Shunryu Suzuki Roshi
when we sit we resume
our fundamental activity
of creation when we sit
we are nothing when we
stand up we are there
everything else is there
created all at once
from nothing then act
but if you forget the nothing
from which it came the
creation will mean nothing
the action will mean
nothing
any moment can be zazen
there is just what I am doing or
there is just what accrues and en-shells
while I am doing it
either way there just is
when I arise from that zazen finish
then ‘I’ and ‘rest of the world’ appear
spontaneously and fresh
but that is all
the next zazen
and from this comes fresh
spontaneity giving with
no sticky after effects
the first two stanzas use Shunryu Suzuki’s words from Zen Mind Beginner’s Mind p. 53 – hence the title
————w(O)rmholes________________________________|—–
part of … oh
being & sitting wormhole: actually
giving wormhole: ‘let everything go …’
identity wormhole: actually
Shunryu Suzuki wormhole: Shunryu / Suzuki / Roshi
zazen wormhole: just
mlewisredford 
zazen?
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OK. The practice of sitting JUST to sit (i.e. not to continue with the crotcheted thoughts and feelings and fidgets which normally make our sitting so sticky) is called ‘shikantaza’ (‘just sitting’). There is a wonderful liberation and DISCOVERY when this is done (actually it is simply resuming our true nature – so it is not so much ‘done’ – too much a sense of crafty knitting here – as ‘allowed’ or ‘found’ or ‘how silly of me, it was here all along’). Very generally speaking ‘zazen’ had come to be understood as ‘shikantaza’ (‘just just-sitting’!) with the connotation that you only ‘did it’ when sitting. What Suzuki Roshi was exploring was that zazen – the act of doing something UNcrocheted – was PRACTISED when sitting but is to be continued when doing anything else as well: that whatever you do – eating, blogging, writing, breathing – you do without the crochet. You don’t realise your true nature JUST when sitting, you realise it while living as well. HA! … now where did I put my …?
*Sigh* reading over this it makes no sense, it just IS sense … there’s nothing for it, I’m just going to have to recommend, with all the anticipation and build-up of sharing a brilliant joke, ‘Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind’ by Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. It’s brilliant, it constantly slaps you in the face when you think you’ve got it sussed, but always leaves you refreshed with a gust of fresh air that always seems to come from around the next corner – oh, and the ground is wet.
Alternatively, or also, have a visit of http://www.cuke.com, a glorious mess of a site to rummage around in and find something as if it were your own garage.
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I think I need to sit down to digest all of this, but arigato for clarifying some small thing.
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arigato?
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Isn’t that thanks in Japanese?
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no idea
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ng-ahh … – I get it now ‘need to sit down to digest all of this’. Droll
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…and eventually, we will all wear crotchetless panties…as in “Don’t get your crotchetless panties in a bunch!”
I’ll have to get my copy of ZMBM down from the virtual shelf (i think i just have the e-version now…)
and I think this makes 105!
A pleasurable wormhole to not find one’s self in…or to find one’s self not in…
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you know, you’re the only worm I know to wriggle your way through these holes – and we all know that worms have no use of crotches, neither do they have fingers to crochet …
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The only one?!
A shame. It’s great fun!
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