Ridiculous and Useless

Practicing zazen is ridiculous and useless. That's the point, no?

No.

There is no point. You do it to do it. That's it. Nothing more. The ridiculousness of sitting, the uselessness of sitting simply are. They're not the point of anything, they merely exist. 

When I sit, I sit. I adopt partial posture while sitting on a straightback antique oak kitchen chair with a quilted cushion on the seat. My back is straight-ish, not uncomfortably or rigidly so. My head is slightly down. My hips are solidly placed forward rather than back into the chair. My feet are flat on the floor, legs slightly apart. My hands are placed in the "cosmic mudra" position, palms up, left hand's fingers on top of right hand's fingers, thumbs barely touching, oval space open between thumbs and fingers. The hands land on my lap and rest there, but they can be raised slightly above the lap and come to rest just below the navel. When sitting, my eyes are usually open, gaze somewhat unfocused ahead and down. Not actually looking at anything (most of the time) but not not looking either. 

To the extent I meditate while sitting, three aspects come to the fore. 

First, to concentrate on breathing and body. Counting breaths, but only as a counter to passing thoughts. Otherwise just breathe and be conscious of breathing. Be aware of the body and body sensations. I'm particularly sensitive to joint issues, and when they arise, I note them and also note that body is more than joints; paying attention all the way up and all the way down and inside and out. 

Second, mantras. There are lots of them. At any time, one can pop into consciousness to counter passing thoughts or just be running in the background something like a drone in East Indian music. And then be gone like the thought that might have been countered. Only to come back again.

Third, koans. Insoluble puzzles of words and mind. Nonsense. Paradoxes. Again, as counters to passing thoughts, there and gone.

There are other elements that can happen. Some can become meditations. One that I've feared and consciously avoided is a return to "The Void." A state of emptiness that I encountered many years ago while practicing zazen and did not want to return to without a guide or teacher. 

Well, I've learned that once there, it never leaves. Or rather, you never leave it. Or... It's ever-present, prior to, and everlasting. It is what I called "the Ground State" of everything and nothing simultaneously. All phenomena arise therefrom, but "arise" is not the correct description. Nothing arises, in other words. And there are no phenomena. Everything is Nothing. All the time and everywhere. There is no time, no where. 

And I've always had guides. I've always had teachers. I wasn't always paying attention.

Yes, we live in the material world of consciousness, separateness and phenomena, and yes, they're not "real." They are illusion. The "reality" to the extent we can comprehend it -- imperfectly at best -- is found in that Ground State, which perceptively is Nothing. There's literally Nothing there.

Yet that No-Thing is Every-Thing. And that "there" is not.

Get it?

The paradoxes and contradictions have led to endless commentary on being-no being, Enlightenment, and what the holy hoo-hah this Sakyamuni Buddha character was getting at. 

During this practice period, there's been almost no mention of Sakyamuni. The focus has been on sad, bewildered Santideva and how he overcame the demons of self-doubt and other people's mockery and criticisms to follow the Prajnaparamita and become a Bodhisattva at Nalanda.

They tell us -- maybe they're right, maybe they're wrong -- that most of those who enter the Buddhist monastery never become Enlightened. They don't become Buddhas. Most never become Bodhisattvas. When they die, they don't enter Nirvana. That seems sad. But I believe it.

What then is the point of the monastery, Zen Buddhist or any other?

On the one hand, yes, the monastery is as ridiculous and useless as practicing zazen. There is no point, as it were. 

And yet... and yet...

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Oh goody. The Book came, the one I ordered from Indiana. And neat, it's got underlining, check marks and a few comments by its previous owner(s). Yay. The Book: Jack Kerouac's "Wake Up, A Life of the Buddha" (1955) that I didn't know existed until recently when I read about it in a commentary on a book by Gary Snyder. 

This should be interesting.

I suspect one reason bhikkhus, bonzes, and monks fail to reach Enlightenment is because they're always being diverted by things like this.