Buddhist Practice Is Not For Spacing Out

[senseless virtue]

Buddhist Practice Is Not For Spacing Out

 

Buddhism is very keen on emptiness and unselfishness (non-self), but it's not spaced out or navel gazing hippie spirituality. Why?

 

Buddhism teaches that there are two merits to be accumulated: the merit of virtue & the merit of emptiness. The former requires compassionate action and true altruistic love for others because only these realize what is truly unselfish behavior. This is where many people — especially the self-initiated Western folk — interested in internal cultivation get a failing grade: they simply disregard perfecting conduct as a supplement at best or as a needless annoyance at worst. You wouldn't find any traditional Buddhist teacher supporting such disregarding notions.

 

People who claim to understand about abiding in emptiness might just get swallowed by a false impression instead. I have seen quite a few Western yogis (even more abundantly outside of this forum) who claim to attainments and speak of their self-grasping having diminished, but neither do their conduct nor yogic accomplishments align with the traditional criteria at all. Who is fooling whom?

 

No virtue, no bodhicitta, thus no advancing in the two accumulations. For those who wish to practice the Buddhist way: Don't go cherry picking what is easy or you may end up doing the spiritual equivalent of glue huffing or sniffing farts and thinking yourself really civilized and top of the game. Please have some grounded skepticism instead and try not to be impressed by any appearance of "emptiness" because that itself would also be another illusion.

[Straybird]

its true and i totally agree with you.

[taoguy]

http://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2007/03/thusnesss-six-stages-of-experience.html

http://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2022/06/the-awakening-to-reality-practice-guide.html

 

These are all you need for authentic buddhist practice.

[Mark Foote]

On 6/29/2022 at 12:22 AM, senseless virtue said:

 

Buddhism is very keen on emptiness and unselfishness (non-self), but it's not spaced out or navel gazing hippie spirituality. Why?

 

 

Gautama spoke about the induction of concentration:
 

Making self surrender the object of thought, one lays hold of concentration, one lays hold of one-pointedness of mind.

 

(SN V 200, Pali Text Society Vol. V p 176)

 

“One-pointedness of mind” could mean the steady focus of attention on some particular object, as Zen teacher koun Franz outlined:

 

Okay… So, have your hands in the cosmic mudra, palms up, thumbs touching, and there’s this common instruction: place your mind here. Different people interpret this differently. Some people will say this means to place your attention here, meaning to keep your attention on your hands. It’s a way of turning the lens to where you are in space so that you’re not looking out here and out here and out here. It’s the positive version, perhaps, of ‘navel gazing’.

 

(“No Struggle [Zazen Yojinki, Part 6]”, by Koun Franz, from the “Nyoho Zen” site, emphasis added)

 

However, a steady focus of attention on some particular object is not the only way to interpret “place your mind here”:
 

The other way to understand this is to literally place your mind where your hands are–to relocate mind (let’s not say your mind) to your centre of gravity, so that mind is operating from a place other than your brain. Some traditions take this very seriously, this idea of moving your consciousness around the body. I wouldn’t recommend dedicating your life to it, but as an experiment, I recommend trying it, sitting in this posture and trying to feel what it’s like to let your mind, to let the base of your consciousness, move away from your head. One thing you’ll find, or that I have found, at least, is that you can’t will it to happen, because you’re willing it from your head. To the extent that you can do it, it’s an act of letting go–and a fascinating one.

 

(Ibid)

 

Most people can concentrate their attention on their hands, and they don’t need to make self-surrender the object of their thought in order to do so. However, as koun Franz pointed out, some surrender of personal agency is required in order for “the base of consciousness” to shift location.

 

Kobun Chino Otogawa spoke of opening up the range of the senses:

 

When you sit, the cushion sits with you. If you wear glasses, the glasses sit with you. Clothing sits with you. House sits with you. People who are moving around outside all sit with you. They don’t take the sitting posture!

 

( “Aspects of Sitting Meditation”, “Shikantaza”; Kobun Chino Otogawa; jikoji.org at http://www.jikoji.org/intro-aspects/)

 

The range of the senses, and possibly what lies beyond the conscious range of the senses (“people who are moving around outside”), enters into "(letting) the base of your consciousness... move away from your head".

More from Kobun:
 

Sitting on your cushion is not relaxation, it is the result of all your knowledge. Every experience you have come through sits there each time. It is very serious. Otherwise, you sit because it feels good, and you are comfortable, and once in a while you feel an ecstatic sensation in your body. You feel calmness, stillness, clarity, and forget there are hungry people on this earth. You forget there are lots of diseases which are killing people. If you do not observe that in your sitting, you are just escaping into your desire. It happens if you mistake or limit the focus of your sitting practice. 

 

(Ibid)
 

 

A different take on emptiness and unselfishness in practice, perhaps?

Edited February 17, 2023 by Mark Foote