Progress towards shikan taza

So I believe I've made great progress in my meditation recently. Had something great at the service on Saturday.

I've had all these thoughts in my head and I fight to not hold on to them. but I always hold on to them and think about them. and I know I shouldn't be fighting so hard to not hold on to them.  I also have a problem with songs rolling through my head.

So Saturday what I did was just touch every thing that came into my head. Mostly I touched things I noticed. I focused on just touching anything I noticed. I said one word to describe it and lte it go. If the bell outside rang I said bell. If someone shifted their foot I said foot. If they shrugged I said shrug, if I was slouching I said straighten as I straightened my spine, etc.

I know that naming things in this way promotes segregation which is the opposite of zen but it helped me let things to. It also helped me not have a song in my head. I meditated again that night and it didn't work out very well but I did it in my cluttered busy living room not the zendo and I only did 10 mins because I'd done an hour already that day.

I didn't get a chance to discuss it with my teachers so I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing. but when I try and focus on my breathing I can't focus only on my breathing I have all these other things I fight with. Doing this I actually got a bunch of breathing focus in.

It's Called Non-Attachment not Non-Feeling

Apparently it's starting to sink in

It's not about not enjoying things it's about not needing them. I know I've written about it in the past but today Sept 13 I've just witnessed that it is sinking in.

WTF is the Dhamma

WTF is the Dahmma

WTF is the Dhamma (you're probably more familiar with it as Dharma)
If you're Christian it's easy to tell what your religious text is. There's a book called "The Bible" and you're supposed to read it.
As a Buddhist we take refuge in the Dhamma. But I still don't know what that means 100%. The Dhamma, like the bible is the teachings of the Buddha, the words of the religion. But there's two problems with that.
First is that the Buddha's followers recognized from the moment he began speaking on his new 'middle way' that what he was saying was going to be important to people for years to come. So they vowed to preserve it, all of it. They memorised every sermon he ever gave and made him promise to repeat any sermon he ever gave when not around him. Then they set about repeating it to one another so they could all remember it. They even made sure to recite it in groups so that they knew it wouldn't get changed acientally year arfer year.
Like a religious game of telephone.

There's this thing called the tipitaka or The Pali Cannon. Pali being the language he spoke in. Essentially it contains every single sermon he spoke in 45 years. Ever word that came out of his mouth. Published in modern format it takes up 40 volumes, it's over 5 linear feet of bookshelf space and contains more than 20,000 words.

Jebus

Now there's a reason for this. One of the reasons there's so much to say is that the Buddha was very, very deliberate about tuning his speaches to the individual. So there's primarily 3 sections of the Tipitaka. Tipitaka is tip(three) taka (baskets) for the three vessels of knowledge the monks would pass from one another, the way a bucket crew passes water to extinguish a fire, in order to preserve the Dhamma.

One section is pretty much just for monks, people who wanted to lead a monastic life in order to help everyone else.
Another is for essentially the super smart. Intended for phylosiphers, drs, etc. It is apparently, haven't read a word of it, very esoteric and a bitch to understand. The longest section is for everyone else. Even it is broken up into levels depending on how deep you think you can handle it. From books like the Dhamapada which is like the easy readers guide to the Dhamma, it's tiny and really just has a bunch of short poems that say things like people who do evil deeds will feel evil hearafter. people who do good deeds will feel good hearafter.

So while there's a bazillion pages of of the Dhama even the monks aren't really required to know the whole thing.

ok, this really varies from Bhuddist school to Bhuddist school, the Tibetan monks for instance DAMN WELL expect the monks to know every word. Zen monks on the other hand could give a rat's bootie, they expect you to understand the meditation and thus yourself and thus the universe.

Buuuut it gets even wierder.

Because the stuff that's in the Pali Cannon is the really really traditional stuff that's the 'official' works for what's called Theravada Buddhism which is austensibly what was practiced from about the time of the Buddha, ~550bc, to the beginning of the common era (year 0.)

Around this time a bunch of Bhuddists looked at the bulk of Bhuddism and said "Wait a second, y'all are really getting way way to self involved, spending ALL your time in seclusion and not helping anyone but yourselves." Bhuddists have an obligation to end suffering. Not for themselves but for the whole world. At that time a few new books came about. Theoretically they are the words of the Buddha that were recorded while he was alive and hidden away for 500 years becuase we weren't ready to understand them at the time. (actual story unknown, I dont' have enough info currently to even speculate. They were guarded by dragons in another dimension for all I know.)

