stirling

Funny... I was all set to answer your original post then noticed the date! As both a Dzogchenpa and Zen teacher, open awareness is 100% my "thing". Where there is clean, clear, still, present awareness there is naturally emptiness that wells forth with no necessary direction or technique. In the two traditions I have trained in there IS no other practice necessary, in fact (as Dogen, father of Soto Zen says) resting in open awareness IS actualizing enlightenment.

What tradition are you working in? In Tibetan Buddhism siddhis are consider to be of two types: ordinary siddhis (like those in your list) and the supreme or uncommon siddhi (enlightenment). Do you mind if I ask if the supreme siddhi is also present in your experience, and (if so) was that before or after the others became available? Also, what are some examples of how these things manifest? I am not in any way intending to catch you out or trick you, do not doubt you, and inquire in complete earnestness and kindness. If a private message seems a better route, I'm fine with that. My personal experience is of having the supreme siddhi, but not the others so much as they are described, though "spontaneous materialization" of a sort is constant.

In Buddhism teachings come at different levels - relative and absolute: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_truths_doctrine#:~:text=In Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā the,convention and an ultimate truth. Ultimately relative teachings are not true, but are used as a scaffolding to build understanding. Reincarnation and karma are both relative teachings, and do not point to anything ultimately real, or permanent. Just as in Buddhism, daoist realization is seeing through the delusions of these relative ideas.

The only thing I could find about Zuckerberg and any religious practice was this: https://qz.com/876574/facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-says-hes-no-longer-an-atheist Generally speaking, it doesn't require faith exactly.

There is (at least) a 3rd (4th?) order: There are those who realize that this moment is the only REAL moment (and that "time", "self" and "space" are conceptual only) and that what occurs in this moment happens without any purpose except what it arises with right NOW, and don't project a delusion of a past or future on to it.

It does seem subjective, until it is your experience. I'm glad the idea was irritating enough to make you comment. I am not urging anyone to blindly accept this idea, but instead to explore it carefully in as unbiased a manner as possible for you. You may find your concreted ideas don't allow you to explore it without correcting you constantly, in which case it may be a waste of time to take it further. If you find you are able the idea, I would examine (preferably in meditation where the playing field is much flatter): Is my memory of the past unique, or does everybody have the same experience of it, (is it entirely subjective)? Can I be present in the past, or is it always recalled in memory? Experientially, does this moment seem have a more legitimate reality, and if so, how or why? How does this all relate to Zhuang Zi? This was over a month ago and the quote has inexplicably disappeared, along with my memory, so I can't illuminate you. Funny how these things work, eh? Wondering aloud, but I wonder why young Robert decided that his posting needed to be deleted...

It is probably too much to go into here, but the part that isn't "love and light" is OURS, just as karma is ours. In the popular story of the Buddha, Mara isn't evil if you look at it properly. Mara shows the Buddha where his attachments lie, and he realizes that he is no longer a "self" that has attachment or aversion to them.

Dark retreat is a Tibetan Buddhist practice, but more intense and less "alpha male". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_retreat There are generally visits from Buddhas of both friendly and "wrathful" persuasions, but it would be a misunderstanding to think that either are "evil" or demons... all manifestations compassionate.

