first. The discussion here has helped me get much more out of my rereadings of it.
Mary,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comments. The idea of making the sensations the focus of your meditation is what I mean (quoting Thich Nhat Hanh) by seeing the feeling as your 'crying baby.' Only a dysfunctional parent hears the baby crying and turns away -- or perhaps even worse, pushes the baby away! Yet, this is often what we do with unpleasant experience.
So, the practice becomes one of embracing the baby, embracing our feeling with mindfulness. Then we can investigate the nature of the feeling. Otherwise, in trying to cut ourselves off from the feeling, we perform what Thich Nhat Hanh calls "psychic amputation!"
I'm glad our discussion helped clarify the "zen speak!" :-)
Frank Jude, thanks for your comments, I have been practicing with this seeking/grasping over the past week. It is alarming how pervasive it is in my actions and interactions, and that it is ultimately rooted in a selfish quest for some sort of gratification or sense of security. I suppose the "resolution" is an end to this seeking, perhaps by turning-in the mind to watch the seeking.
ReplyDeletethis chapter was so easy to read and filled with so many ideas and experiences that i have had but have not bee able to put into words...i actually have been reading on the subway for the past few weeks, there is such humanity and understanding and compassion that i feel in it. As i read this i thought, this would have been great to read when i first started on this journey. for me it echos all the thoughts i had back then AND STILL HAVE WHO AM I KIDDING!! the part about being upstate and walking through the snow "my whole being lets go" reminds me of last week i was in yoga doing asana when i looked up at the sky and it was sunset and i felt my whole body become the sunset and the sunset become me, and somewhere in my mind i thought "aha this is what she was writing about, exactly! The par tin which she writes about hitting the cart or the ox she offers another fantastic way to think about the mind/body oneness. Frank your point about words using us is so right on, geez how many times i have said i feel a certain way and then BAM! i am that way, when I am not that way at all, and that way changes each moment, we really have to pick our words carefully, which makes me think that yeah mindfulness and yoga are not just something that happens on the mat but every moment...
ReplyDeletewith much gratitude to you frank , again for starting me on this journey, and to all of you for your thoughts
Matt: Interestingly enough, while in Montreal, a related conversation about "spiritual seeking" arose among several friends. In response to the whole idea of creating an identity around "seeking" (as in "I've been a seeker all my life") some Zen teacher (we couldn't remember who) said, "And when are you going to stop this seeking?" The tricky thing is, if you 'stop the seeking' as a strategy to 'get something' or 'somewhere,' it's still seeking!
ReplyDeleteSara: Thanks for your sharing. Just remember, as she writes, we mustn't get caught in these experiences!
metta