Notes from six months of studying and practicing Zen

• What we’re looking for is always and already here.
• Thinking, especially judging, creates separation, distance, suffering.
  • If mind and things were separate, we couldn’t be aware of things.
  • “Not-knowing is most intimate.”
• The path is the goal.
  • The answering is in the questioning.
• Everything is our main practice.
• The union of Absolute and Relative, of emptiness and form.
• The infinite causes and conditions of Reality create everything. From the perspective of the Absolute, there are no problems, no choices, no separation. No shoulds, no coulds, only what is.
• Notice the causes and conditions that lead to your suffering. Take care of your suffering.

Looking back on the above bullets after a few days, these seem a bit unsatisfying! I feel like these six months have been really good for my practice. And that I’ve made small, ongoing, changes. But these bullets above don’t capture that. They are good little reminders, though.

And I’m using these, and the extended notes below, to do another update to my (applied) philosophy. And that is pleasing.

Bit of a summary

• What we’re looking for, the calm / peace / enlightenment / Buddha-nature, is always and already here, but temporarily concealed.
  • Chasing the way takes you away from it.
  • Grasping creates the illusion that it’s far away.
  • Thinking about it obscures it.
• We practice to manifest it, to enact it, to embody it.
  • Just sit. “Just” as in nothing else, no turning away, no “in order to.”
• Take the path as the goal. Have no attachment to the outcome.
• The mundane is sacred. Everything is our main practice.
• The Absolute is free of concepts, language, characteristics.
• The Relative has makes qualities, in particular opposites.
• The Absolute and the Relative integrated, in union.
• Only the whole is required. Only the verb.
  • Knower and know, subject and object, arise a pair in the Relative.
• The knower and the know aren’t required, only the knowing, the verb.
• The illusion of separation from experience creates suffering.
  • The way to be liberating from suffering is to be quickly absorbed into it.
  • Thinking creates separation. Judgement creates barriers, separation.
    • Just notice without judgement. Be open, curious.
  • If mind and things were separate, we couldn’t be aware of things.
• “Not-knowing is most intimate.”
  • Dwell on the open, spacious, possible.
  • Don’t cling to a position.
• The infinite causes and conditions of Reality create everything.
  • There are no problems.
  • There are no choices.
  • There is no separation.
• Notice the causes and conditions that lead to your suffering.
  • The things that are most difficult for us have the most to teach us.
  • Take care of your suffering.
• Life, as it is, is enough.
  • Fully engaged with how it is, as it is, not how it “should” be.
  • Our ideas of happiness can stop us being happy.
• Being without thinking: without desire, attachment, opinions.
  • We’re not doing in the world, the world is doing us, like it does trees and rivers.
  • Spontaneous action, like laughing at a joke.
• Koans are dark to the mind, radiant to the heart.
  • The answering is in the questioning.

Some raw notes

• Everything is our main practice: my take on this was my Zen HAM.
• In particular, my practice turned more towards embodied things, health and exercise.
• My sitting turned more towards noticing and more away from judging and having opinions.

Always and already

• Buddha-nature is inherent, close, but temporarily concealed.
• It’s always and already here.

Path as goal

• We practice to manifest enlightenment, actualise it.
• Every step on the path is the path.
• Practice and enlightenment are one.
• Take the path as the goal.
• Have no attachment to the outcome.
• Practice is ongoing embodiment.

Every minute Zen

• The mundane as transcendent, sacred.
• Everything is our main practice.
• In a still mind, the self is forgotten.
• Thoughts tend to disintegrate in the light of awareness.

Sitting

• Sit hard and sit a great deal.
• Just sitting is enacting nonduality, no-self.
• “Just” as in nothing else, no turning away, no “in order to.”

The Absolute

• The Absolute is free of concepts, language.
• Thinking makes qualities, in particular opposites.
• Your true nature has no characteristics.
• Your true nature is the context of consciousness, not the contents.
• The senses create forms, like echoes in a valley.
• “Not the wind moving, not the flag moving, mind moving.”

Unity

• The Absolute and the Relative integrated, in union.
• The unity of birds and sky, fish and water.

Only the whole

• The ends of a stick aren’t required, only the whole.
• The knower and the know aren’t required, only the knowing, the verb.
• Subject and object arise as a pair.
• We should say “it’s thinking” like “it’s raining”.

Separation

• Separation from experience creates suffering.
• The way to be liberating from suffering is to be quickly absorbed into it.
• If mind and things were separate, we couldn’t be aware of things.
• Thinking about knowing separates, creates a knower and the known.
• “Not-knowing is most intimate.”
• Dwell on the open, spacious, possible.
• Don’t cling to a position.
• Direct perception, not conceptual description.
• Rest in the wider space of awareness.

Chasing takes you away

• Chasing the way takes you away from it.
• Thinking about it obscures it.
• Progress on the path is not linear.

No problems

• The infinite causes and conditions of Reality create everything.
• There are no problems, no choices.
• Liberation is seeing through the illusion of there being a problem.
• Life, as it is, is enough.
• Fully engaged with how it is, as it is, not how it “should” be.
• Our ideas of happiness can stop us being happy.
• Notice the causes and conditions that lead to your suffering.
• The things that are most difficult for us have the most to teach us.

No choices

• We’re not doing in the world, the world is doing us, like it does trees and rivers.
• Spontaneous action, like laughing at a joke.
• Actions require an agent manifesting a purpose.
• Rain doesn’t need a rainer, a doer.
• Being without thinking: without desire, attachment, opinions.

Letting go

• Don’t grasp or reject. Don’t push or pull.
• Avoiding something means its still affecting you.
• Just notice without judgement. Be open, curious.
• Judgement creates barriers, separation.
• Only cease to cherish opinions, like and not-like.
• Zen master Seng-ts’an reminds us: “Do not search for the truth; only cease to cherish opinions.”
• Choosing obscures the way.
• Just notice, in the midst of it all.

Questioning

• The answering is in the questioning.
• Koans are dark to the mind, radiant to the heart.

Take care

• Take care of your suffering.
• Running away only prolongs pain.
• Take care of all the parts of yourself.

Added 2024-07-07, last updated 2024-07-13.