Ah... good. Perhaps if encounter each other someday. You should try it if you haven't. This is what Zazen gets up and walks around means. This whole passage about the bath powder/water/ball is part of the instructions for attaining first jhana. If you are following the instructions properly you are a world away from Zazen or Shikantaza. The object in this case is either piti or sukkha (I forget which) rather open awareness, and appears voluntary and intentional to the practitioner. Are you familiar with jhana (concentrations) practice? Stages being the operative word here. What we are looking for is not something temporary, right? Fantastic news, sensei! We might have had this conversation before... The hara isn't a topic of conversation or practice mentioned in Soto Zen. It isn't necessary to complete the great work. If the intention of Buddhism is to help sentient beings cross the river, I'd say that it is doing that wherever practitioners are dedicated and have access to teachers with insight, here, Japan or wherever. There are many ways in, but seeing the emptiness (cessation) of phenomena either through self, space, or time is always in the mix. As I've said before seeing through "determinate" thought would be to see that thoughts arise of their own accord, not from "self". This is where the practice of watching thoughts arise and pass comes from. Resting the mind in emptiness (prajnaparamita) how the Buddha said Avolokiteshvajra found it: Why is the Heart Sutra so popular in Zen? Because it is the sutra that best aligns with the practice of Zazen and Shikantaza. Prajnaparamita IS resting the mind in stillness... emptiness. Beautiful. I had a number of summers there in a house across the late from Konoctai (sp?). Caught the largest catfish I have ever seen there as a teen.

His entire quote is: https://nyoho.com/2018/09/15/no-struggle-zazen-yojinki-part-6/ It's not YOUR mind that chooses where attention goes. You don't OWN a mind and never have. This is an experiment to show that where attention is, MIND (awareness) is. It is not in your control. You do not direct attention... it is not YOUR will about what happens, but the will of the dharmakaya/unity/enlightened mind. Letting go of the idea that YOU are in charge of what comes to the focus of awareness IS a way in. My bolds. In my opinion, Mr. Franz is giving a very nice INTRODUCTORY instruction in basic Zazen here. What is given here does NOT reflect the instruction for true resting in the nature of mind. Having said that, I was able to find an instruction from Mr. Franz that has a clearer instruction for zazen you might find interesting: MY italics and bolds. https://nyoho.com/2013/04/07/an-attempt-at-instructions-for-zazen/ The delusion is that these are separate parts. There AREN'T any parts. Zazen is the fabric of everything when it is seen and actualized in this moment. There ARE no moving parts when Zazen is realized in its wholeness. A breath taken is the entirety of Zazen breathing in... a breath out is the entirety of Zazen breathing out. NO separation. Interesting, but not Zen OR Tripitaka. I wouldn't advise anyone get lost in there. Breath, like all phenomena takes care of itself. Is your heart beat in your purview, or does it happen regardless? The dharmakaya arises and passes of its own accord without your will, moment to moment. Your attention arises in your hands, legs, the call of a bird, the spray of a boat on the lake, the sunset, whatever. It is not really at your directive. No doer. No self. This is not the way of Zen, unless you consider that one-pointed concentration to be the open-ended experience of the whole field of experience. This is a different practice system. ? Insight IS PRECISELY that piercing.That is point of insight in ALL Buddhist teachings. Insight, realization, IS first-hand experience... it IS complete understanding of how things are. Cessation isn't just of the breath, it is of the delusion of "self". No-self IS the primary understanding of the Tripitaka teachings, and the entry into the Mahayana teachings. I'm fine with you disagreeing with me, and respect to your personal view as well. Be cautious of faith in your own version of the teaching and be careful not to mistake it for dharma. Without insight, I pieced together my own ideas about these things years ago, born of picking and choosing what makes "sense" (what resonated) to me, but in the end discovered that my ideas were ALL wrong. It DOES! Ultimately there is no-one thinking, feeling and perceiving. These are the peripheral understandings of no-self. Clear Lake?