This was the birth of what's called Mahayana Buddhism. Mahayana Buddhism is a bit more palatable for most people and has a couple key points. It has a focus on something called a Bhodisatva. A Bhodisatva is a person who's taken a vow to not reach enlightenment on their own but to help deliver the entire world from suffering all together. The second is a good strong focus on meditation. Mahayana is the main form of Buddhism today and 99% of what we recognize is Mahayana, from Tibetan to zen.

I'm studying Zen, so now what do I do? Do I read the works of the Pali Cannon in an attempt to get 'back to basics?' Do I read the Mahayana texts since they're more applicable? Is it even better to just read the 25 million texts ABOUT Buddhism because they were written within two centuries of my birth and maybe in a language someone alive actually speaks?

It bakes my noodle.

I Trust My Wife

That's really what it comes down to. We're doing a lot better lately. See we've been a tiny bit distant for the past two years.

Not in the way that you're probably thinking.

Not in a way that most people would even notice. But I'm kinda sensitive to that sort of thing and we're very, very close. She's my best friend.

It's cheezy I know but she really is. More than she was ever a girlfriend or even more than she is my wife she is my best friend. So when we get even the tiniest bit distant I notice. then because I'm a big sissy GIRL I get all freaky about it. For the most part it hasn't been a big deal. I've been stressed at work for one reason or another for 2-4 years. Sucks but true, more on that another time. She's been getting stressed off and on for about 2 years now. Between that and kids, now a failing economy, my parents and her parents failing health. It takes it's toll.

We still do well, about a year ago someone asked us how long we were married and were completely surprised when we told them 7 years (8 now) because they said we acted like newlyweds. grshck.

Anywho then this whole religion thing happened and I created more stress. I've really been trying but I was handling this religion thing poorly when it started. Then I started saying things that distanced her. then we really were distant. Now remember how I'm a big sissy girl? So what that means is that I overreact when it comes to emotional things. When I over react in this situation I get all clingy.

The kind of distance I've been feeling I've felt before. Very shortly before the woman I was with and I separated. So when she says "We're fine, we're not going to get a divorce or anything." I had a little trouble with it. "We're fine, we're not breaking up." has been said to me before. Both time subsequently followed up with something like "I was wrong" a few months later.

But I trust my wife. I'm not saying either of them were lying to me. I'm saying they were lying to themselves. Don't think I'm blameless here. I reacted the same way all three times. I got really really realy smotheringly clingy. Which of course pushes the woman a little further from you (clingy guys take this as a lesson.) What's different is the first two times this results in a complete panick and ultimately a failure. But I trust my wife. So when she says we're fine she's not worried I believe her. What I trust is that she's being honest enough with herself. And more importantly I believe her when she says that she trusts me. So in the end I just explained all that to her, about the clingy, and the way I feel about her faith and it's relationship to mine.

Much much more on that later.

ZOMFG the death penalty

Holy fricking crap.

I just became against the death penaly.
Literally less than five minutes ago. While brushing my teeth.

No that's not entirely true I was actually flossing with my waterpick. The idea hit me about 5 minutes earlier and I tried to resist it. Hoped I'd forget.

I've been pro death penalty most of my life. I've also been against killing, wars and violence in general* for most of my life. I have, however always felt that murderers and others that wreak havoc upon our lives should be culled. Not as punishment but generally as a cleansing of the gene pool.

No really. There's something wrong with these people. Yes upbringing is a possible source but by culling them off the way you would kill a cancer you A) Remove a source of the phsycopath gene from the gene pool and B) Show others that it's a BAD IDEA.
Now I understand global harmony and I love the idea and want the idea but the murderers are a current problem and global harmony is a future solution that we** are working towards.

But that's really the problem with the death penalty right there. It's just like your diet, or that reading you want to do or the excercise you should do, the gardening, the time with your kids.

It's always some day isn't it?

Some day.

But we all know some day doesn't come. It's bullshit. Some day is never today, it's always some day, out there, some place we look at. It's a dream, a lie.

It's bullshit.

And it won't be real until we make it real. It won't be real until we decide 'Fuck it!' Some day is today! So how will we heal the world if we don't start?

I know, I know, it's so much easier the other way. After all they're BAD PEOPLE. They really are. It's so much easier to want them punished. But that's like curing cancer by smoking. It sows the seeds of hate. Yes, more murderers are out there and more will come but how will we stop hate if we don't start? How will we end death if we don't start?

I'm such a fucking hippie some times.
sigh.

It was so much easier the other way. This is going to be hard. I don't like this idea but it's right.

Well, off to finish the evening with some Zazen. Maybe I should quit. This is the crap that's giving me this new clarity and all it's crappy revalations. ^_-


*except in sports conexts like martial arts.
** most of us.