Susho Itto

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Justmeagain
Posts: 153
Joined: Thu Feb 25, 2016 10:12 pm

Susho Itto

Post by Justmeagain »

Hello fellow sitters! I am stuck, stuck in my practice and need a bit of inspiration from those a little longer along the path than me.

Having come from a Theravadin practice of Anapana, following the breath the main aim back then was Jhana and ultimately for this to lead to insight. Insight into Anatta and subsequently Nibbana. Pretty straightforward right? But then I read some Dogen, and was sort of seduced by the idea that as Emptiness is the nature of all phenomena Nibanna but be here right now.....to consider it out there to somehow find and then subsequently experienced seemed at the time nonsense.

I've lost it now though. I am currently feeling like I am laboring under a concept that is driving me away from the truth rather than helping me experience it. The 'concept, Shusho Itto, I think, is what I am referring to. So at the moment I take myself off to the Zafu, sit and feel like a fraud!! I am arrogantly laboring under the illusion that somewhere in the background I am already Enlightened and therefore have no work to do...nothing to achieve and nothing to do. that feels a million miles away from my experience at the moment.

Can I sit in Zazen? - yes! Does it feel pleasant and do I experience sitting fully with everything that goes along with that? Yes, but I feel like I might as well sunbathe at the moment.

I am harking back to my 'more' focused days when there was a definitive path and purpose to my practice. At least then I wasn't kidding myself by telling myself I am already Enlightened. I felt pretty far from liberated and this felt 100% congruent with my experience.

What that all about???
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Astus
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Re: Susho Itto

Post by Astus »

As you might already know of it, zazen is what they call the suññatā-samādhi and animitta-samādhi in Theravada (e.g. MN 121), and also where the Buddha taught "In what is seen there must be only what is seen", etc. (e.g. Ud 1.10). It is without proliferation (nippapañca), without conceptualisation (nibbikappa/nirvikalpa), therefore without attachment and without a concept of self.
You might also want to look into what Keizan in the Zazen Yojinki and Menzan in the Jijuyu Zanmai taught to further clarify things.
1 Myriad dharmas are only mind.
Mind is unobtainable.
What is there to seek?

2 If the Buddha-Nature is seen,
there will be no seeing of a nature in any thing.

3 Neither cultivation nor seated meditation —
this is the pure Chan of Tathagata.

4 With sudden enlightenment to Tathagata Chan,
the six paramitas and myriad means
are complete within that essence.


1 Huangbo, T2012Ap381c1 2 Nirvana Sutra, T374p521b3; tr. Yamamoto 3 Mazu, X1321p3b23; tr. J. Jia 4 Yongjia, T2014p395c14; tr. from "The Sword of Wisdom"
friendly
Posts: 42
Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2018 1:48 pm

Re: Susho Itto

Post by friendly »

Practice Enlightenment Same. Nothing to add, no place to go. Sitting is Buddha Sitting. Sitting is Morning Star.

BUT, when get up and back to world, things complicated. It is still the same true that nothing to add, nothing to choose, no place to go, all is Buddha. BUT, now you have place to go, many chooses, many things to do. You are sentient being.

Practice is to know that both are true at same, though different. Buddha yet human, choose but nothing to choose, places to go but no place to go, nothing missing but things to fix.

This is Master Dogen's vision of continuing Practice-Enlightenment. All is Buddha BUT if you fall into greed, anger and division, then this fact is hidden. If you live life Buddha, Buddha lives in you. Like this.
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LastLegend
Posts: 5408
Joined: Sat Mar 19, 2011 3:46 pm
Location: Northern Virginia

Re: Susho Itto

Post by LastLegend »

Zafutales wrote: Sun May 17, 2020 10:36 am Hello fellow sitters! I am stuck, stuck in my practice and need a bit of inspiration from those a little longer along the path than me.

Having come from a Theravadin practice of Anapana, following the breath the main aim back then was Jhana and ultimately for this to lead to insight. Insight into Anatta and subsequently Nibbana. Pretty straightforward right? But then I read some Dogen, and was sort of seduced by the idea that as Emptiness is the nature of all phenomena Nibanna but be here right now.....to consider it out there to somehow find and then subsequently experienced seemed at the time nonsense.

I've lost it now though. I am currently feeling like I am laboring under a concept that is driving me away from the truth rather than helping me experience it. The 'concept, Shusho Itto, I think, is what I am referring to. So at the moment I take myself off to the Zafu, sit and feel like a fraud!! I am arrogantly laboring under the illusion that somewhere in the background I am already Enlightened and therefore have no work to do...nothing to achieve and nothing to do. that feels a million miles away from my experience at the moment.

Can I sit in Zazen? - yes! Does it feel pleasant and do I experience sitting fully with everything that goes along with that? Yes, but I feel like I might as well sunbathe at the moment.

I am harking back to my 'more' focused days when there was a definitive path and purpose to my practice. At least then I wasn't kidding myself by telling myself I am already Enlightened. I felt pretty far from liberated and this felt 100% congruent with my experience.

What that all about???
That’s karma and it will continue to manifest. What you need to know there is an inherent Wisdom that’s empty alert and clear and called Buddha nature. It’s empty because it has no traces. It’s pervasive. In eyes it sees clearly in ears it hears clearly. That’s the ground you need to know firmly and enlightened nature in all sentient beings. That’s what practice is.
It’s eye blinking.
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