Right. The teachings of the tripitaka and Zen are two very different traditions based on the same premises but taught by different buddhas from two VERY different "turnings of the wheel of dharma". These are two different approaches to the same problem, BOTH valid and internally consistent in their own traditions. In Vajrayana there is the practice of guru yoga, a visualization which includes merging with various buddhas. Is this a valid practice? I think so... it makes sense when explained in the context of its own tradition. Did the buddha teach it, and does it really fit in the tripitaka suttas or practices? I don't think so, but it is completely in keeping with the teachings of its tradition. I haven't read anything Koun Franz has said outside of what you posted, and honestly hadn't heard of him before that. In this context, I'm not sure I know what he is talking about. Is he your teacher? I don't think they do. If everyone knew where they REALLY were (samsara), wouldn't more people find a reason to practice? In opinion Dogen is referencing finding practice in this moment. My experience is that almost no-one finds practice moment-to-moment, or has the insight to rest in non-meditation. No-one NEEDS to find their way, but some are driven to transform their experience of this moment... those people bring awareness to as many moments of their day as they can. "I" is no longer present in experience. Place and time drop away too. Without mind and body there is just awareness and watching the arising and passing away of the dharmakaya and its ocean of "ornaments of emptiness". Mind drops away like self, space, and time. Mind is always a delusion. Look for yourself. Is mind there if you don't label it mind, or is there just awareness... beingness? This is the essence of nirodha. That is an interesting perspective, but I don't think it is what most people regard enlightenment or shikantaza as being. In the Four Noble Truths, the 3rd is nirodha, or "cessation". Nirodha leads to nirvana, the end of suffering. Why is the realization of no-self conceptually linked to nirvana? Because the experience of mind and body are the entry level prerequisites. Realizing that there is no "doer" is great, but it comes from the larger insight of no-self, it doesn't replace it and it would impossible to supersede it. No-self includes a never-ending array of follow-on insights, amongst which seeing through doership is but one. There are a number of teachers at Jikoji, at Zen Center, and a great number of Buddhist teachers in places all over the world that understand enlightenment directly. All of my teachers have had direct experience, and I have met many more that aren't that also have. There might even be one in your town. I remember your emphasis on this point. This is quite different from my experience with the teachers or texts of Soto Zen, or Buddhism in general. Taking it right back to the Four Noble Truths, the path is essentially recognizing that there is struggle/suffering in life and learning to practice until cessation/emptiness (nirodha) is recognized, then practicing resting in that cessation as often as possible. See above.

I disagree. One-pointedness is a tripitaka convention - ekaggata. This is not the same as a Zen practice, it comes from a different intention and viewpoint. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ekaggata The fundamental point Dogen refers to is to "actualize" enlightenment in our practice. The way to do this is to rest in the nature of mind in our meditation without an object. Sitting with the mind quiet and still IS actualization of enlightenment. I asked Ian Forsberg (Kobun student and brown robe) in dokusan during a sesshin, "What is the difference between the mind in shikantaza and enlightened mind?". His answer, "No difference". This is shikantaza, or "just sitting". In shikantaza there IS no object... it is no-pointed. This doesn't involve in contrived way of being or technique. It isn't anything like watching the breath, or focusing attention, it is taking in the entire field of experience and being present with it.

Mark, NaturaNaturans asks: Your answer didn't seem to cover that from what I could tell. Well... yeah. It's a very different type of instruction than what the Buddha would give in the tripitaka. It is an instruction to rest in "emptiness" without any techniques or mental manipulation. Emptiness as a concept that doesn't really appear in the early works of Buddhism EXCEPT in the limited form of "no-self" and in the full implications of "dependent origination". Only the Bahiya sutta suggests the wholeness of what it might mean. To realize "no-self" is an important moment, but to realize "emptiness" is a whole other kettle of fish.

I've sat in that zendo with a number of Kobun's transmitted students and my experience was that they would ALL agree that it is fine to come in a little late (but sit just outside the zendo), fine to sit in a posture that allows you to be comfortable, even in a chair or on a bench (my late teacher finished her last sit there before her death laying on her side). Ian Forsberg (Kobun's student) called the sitting "family style" - recognizing the humanness we bring to our sitting, but the dedication it takes to just BE there. Remember, this is the middle-way! If you are sitting, and have taken your boddhisattva vow you are a hero, sitting for all beings. You are too hard on yourself. If it is hard there is too much "I" sitting with you. You can "just sit" anywhere, at any time. Zazen can find you standing in the forest, riding a bike, or shaving your face. It is about 100% awake presence, and a relaxed body/mind (rupakaya). Suzuki said "This is it" because it is always right here, not just when you have the right place to sit, or the right body to sit in, or the right text to explain it. It isn't any of those things. If it is complicated you are not "actualizing the fundamental point".

