Sitting and forgetting

[hagar]

Hei på dere

 

Since I´m getting older and memory lapses are on the 'plate de jour', Sitting and forgetting practice has become so much easier.

Also, I´ve boiled down whatever I´ve been wasting my time doing for the last 25 years as just stopping the struggle.

Question for all you people; where can I get good, evidence-based source-material on Zouwang? Preferably in Norwegian, but English will do.

 

h

[Geof Nanto]

Sitting in Oblivion: The Heart of Daoist Meditation  by Livia Kohn

 

 

 

You can download the Contents and Introduction for free at the Three Pines website:  

https://threepinespress.com/2020/08/01/sitting-in-oblivion-the-heart-of-daoist-meditation/

 

 

[RobB]

Hej*!

 

A type of Sitting and Forgetting forms part of the Shen Dan in Daxuan school. (https://sergeaugier.com/courses/daoist-cultivation/)

 

There are some long term students in Oslo who might be able to discuss further (in Norwegian!) : [email protected]

 

* Sorry - Swedish I know...

[hagar]

Thank you both for those valuable pieces of feedback!

- Download complete

- Will contact daxuanoslo =)

 

h

 

[steve]

I would also add that a study of the basic practice of dzogchen from the Bön or Buddhist traditions will be an excellent resource as the essence of the practice is very similar. 

Nice to see you @hagar

[hagar]

Nice to see you Steve =)

Will mos def look into dzogchen. Read up on it a bit but mostly cerebral stuff. 

Good to check in. Hope things are well.

 

[steve]

21 hours ago, hagar said:

Nice to see you Steve =)

Will mos def look into dzogchen. Read up on it a bit but mostly cerebral stuff. 

Good to check in. Hope things are well.

 

 

@hagar

Fair point, most of the writings can get far too theoretical. I think that is related to the fact that the actual “practice” is so simplistic. One very good and practical approach can be found in the book “Awakening the Luminous Mind” by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche. The first half of the book teaches a practical and accessible approach to dzogchen. The second half teaches a bit more advanced approach. Overall there is very little theory in the book.

[johndoe2012]

@steve

 

Thanks. I read the book in my native language and it clicked somehow in my system. 

 

It feels very simple and powerful with good results already. 

 

 

[Apech]

Bump

 

Anyone can supply good resources for sitting and forgetting practice????

 

please!

[blue eyed snake]

[Apech]

1 minute ago, blue eyed snake said:

 

lol clever clogs - I meant books!

[Taoist Texts]

10 hours ago, Apech said:

Bump

 

Anyone can supply good resources for sitting and forgetting practice????

 

please!

a motherload

https://www.amazon.com/Meditation-Health-Thomas-Cleary-ebook/dp/B005P8E6BG

[blue eyed snake]

15 hours ago, Apech said:

 

lol clever clogs - I meant books!

 

i got that, but body being comfortable is helpful and harder to reach when it's protesting with oldage fuckery.

 

I like this one, but have read that when your knees are hurting it's the opposite of helpful.

 

As I cannot help you with books i thought this would be my contribution to your question.

[dwai]

Just sit, and forget

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PS. Don't forget to forget once you remember to sit

[Dainin]

This one is highly regarded by several people that I respect (I haven't read it yet though):

 

Daoist Meditation: The Purification of the Heart Method of Meditation and Discourse on Sitting and Forgetting

 

https://www.amazon.com/Daoist-Meditation-Purification-Discourse-Forgetting/dp/1848192118/

Edited April 1 by Dainin

[Mark Foote]

2 hours ago, Dainin said:

This one is highly regarded several people that I respect (I haven't read it yet though):

 

Daoist Meditation: The Purification of the Heart Method of Meditation and Discourse on Sitting and Forgetting

 

https://www.amazon.com/Daoist-Meditation-Purification-Discourse-Forgetting/dp/1848192118/
 

 

 

"Upon abstracting (oneself) from (one's) physical body and from the outside world, (one) starts to identify, in the movement of (one's) breath, the physical automation that controls (their) life energy.  (A person) continues like this until becoming a part of the air that (they) breath and reaching the understanding that (they themselves) only exist as consciousness, which is manifested as part of the autonomous mechanism of (their) breathing...

