Simon E. wrote: ↑Thu Jan 18, 2018 1:55 pm
No Zennist me. But I wish you would post more often Keith.
Thanks for the kind words, Simon. And for reminding me that I misspelled "and"!
No Soto person me, so I didn't want to interfere too much.
The teacher said:
Whenever I try to talk to the teacher at the Zen center about this, she just tells me that there's nowhere to go and nothing to accomplish.
And yet...
I remember a guy who was practicing with us for a while. It turns out he had the odd habit of collecting precepts from different traditions. So once he took ours, we never saw him again. Anyway, he went into interview one time and it was a very short one, which is unusual for my teacher and he returned to the Dharma a little red-faced. I guess he asked a similar question, framed a little differently. He said he wasn't satisfied with his practice, i.e. it wasn't deep enough. My teacher gave a very short answer "Zen - style", which don't remember exactly, but whatever it was, it pissed the guy off and he bowed out.
I think my teacher saw some superficiality that needed cutting down. He has this extremely annoying habit of answering a question with a question. But I understand now, and I know he will see through my bullshit.
(btw, I am not suggesting that mddril is suffering from this sort of superficiality. Obviously, there is no way of knowing that on an internet forum)
The point is imagining there is some deep place to get to is a hindrance. So, we just do the "miraculous power and marvelous activity" of our daily practice. And maybe the "deep place" appears all by itself.
The teacher can only gesture in the right direction. The student has to do heavy lifting.
Nowhere to go, nothing to accomplish.
_/|\_