How does this lay bare the thinker, observer, or source of thoughts?

In Buddhism there are 6 "sense doors". They are comprised of the 5 conventional senses and one more, the thinking "mind". The thinking "mind" takes the input from the other sense and constructs what we take for reality out of it all. However, if we learn to look from an unbiased position we can learn to say that our exaltation of this storyteller is misguided. When observed from the still, quiet mind in meditation thoughts are just like any other phenomena. They arise where they are in consciousness and pass into nothingness. They have no exalted or special place. They are not who or what "you" are, they are not other, and beyond what they might imply about this moment they have no particular meaning other that what WE (thinking mind) attribute to them. What is important is to see this for oneself. It isn't hard. It can be accomplished in as little as a week of meditation practice, with some guidance. - If your question was more along the lines of "who is the observer?", that takes a little more work to see. A simple if somewhat unsatisfying answer is that the observer is not separate from the observed.

If you can observe your thoughts you obviously aren't your thoughts. Even so, many discover that they also are not the observer of thoughts.

You are too hard on yourself.

My practice is atiyoga, or "dzogchen". It is merely being present with what arises in moment to moment in awareness. https://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Atiyoga

Ah... you know. It happens. I am very grateful to have the Bon teachings in the world, which I consider completely valid and deeply valuable. My understanding is that there is a lot of crossover where these two great traditions grew together over time, in the same way that I think Buddhism and Daoism did. Nice to have an articulate practitioner here.

Speaking solely from the perspective of MY training (DudjomTersar Lineage through Dudjom Ripoche) the human teacher is considered the embodiment of all past teachers. I think I remember an individual Guru Yoga that would go through a lineage of teachers that would include your own, but can't remember its specific name. We are led to imagine (and then hopefully see as reality) is that the entirety of the dharmakaya is enlightened, in which case I don't feel I can really omit my late teacher, who is said to have attained rainbow body and had a nice paranirvana to go with it. One practice I have taken with me on the travels is to see ALL appearances as Buddha, which indeed they are. For the same reasons it wouldn't make any sense to me to omit a trusted teacher in any practice of this ilk. I wonder what the difference here is? Perhaps some philosophical difference about how Buddha/enlightenment/emptiness are expressed? I have read and enjoyed a few Bon books (mostly Daniel Brown stuff), but don't remember seeing anything too different from my training. In my training we worked specifically with a number of gurus, including the usual suspects and some not so usual. Just looking Daily Practice book, acquired when I began the ngondro years ago, we are definitely working with support, merging/union, etc. with guru yoga. What you describe sounds like a sort of support to me, honestly, if expressed in a slightly different way. Throw "primordial" in there, and I think you have Rigpa. In Nyingma we might say the characteristics are: primordially pure, empty, and luminous. This sounds the same to me. It is also close enough to what I think most Mahayana teachers would tell you. Words in these cases are really tough to use, as you know. Speaking from my Soto Zen perspective, while the description might vary, I think this is recognizable to any realized teacher of my tradition. Nicely put, Steve... thanks for sharing your perspective.

The Tibetan Lojong teachings (and Tonglen, specifically) ARE actually moral teachings once you understand what they work on. It isn't a set of moral rules, granted, but what it does is shift the mind toward absolute and relative boddhicitta (Eightfold Path) which ARE ultimately the most moral perspective possible - prajna. Having said that, nothing wrong with metta, etc.

Where there is enlightenment the Noble Eightfold path arises effortlessly. This also what being in alignment with the dao means, acting directly from prajna with no ego to color action.