("Daoist Meditation: The Purification of the Heart Method of Meditation and Discourse on Sitting and Forgetting (Zuo Wang Lun) by Si Ma", Wu Jyh Cherng, p 28, emphasis added)

 

 

In plain English:

 

There can come a moment when the movement of breath necessitates the placement of attention at a certain location in the body, or at a series of locations, with the ability to remain awake as the location of attention shifts retained through the exercise of presence.

 

There’s a frailty in the structure of the lower spine, and the movement of breath can place the point of awareness in such a fashion as to engage a mechanism of support for the spine, often in stages.

 

(Shunryu Suzuki on Shikantaza and the Theravadin Stages)

 

 

When the location of attention can shift anywhere in the body as a function of the movement of breath, and the activity of the body in inhalation and exhalation follows solely from the location of attention, there is a feeling of freedom.

 

(What Shunryu Suzuki Actually Said)

 

 

 

 

Edited April 1 by Mark Foote

[Sahaja]

On 4/1/2024 at 1:52 AM, Apech said:

Bump

 

Anyone can supply good resources for sitting and forgetting practice????

 

please!

I enjoy reading the academic works on Daoist apophetic methods such as by Harold Roth, Stephen Eskildsen , Louis Komjecky and others.  I would say that my view is somewhat different on the translations of the Chinese terms into the English terms  like “breath” and “visualization”. Visualization (cun or cunxiang) maybe alternatively translated as paying attention to and see what actually arises as opposed to imagining something. This translation is more in alignment with the Daoist concept of wu wei or non doing particularly in the context of sitting and forgetting.  Qi is not just the breath in my understanding, it is much more. 

 

[dwai]

What is zuowang to you all? If we sit still and let the mind fall back into the heart center, "forgetting" happens automatically. What technique/method is required? The way I trigger it is to latch on to the feeling that arises as an answer to the question "who am I?" - the feeling draws the mind back to the heart  (like a stream that collapses back to its source). 

[Master Logray]

On 4/1/2024 at 1:52 AM, Apech said:

Bump

 

Anyone can supply good resources for sitting and forgetting practice????

 

please!

 

For reading or practising?

[Apech]

14 minutes ago, Master Logray said:

 

For reading or practising?

 

In the first instance I want to make sure that I understand what zouwang is - and then to read about how to practise.

 

Some of what I have read suggests it is part of the Buddhist/Daoist crossover ... but I am wondering if it is actually the basis of the direct schools of Buddhism like Dzogchen and Mahamudra also (which have uncertain mythic origins).  I have long held that Tibetan Buddhism particularly has much Daoist influence which is unacknowledged.

 

 

[Master Logray]

34 minutes ago, Apech said:

 

In the first instance I want to make sure that I understand what zouwang is - and then to read about how to practise.

 

Some of what I have read suggests it is part of the Buddhist/Daoist crossover ... but I am wondering if it is actually the basis of the direct schools of Buddhism like Dzogchen and Mahamudra also (which have uncertain mythic origins).  I have long held that Tibetan Buddhism particularly has much Daoist influence which is unacknowledged.

 

 

I am dealing with translation and formating, some background first.  Source, internet.

