Sit-a-Long with Jundo: Zazen for Beginners (We're All Beginners) VIII

The question came up today about whether a Buddha would ever feel frustration … did he always feel peace and contentment?

I believe he knew how to feel peace and contentment, even amid a world that can often be frustrating!

You see, the highest Contentment, attained through dropping all thought ofsameness or difference, is being Content with not being content all thetime. We can experience a deep, abiding Contentment … fully present even with daily pains and sometime discontent.

The best way to be”at home in” and “at one with” life is by always being at home …lacking all thought of somewhere else to go … even when life takes usplaces where we do not want to go. Drop allresistance to sometimes resisting (sometimes not resisting) … andthat is Deep Liberation.

The True Peace sees right through this messy world we live in that is sometimes peace sometimes war.

To hope for one’s experience onthe Zafu to always be a joyful, blissful, happy time is … in our view… not the Highest Samadhi. To favor only the blissful moments, and to rejectthe bored or painful moments is (in our view) not Enlightenment … forEnlightenment is to understand the Bliss that is sometimes beingamused, sometimes bored … for that is wonderful life, no place otherto be (or where you should be).

Oh, for sure, our Zen practicewill also teach us many ways to drop resistance to life we normallyfeel. So, very often, we can drop resistance, discontentment, pain andthe like that is present in life and on the Zafu (we become “masters ofthe mind”, who know 1000 tricks to change the mind). Yet, still, theGreatest Change is knowing that we flow with whatever comes.

And how do we do this?”Just Sitting“, moment by moment on the Zafu, dropping all thought ofanything to add, anything to take away, all goals and ideas of otherplaces to be, knowing that a pure moment of Zazen is the whole universesitting Zazen in that moment (like the cosmos in a grain of sand), allthe world living life as you live life. We come to observe our comingand going boredom, discontent or small resistances as if a spectatorwatching a bit of mental theatre, all while comfortably at rest in ourTrue Seat. We “go with the flow” because we ARE the Flow!

Thosemeditators who seek only bliss states, only joy, only peace as “right”meditation … not only miss the complexity of this wonderous life, butoverlook that Joy and Peace beyond some mere joy and peace.

(remember: recording ends soon after the beginning bells;
a sitting time of 20 to 35 minutes is recommended)

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