Notes on Zen Practice

From Zazen his morning, I noticed that perhaps more than a million times, I've seen without seeing, heard without hearing, thought without thinking, felt without true feeling. When It happens, what I'm really seeing, feeling, thinking, feeling are just fragments. It's not the "Unified Whole," that Is Buddha nature Itself.

We are often guided to pay attention and focus on what the ego thinks is important or "really" matters. The truth is the mind is often distracted with bright and shiny things in our life. Maybe what we need to focus our mind on is that things which aren't so shiny or bright. What I'm talking about is that which is so-called, "Ordinary" or "Extra-Ordinary."

It's been said that "Not knowing is closest to knowing." Put another way, it's the areas that I avoid and reject that might give me the biggest opportunity to have a windows to know and see what's in my "True Mind." It's like I was saying on Twitter the other day. "We can know so much about so many things, yet know nothing of our True Mind," that we've carried with us all of our life.

May this is why Dogen Zenji said, "To study and know the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things of the universe." Not know Is closest to knowing. It's a "dead spot" in our consciousness, that isn't reflecting or refracting anything. It's "Clear, Quiet and Clean." Or as the Heart Sutra say's, "No eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind." Just Zero.

You might not get what I'm saying. That's okay. Sometimes when we are reading someone else's notes, we might not get the entire point.... initially. But with Zazen and time focusing the attetnion on our practice, we can and will. In that I have no doubt.

Jaye Seiho Morris, Curator
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