 

"Zhuangzi": "Yan Hui said: The limbs are dropped, the intelligence is deposed, and the body is separated from the body to know. It is the same as Datong (great access). This is called sitting and forgetting." Those who sit and forget forget their bodies externally and forget their hearts internally. Datong, the great road of righteousness, can be combined with the great road if you can sit and forget.
According to Taoist practice, we should forget to know and forget in advance. Tang Dynasty． Sima Chengzhen wrote a volume of the monograph "Zuowang Lun". If you want to cultivate the great road, you must first have no intention, so there is a saying that "no intention is the way." No mind means that there is no "shadow mind of six worldly conditions". If there is no mind, then the wonderful and true mind will manifest itself and take refuge in "the death of the heart and the resurrection of the spirit". This is how we begin to “be the same as Datong.” If you want to achieve without heart, you should forget your mind, that is, you will get rid of seeing, hearing, and awareness, and there will be no need for intelligent thinking.

 

Zhuangzi's method of sitting and forgetting is not fully revealed in Zhuangzi's books, but "Zhuangzi. "Qiwu Lun" has already described the main end of it. The so-called sitting and forgetting has clearly pointed out that the posture is not standing or lying down, but sitting. This sitting posture is neither cross-legged nor flat, but "sitting with concealment".

[Sahaja]

I think an important part of it is moving from intention (conscious, subconscious  and unconscious) to pure attention (without desires, goals, discursive thought) to states beyond this. There are conditions and methods that facilitate this. Imagination is a form of intention or discursive thought so it’s not a tool for this practice in my understanding.
 

While there is likely similarity between apothetic methods across traditions as many deal with moving beyond the acquired mind to a unitive state, I think it’s better to keep them separate in application  so one doesn’t miss important nuances unique to each tradition. 

[stirling]

Quote

Zuowang 坐忘 "sitting in oblivion," signifies a state of deep meditative absorption and mystical oneness, during which all sensory and conscious faculties are overcome and which is the base point for attaining Dao. I translate wang as "oblivion" and "oblivious" rather than "forgetting" or "forgetful" because the connotation of "forget" in English is that one should remember but doesn't do so, or—if used intentionally—that one actively and intentionally does something in the mind. None of these holds true for what ancient and medieval Daoists were about. This is borne out both by the language and the writings: the word wang in Chinese consists of the character xin for "mind-heart", usually associated with conscious and emotional reactions to reality and the word wang for "obliterate" or "perish". The implication is – as indeed described in the sources – that one lets go of all kinds of intentional and reactive patterns and comes to rest in oneness with spirit and is ready to merge completely with Dao.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuowang#

 

I have wondered about, and done some investigation on this point in the past. Examples from the link above (amongst others I have encountered) make it clear to me that Zuowang is essentially the same practice as Shikantaza, or Dzogchen, which is no surprise (as Apech suggests) since these all are known to historically cross-pollinate in China, ending up in Japan and Tibet. These are non-dual absorptions in which "mind and body drop away" the texts (and coincidentally Ch'an/Zen) suggest and there is just "awareness", bare, empty, and without "self". 

 

At least one later Buddhist sutra (the Surangama) mentions the Tao a number of times suggesting some cross pollination of at least terminology, for example:

 

Quote

After hearing the Buddha's wonderful Dharma, I have realized that the wondrous Bright Mind is fundamentally perfect, so that I always dwell in my Mind-ground. But if my awakening has been due to the Buddha's preaching, I have (really) used, my causal mind to hear it with reverence, thereby merely realizing that mind. I dare not pretend that it is the fundamental Mind-ground. Will you be compassionate enough to enlighten me so as to remove my (remaining) doubts so that I can return to the Supreme Tao? - Ananda, from the Surangama

 

[Taoist Texts]

2 hours ago, Master Logray said:

This sitting posture is neither cross-legged nor flat, but "sitting with concealment".

good job on translation. just one small thing: what you rendered "sitting with concealment" “隐机而坐”  is actually this posture

leaning with one elbow on a small table or a pillow

 

[Apech]

6 minutes ago, Taoist Texts said:

good job on translation. just one small thing: what you rendered "sitting with concealment" “隐机而坐”  is actually this posture

leaning with one elbow on a small table or a pillow

 

 

That's me - when I'm feeling lively.