It doesn't require the guru yoga, only the direct pointing ('transmission), regular practice AND a relationship with a teacher. You may not realize it but the "state" you have been shown is not a state at all... it is what underlies ALL experience. It IS enlightened mind, though you don't yet see it for what it is. Resting in it with the mind quiet and spacious is "actualizing enlightenment" as Dogen (Soto Zen founder) would say. It will bring up everything that is between you and complete understanding and slowly align you with the deeper understanding and living with things as they are. This is the same practice Zen recommends in most of the traditions Resting in Rigpa IS the method. I would forget about that. The transformation that matters happens in your belief and day to day experience of suffering. It is the "highest" teaching yes. It isn't being glorified. Having said that, it may not mean what you think it means. It doesn't mean it is the "best" teaching for you, or that you will continue to get an emphasis in it as your teacher gets to know you. Almost all Nyingma students get pointing out instructions in the case that they might just instantly awaken, but it is usually followed by much more mundane concerns and practices. There is almost always work to be done with your attachments to your "self" The stronger your attachments and aversions, and the stronger your grasping to "self" the more you probably need some much more worldly teachings as well. Lojong is a great cycle to work with, I teach it to my students so that they have some skills to untangle their own karma. It isn't a telepathic transmission (despite what some might say), but it IS something very difficult to describe with words. It requires guiding the student to a direct personal experience. Other traditions lead to the same place, but may have more territory in between here and there, which doesn't necessarily mean that they are shorter or longer in the end. Those paths are perfect for those that find them. Not everyone will feel drawn to Dzogchen practice. The path that is right for you is always available IF you are sick enough of your life to want to change it. Be careful not to inflate your ego because you have been shown a very direct path. It is your largest obstacle, and can easily stop you from ever having realization. Yes you should respect your teacher. Your teacher is your direct connection to the teachings and the lineage of Buddhist teachers. How many of those do you have? It doesn't mean that it is elitist, but it IS necessary to be respectful. If your teacher is wearing a robe, they are qualified to teach you. Ask yourself - what would qualify them to teach you? Still, the Tibetans have a saying: Not sure about that, but I will mention that the claim that Dzogchen teachers make, that Dzogchen is the "practice of Buddhas" is correct. Resting in stillness is what is left when the practices have come to their natural conclusion. Every enlightened teacher I have met would say that just resting in enlightened mind is their primary "practice", which is no practice at all. All Buddhism will eventually require the suspension of your belief system. It is intended to train you to trust your EXPERIENCE instead of your carefully constructed story about the world. Dzogchen (and Zen/Cha'n) START there instead of finishing there. It is ALL ABOUT empirical validation, not beliefs. The faith you will employ will be based on your experience of how the practices and tradition create a change in you, and is therefore dependent on how carefully you employ what you have been taught. Even if you forget Buddhism entirely and just meditate resting in Rigpa as much as possible for a month for 20 minutes a day you should see changes in your behavior. I have thought, and learned for myself, about all of these questions, yes.

Your karma is the story about the world you create, constructed by the thinking mind. It is your list of things you are attached to or averse to. It is your cherished thoughts about how the world works - your carefully constructed theories, cosmologies, truisms, beliefs, etc. The problem, simply stated is: In short, you create false dualities in your mental dialogue with your thoughts and opinions. How to stop creating karma, then? You first have to be tired enough of your struggle with the world to be willing to deconstruct your experience and be willing to let go of your cherished opinions. You must be willing to accept your naked, unfiltered experience as reality and stop clinging to or pushing away your concreted ideas about how you think things are. As Seng-ts'an says: Get pointers and practice so that you understand the "unity of emptiness" and can recognize it in any moment. Once understood and recognized, learn to see the illusory landscape of subjects and objects that you reject or cling to, notice your personal story and how you create it, then learn to STOP creating it. Eventually, with some luck, there is complete insight and the whole conceit can be dropped. Either way, struggle/suffering are greatly reduced.