Meditation; experience or knowledge

Found this post from about a year ago: good and thoughtful points about meditation and finding a genuine path.

In making comments about that topic, I thought I should say that I am a Soto Zen practitioner (you might have guessed though!). I have been 'practicing/doing it' for about 7 years quite regularly and have attended many week-long Zen retreats. Useful to add that I have also been (and still am) ‘practicing’ as a Christian, a Hindu and a Taoist. They are just labels, of course, for different expressions and modes of living the ‘divine life’, a life dedicated to understanding my place and role in this world. When I say 'in my experience and understanding' I am referring to the insights gained from those practices.

So I'll try to address the points in the post from those insights, particularly from the Zen Buddhist point of view. This quote by Master Dogen Zenji (the founder of Soto Zen), is relevant as he asked pretty much the same questions:

"The Way is originally perfect and all-pervading. How could it be contingent on practice and realization? The true vehicle is self-sufficient. What need is there for special effort? Indeed, the whole body is free from dust. Who could believe in a means to brush it clean? It is never apart from this very place; what is the use of travelling around to practice? And yet, if there is a hairsbreadth deviation, it is like the gap between heaven and earth. If the least like or dislike arises, the mind is lost in confusion...Therefore, put aside the intellectual practice of investigating words and chasing phrases and learn to take the backward step that turns the light and shines it inward. Body and mind of themselves will drop away and your original face will manifest. If you want such a thing, get to work on such a thing immediately." [Fukanzazengi- Universal Recommendations for Zazen, 1227].

Getting to work on such a thing is the practice of Meditation (Zen). It is what we do when we do it wholeheartedly, being fully present to the doing. So Meditation is not a technique to achieve or attain anything, it is the way to act and be in whatever we do. It is, in a way, surrender to the reality of this moment. What is often confused with Meditation is the activity of meditation, e.g. the action of sitting on a cushion and trying to experience a particular state of mind. This koan (a Zen anecdote that points to Reality) ‘Polishing a tile’, makes the point:

Nanyue asked Mazu, “Great worthy, what is your intention in seated meditation (zazen)?” Mazu said, “I intend to become a buddha.” Nanyue picked up a tile and, in front of Mazu’s hermitage, began to polish it with a rock. Mazu asked, “What are you doing, Teacher?” Nanyue said, “I am polishing it to make a mirror.” Mazu said, “How can you make a mirror by polishing a tile?” Nanyue said, “How can you become a buddha through zazen?” Mazu said, “What shall I do?” Nanyue said, “Like someone riding a cart that won’t go, which is right, to hit the cart or hit the ox?” Mazu did not reply. (Nanyue) further gave instruction saying: “Do you study sitting meditation, or study sitting Buddha? If you study sitting meditation, meditation has nothing to do with sitting or lying down. If you study sitting Buddha, Buddha has no fixed form. Within the Dharma of non-abiding, you should not pick and choose. If you do sitting Buddha, this is simply killing Buddha. If you cling to the form of sitting, you will never reach the truth.” For Mazu, hearing this admonition was like drinking delicious cream.

So, what does one actually do, if we can't pick and choose? We live in a such a way that we become self-less towards our actions. This can be practiced whenever we act: at work, at home, alone and in company, when happy and when unhappy, in clarity and confusion, in other words in the very midst of our ordinary life. Simply be present to all of it. Because of the propensity we have to think our way through life, ("the intellectual practice of investigating words and chasing phrases") we need to retrain ourselves and "learn to take the backward step that turns the light and shines it inward", i.e. look within. A practice such as zazen (seated meditation) is most conducive to learning to look within. The critical part of that practice is to just do that, nothing else but that (shikantaza), without any ideas of gaining anything (e.g. improve myself, get enlightened, relax, solve my problems, etc.). It requires no prior belief or assumptions: it is the method of direct experience of That. 

Other practices, such as Prayer, Worship and Surrendering to God (That which is beyond thinking and reason), self-less service (e.g. as practiced by Mother Teresa), and Contemplation (the constant inquiry and focus on the meaning of Life) are also valid and effective paths. We tend to adopt one of the other, according to our disposition, or all of them. 

A great topic that can be certainly explored further, and which links to all of the other topics we have discussed on this Forum.  

The trap is in holding a position, for when we do we are tempted to defend that very position.
So our viewpoint then is worth fighting for. In a manner of speaking out of all the countless variables that exist we hang our hat on our held position for what reason?
Isn't it because we believe we are right?
Meditation is in reality simply a complete acceptance with 'What Is'.
And that 'What Is' is always the present. When we start to interpret or analyse or believe something, even though we are still doing that in the present, nevertheless we are not fully present as we are hanging this "held belief hat" onto something that is fictional. And so we enter a dream state while awake but we can't see it because we are "right".
We believe the mind interpretation or story instead of 'What Is'.
Kolomo we each do experience a living meditation whenever we can say this: "I am fully present and at One with 'What Is'."
It helps us to do this by being truly thankful regardless 'What Is', for when we are, we are accepting the 'Present' the way 'It Is'.

