Ten Fields of Zen, Field 8 – Realization: Direct Experience of Reality-with-a-Capital-R

• Rather than striving for (big) Enlightenment, that will solve all your problems and make you into a saint, appreciate the many (small) enlightenments you experience over years.
• Transformative insight comes from direct, personal experiences of Reality
  • Intellectual knowledge is important, but not a substitute for direct experience
• Pay attention to what’s happening, regardless of its relevance to your self-interest
• With time, the difference between Sesshin and the rest of your life becomes less and less.
• Samadhi is not a state that can be forced through effort. That such effort involves separation from a state, something to realise.
• On the Soto Zen path, Realization, Quiet Mind, and Samadhi are not goals but descriptions of what happens as you let go.
  • Coming home to your true nature. Not achieving something special through the exercise of will.
• There’s no need to get puritanical about the path. Do what you need, when you need it.

Gathered notes

• the Dharma is the biggest truth of all. It doesn’t exclude, deny, or contradict any of the smaller truths you experience, such as your reaction to injustice, the pain of an illness, or the grief of loss. But around, beneath, permeating all of your experiences, embracing all of Life, are the truths of Emptiness, Suchness, Interdependence, and Buddha-Nature (among others).
• Reality contains ordinary daily life while – usually – daily life does not contain Reality.
• Rather than striving for an elusive Enlightenment-with-a-Capital-E that will solve all your problems and make you into a respected and beloved saint, appreciate the many “enlightenments” you experience over the course of many years of practice.
• Ultimately, transformative insight comes from direct, personal experiences of Reality-with-a-Capital-R.
• Intellectual knowledge is important as long as you don’t conclude it’s a substitute for direct experience.
• Encounters with Reality during Zazen or a meditation retreat deepen your knowledge of the truth, but those experiences can’t be fully captured and saved for later
• Zazen and Mindfulness allow you to become familiar with the experience of a Quiet Mind.
• Quiet Mind is a mind without extraneous thinking, or at least mostly spacious with occasional thoughts passing though like background static, with very little emotional charge to them.
• When you are paying attention to whatever is happening, regardless of whether the situation seems relevant to your self-interest, your mind is quiet.
• Quiet Mind is a prerequisite for Silent Mind, and Silent Mind is a prerequisite for Samadhi – the state of mind that allows you to Realize what is most true. Silent Mind is a mind truly without thought
• spacious, clear, stable, alert, and aware.
• Samadhi is not a state that can be forced through effort, because such effort involves a sense of separation from a state or from something you want to realize.
• …with time, the difference between Sesshin and the rest of your life becomes less and less.
• If you fully embrace the Soto Zen path, concepts like Realization, Quiet Mind, and Samadhi are not employed as goals but are descriptions of what happens as you let go.
• It is an extremely elegant process without struggle, making it clear that you are coming home to your true nature, not achieving something special through the exercise of will.
• As beautiful as a radically nondual path can be, there’s no need to get puritanical about following one. It can be an act of compassion toward yourself to engage in Directed Effort practices in order to give yourself a taste of Quiet Mind.
• It is a central teaching in Soto Zen that “practice” – how you live, what you do – is not separate from Realization.

Raw highlights

• **the Dharma is the biggest truth of all. It doesn’t exclude, deny, or contradict any of the smaller truths you experience, such as your reaction to injustice, the pain of an illness, or the grief of loss. But around, beneath, permeating all of your experiences, embracing all of Life, are the truths of Emptiness, Suchness, Interdependence, and Buddha-Nature (among others).
• Reality contains ordinary daily life while – usually – daily life does not contain Reality.
• Rather than striving for an elusive Enlightenment-with-a-Capital-E that will solve all your problems and make you into a respected and beloved saint, appreciate the many “enlightenments” you experience over the course of many years of practice.
• Ultimately, transformative insight comes from direct, personal experiences of Reality-with-a-Capital-R.
• Intellectual knowledge is important as long as you don’t conclude it’s a substitute for direct experience.
• Encounters with Reality during Zazen or a meditation retreat deepen your knowledge of the truth, but those experiences can’t be fully captured and saved for later
• Practice in all Fields of Zen prepares the ground for and facilitates awakening, but three are particularly relevant for cultivating the kind of insight necessary for Realization: Zazen, Mindfulness, and Dharma Study.
• Zazen and Mindfulness allow you to become familiar with the experience of a Quiet Mind.
• Quiet Mind is a mind without extraneous thinking, or at least mostly spacious with occasional thoughts passing though like background static, with very little emotional charge to them.
• When you have let go of your mental map of reality, your mind is quiet and open to possibilities. … When you are paying attention to whatever is happening, regardless of whether the situation seems relevant to your self-interest, your mind is quiet.
• Quiet Mind is a prerequisite for Silent Mind, and Silent Mind is a prerequisite for Samadhi – the state of mind that allows you to Realize what is most true. Silent Mind is a mind truly without thought
• spacious, clear, stable, alert, and aware.
• Samadhi is not a state that can be forced through effort, because such effort involves a sense of separation from a state or from something you want to realize.
• When you least expect it, Samadhi may come to you like a cat curling up in your lap. Just as you are likely to chase a cat away by grabbing it, you will chase away Samadhi unless you stay perfectly still, accepting it as a gift with no effort to make it last.
• …with time, the difference between Sesshin and the rest of your life becomes less and less.
• If you fully embrace the Soto Zen path, concepts like Realization, Quiet Mind, and Samadhi are not employed as goals but are descriptions of what happens as you let go.
• It is an extremely elegant process without struggle, making it clear that you are coming home to your true nature, not achieving something special through the exercise of will.
• It’s not that there’s anything wrong with thinking, it’s that when your mind is quiet, you are better able to perceive what is most true.
• As beautiful as a radically nondual path can be, there’s no need to get puritanical about following one. It can be an act of compassion toward yourself to engage in Directed Effort practices in order to give yourself a taste of Quiet Mind.
• It is a central teaching in Soto Zen that “practice” – how you live, what you do – is not separate from Realization.
• One drawback to a radically nondual path is the temptation to become complacent. Because we refrain from setting up a goal, it is easy to assume there is nothing to Realize.

From Ten Fields of Zen, Field 8 – Realization: Direct Experience of Reality-with-a-Capital-R.

Added 2025-01-04, last updated 2025-01-06.