one page Summary

User Generated

fnennytubsnvyl

Writing

Description

attached is the Journal project direction and the 1 and a half page reading.

please write a summary on the reading of (Emptiness) section, follow instruction for summary at the journal project picture attached

Unformatted Attachment Preview

someone else's idea, and you are not independent, not your- self, and not natural. Even if you sit in the cross-legged posi- tion, if your zazen is not natural, it is not true practice. You do not have to force yourself to drink water when you are thirsty; you are glad to drink water. If you have true joy your zazen, that is true zazen. But even though you have to force yourself to practice zazen, if you feel something good in your practice, that is zazen. Actually it is not a matter of nothing. So if there is no true emptiness in your activity, it is not natural. Most people insist on some idea. Recently the younger generation talks about love. Love!Love! Love! Their minds are full of love! And when they study Zen, if what I say does not accord with the idea they have of love, they will not ac- cept it. They are quite stubborn, you know. You may be amazed! Of course not all, but some have a very, very hard 108 RIGHT UNDERSTANDING NATURALNESS 109 attitude. That is not naturalness at all. Even though they talk about love, and freedom or naturalness, they do not under- stand these things. And they cannot understand what Zen is in that way. If you want to study Zen, you should forget all your previous ideas and just practice zazen and see what kind of experience you have in your practice. That is naturalness. Whatever you do, this attitude is necessary. Sometimes we say nyu nan shin, "soft or flexible mind." Nyu is "soft feeling"; nan is something which is not hard"; shin is "mind." Nyu nan shin means a smooth, natural mind. When you have that mind, you have the joy of life. When you lose it, you lose everything. You have nothing. Although you think you have something, you have nothing; But when all you do comes out of nothingness, then you have everything. Do you understand? That is what we mean by naturalness. E MPTINESS should have "When you study Buddhism you general house cleaning of your a idea of existence is very difficult to explain. Many people these days have begun to feel, at least intellectually, the emp- tiness of the modem world, or the self-contradiction of their culture. In the past, for instance, the Japanese people had a firm confidence in the permanent existence of their culture and their traditional way of life, but since they lost the war, they have become very skeptical. Some people think this skeptical attitude is awful, but actually it is better than the old attitude. As long as we have some definite idea about or some hope in the future, we cannot really be serious with the moment that exists right now. You may say, "I can do it tomorrow, or next year," believing that something that exists today will exist tomorrow. Even though you are not trying so hard, you expect that some promising thing will come, as long as you follow a certain way. But there is no certain way that exists permanently. There is no way set up for us. Moment after moment we have to find our own way. Some idea of perfec- tion, or some perfect way which is set up by someone else, is not the true way for us. Each one of us must make his own true way, and when we do, that way will express the universal way. This is the mys- tery. When you understand one thing through and through, you understand everything. When you try to understand everything, you will not understand anything. The best way is to understand yourself, and then you will understand every- thing. So when you try hard to make your own way, you will help others, and you will be helped by others. Before you make your own way you cannot help anyone, and no one can help you. To be independent in this true sense, we have to forget everything which we have in our mind and discover something quite new and different moment after moment. This is how we live in this world. So we say true understanding will come out of emptiness. When you study Buddhism, you should have a general house cleaning of your mind. You must take everything out of your room and clean it thoroughly. If it is necessary, you may mind." If you want to understand Buddhism it is necessary for you to forget all about your preconceived ideas. To begin with, you must give up the Idea of substantiality or existence. The usual view of life is firmly rooted in the idea of existence. For most people everything exists; they think whatever they see and whatever they hear exists. Of course the bird we see and hear exists. It exists, but what I mean by that may not be exactly what you mean. The Buddhist understanding of life includes both existence and non-existence. The bird both exists and does not exist at the same time. We say that a view of life based on existence alone is heretical. If you take things too seriously, as if they existed substantially or permanently, you are called a heretic. Most people may be heretics. We say true existence comes from emptiness and goes back again into