And this is where miracles do happen as the 'Present' is infinitely much smarter than the mind.

Excellent comments! The real and very difficult practice of Meditation (a way to act and be in the world) allows for 'me' to arise as the multitude of thoughts, feelings, sensations, etc. and let them go, like the scenery from a moving train. There is no judgement as to whether the scenery is real or not (that is itself another thought) or about the personality. One goes beyond personality, likes and dislikes, beliefs and all other mind consciousness activities.

It is useful to note that in the Buddhist view of the world, 'mind consciousness' is one of the senses (i.e. sight, hearing, etc.). It takes a great deal of effort initially to be silent enough to let them come and go, and simply be the open 'miraculous' awareness that is so vast that it allows everything to happen within it. That awareness is seen to be one's inner Presence. The deeper the practice, the more one feels identity with that Presence and at the same time with whatever arises. The two are not separate. There is only This! Hence, "If you want such a thing, get to work on such a thing immediately."

So it is common to go through layers of conditioning without trying to change them. All of our quirks of personality, conditioning, memories, hurts, joys, are allowed to be expressed without judgement, including those bits that we are scared to face. We see the mechanism by which we spot the log in others eyes but not the straw in our own, how we judge some 'least' and some 'highest' (how we like and dislike people for not coming up against our standards). A sign of 'progress' is when we can see our own delusions playing out in the ordinary world: the break from the 'ego' dream has happened. Forgiveness and compassion come out of that discovery.

Yes. If I try to get rid of the ego (who we think we are, the thinker of thoughts, a fixed self) that only reinforces the sense of I am separate. The trying is done by the ego itself, which is just a created image that changes continuously in response to events, sensations, stimuli, and judges them as favourable or unfavourable. We need to be 'awake' to that mechanism.  

The art and science of Meditation is based on wu wei, or non-doing, where there is no meditator. So the 'method' of just sitting (shikantaza, doing nothing else but sitting) directly and immediately puts one in that condition of open awareness, of Acceptance, regardless of what sensations, thoughts and feelings are arising. The method is ridiculously simple: just sit (walk, drink, think, drive, etc.) and let the body/mind do what it does. It is also very difficult and requires steadfastness and commitment, because of the life-long habit to identify with those sensations, thoughts and feelings as one's self.

In order to transcend the habit, the major religious traditions (introduced by the Great Teachers) have developed appropriate practices. Meditation, as described above, with no meditator, is one of them. Others are: Faith in a Higher Power (Accept what happens as God's Will); dedicating one's life to help other human beings and all creatures (love thy neighbour...); self-inquiry (who am I?) and contemplation about the meaning of life. They correspond to the thousands of years old primary spiritual paths or Maha Yogas: Jnana (Knowledge), Karma (self-less service), Bhakti (Worship). These paths have been tested, proven and recommended by the great teachers and sages. Their message is to just do them and stick to one or the other, with faith that in due course it is possible to transcend the human habit of mis-identification (belief in a separate fixed self) and realize our true nature (No-thing, Boundless and Timeless).

Some life notes, related to the above.  My first teacher, a lady, was a Bhakti practitioner in the Christian tradition. She used to say that love of God was the easiest way to realizing Him. She acknowledged Jesus as her Master. As a young philosophy student, I was skeptical of any talk of God and Truth. My 'God' was reason.  Gently but firmly she pushed me out of that frame of mind. My 'ego' took quite a beating and I am forever grateful to her. At the same time, she also said that all major paths are right if taken with commitment. She saw that I was more inclined towards the path of Knowledge and used to recommend the study and practice of Jnana Yoga, a rigorous and scientific approach to understanding Reality. It requires going beyond the personal and subjective in order to see things-as-they-are.

Non-duality is the perspective that comes from such an approach. Wu Wei is its primary 'technology'.                 

Kolomo, some comments on your post. In regard to "When we are still...the movements cease and there is return to that which always is" is not my experience. The phenomenal world arises at all times and we (body/mind) arise with it (whether in the state of being awake, dreaming or asleep). That world is as-it-is all the time. The illusion is not that the phenomenal world is illusory, but that we perceive it as being self-existent and independent of our consciousness. There is only One No-Thing going on. It's all Mind (God, Consciousness, Self, etc.). 

In the practice of Meditation, the movements do not cease (e.g. sensations and thinking still happen), but are seen to be impermanent and empty of self-existence. As you point out, we can learn not to identify with the movements as separate independent objects, seen by an independent observer. The dichotomy of subject and object, observer and observed is transcended. When that happens we can be "unencumbered by thoughts and concepts".  That is how the ox-herder returns to the ordinary world (chop wood, carry water, the market place). It, and 'the mountains and rivers' (the phenomenal world) has not changed, but he is no longer encumbered by identifying with his egoic self. 

In that context, my understanding of what Ramana Maharshi said could be more like 'Those who live in the Self as the Beauty which is not dependent/based on/derived from thought/concepts, live in the supreme state'. The Self transcends and includes all movements, sensations, feelings, thoughts.