emptiness. What appears from emptiness is true existence. We have to go through the gate of emptiness. This По RIGHT UNDERSTANDING EMPTINESS 111 Concentration is not to try hard to watch something. In zazen if you try to look at one spot you will be tired in about five minutes. This is not concentration. Concentration means freedom. So your effort should be directed at nothing. You should be concentrated on nothing. In zazen practice we say your mind should be concentrated on your breathing, but the way to keep your mind on your breathing is to forget all about yourself and just to sit and feel your breathing. If you are concentrated on your breathing you will forget your- self, and if you forget yourself you will be concentrated on your breathing. I do not know which is first. So actually there is no need to try too hard to be concentrated on your breath- ing. Just do as much as you can. If you continue this practice, eventually you will experience the true existence which comes from emptiness. bring everything back in again. You may want many things, so one by one you can bring them back. But if they are not necessary, there is no need to keep them. We see the flying bird. Sometimes we see the trace of it. Actually we cannot see the trace of a flying bird, but some- times we feel as if we could. This is also good. If it is neces- sary, you should bring back in the things you took from your room. But before you put something in your room, it is neces- sary for you to take out something. If you do not, your room will become crowded with old, useless junk. We say, "Step by step I stop the sound of the murmuring brook." When you walk along the brook you will hear the water running. The sound is continuous, but you must be able to stop it if you want to stop it. This is freedom; this is renunciation. One after another you will have various thoughts in your mind, but if you want to stop your thinking you can. So when you are able to stop the sound of the murmuring brook, you will appreciate the feeling of your work. But as long as you have some fixed idea or are caught by some habitual way of doing things, you cannot appreciate things in their true sense. If you seek for freedom, you cannot find it. Absolute free- dom itself is necessary before you can acquire absolute free- dom. That is our practice. Our way is not always to go in one direction. Sometimes we go east; sometimes we go west. To go one mile to the west means to go back one mile to the east. Usually if you go one mile to the east it is the opposite of going one mile to the west. But if it is possible to go one mile to the east, that means it is possible to go one mile to the west. This is freedom. Without this freedom you cannot be concentrated on what you do. You may think you are con- centrated on something, but before you obtain this freedom, you will have some uneasiness in what you are doing. Because you are bound by some idea of going east or west, your activ- ity is in dichotomy or duality. As long as you are caught by duality you cannot attain absolute freedom, and you cannot concentrate. "It is the EADINESS, MINDFULNESS readiness of the mind that is wisdom." In the Prajna Paramita Sutra the most important point, of course, is the idea of emptiness. Before we understand the idea of emptiness, everything seems to exist substantially. But after we realize the emptiness of things, everything be- comes real-not substantial. When we realize that every- thing we see is a part of emptiness, we can have no attach- ment to any existence; we realize that everything is just a ten- tative form and color. Thus we realize the true meaning of each tentative existence. When we first hear that everything is a tentative existence, most of us are disappointed; but this disappointment comes from a wrong view of man and nature. It is because our way of observing things is deeply rooted in our self-centered ideas that we are disappointed when we find everything has only a tentative existence. But when we actu- ally realize this truth, we will have no suffering. This sutra says, "Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara observes that 112 RIGHT UNDERSTANDING READINESS, MINDFULNESS 113 Journal Project Beginning Week 6 of the semester, you will be responsible for producing “journal entries” in regard to specific readings. Your assignment will be to produce a one (1) page summary of each reading; this will amount to seven (7) written pages during by the semester's end. Your summary should (a) state what you find the main thesis of the reading to be; (b) state why you think that is the main thesis of the reading, in other words, what does the reading say to support your claim, and (c) summarize the total reading by stating - in summary form - what else the reading says of value.
Purchase answer to see full attachment
User generated content is uploaded by users for the purposes of learning and should be used following Studypool's honor code & terms of service.

Explanation & Answer

Att...


Anonymous
I was having a hard time with this subject, and this was a great help.

Studypool
4.7
Trustpilot
4.5
Sitejabber
4.4

Similar Content

Related Tags