anybody? is it possible too enter jhana with your eyes open?

The cultivation of calm or tranquility and the development of concentration
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Son
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Re: is it possible too enter jhana with your eyes open?

Post by Son »

porpoise wrote:
Son wrote:
porpoise wrote:For me, what happens is I "note and release" thoughts as they arise, and then also correspondingly I dissect the nature of the arising and or passing. So the trivial arising thoughts are not analyzed. The reality of the moment is seen by analyzing dharma. This analysis illuminates what's really going on in my mind--because I'm focused in a meditative state--here and now. That way I contemplate the aggregates, dependent origination, usually the elements, or simply emptiness, unsatisfactoriness, and impermanence. The difference is gaining insight as opposed to gaining tranquility. Was that helpful to you both?
Yes, good explanation! I find myself noticing how much of my mental activity is basically craving and aversion, wanting and not wanting.
Good! Yes, effectively that is vipassana.
A seed sleeps in soil.
It's cold and alone, hopeless.
Until it blooms above.
greggorious
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Re: anybody? is it possible too enter jhana with your eyes open?

Post by greggorious »

You didn't really practice Zen if you didn't have a teacher. Zen empahsises having a teacher, more than any other school of Buddhism. Plus going to the zendo is of vital imporatance, more important than reading books, knowing about Jhana's etc. Zazen is about stripping away, not about gain. It's not about finding some blissed out state of samadhi, but seeing into your true nature, only then, can one attain enlightenment.
"The original heart/mind shines like pure, clear water with the sweetest taste. But if the heart is pure, is our practice over? No, we must not cling even to this purity. We must go beyond all duality, all concepts, all bad, all good, all pure, all impure. We must go beyond self and nonself, beyond birth and death. When we see with the eye of wisdom, we know that the true Buddha is timeless, unborn, unrelated to any body, any history, any image. Buddha is the ground of all being, the realization of the truth of the unmoving mind.” Ajahn Chah
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Son
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Re: anybody? is it possible too enter jhana with your eyes open?

Post by Son »

greggorious wrote:You didn't really practice Zen if you didn't have a teacher. Zen empahsises having a teacher, more than any other school of Buddhism. Plus going to the zendo is of vital imporatance, more important than reading books, knowing about Jhana's etc. Zazen is about stripping away, not about gain. It's not about finding some blissed out state of samadhi, but seeing into your true nature, only then, can one attain enlightenment.
in some cases, you can practice zen without a teacher, you just can't really devote yourself or progress far without a teacher. Anything derived from the Buddha's teaching at all is about seeing into your own true nature, to attain Enlightenment. Zen is method. There is both samatha and vipassana in Zen. Definitely there is. Contemplating koans and so forth, as well as clearing the mind with calmness. Jhanas aren't important but, just for information and clarification.
A seed sleeps in soil.
It's cold and alone, hopeless.
Until it blooms above.
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johnny
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Re: anybody? is it possible too enter jhana with your eyes open?

Post by johnny »

greggorious wrote:You didn't really practice Zen if you didn't have a teacher. Zen empahsises having a teacher, more than any other school of Buddhism. Plus going to the zendo is of vital imporatance, more important than reading books, knowing about Jhana's etc. Zazen is about stripping away, not about gain. It's not about finding some blissed out state of samadhi, but seeing into your true nature, only then, can one attain enlightenment.
many would disagree with you. many of those that would disagree are masters who wrote their teachings down so people like me could read them and practice zen. most agree you should have a teacher (me included!), but i don't know anyone who would say that it doesn't even count as zen without a teacher, that's going a bit far.


EDIT: i just re-read my op. i never said i didn't have a teacher, i said i "didn't have enough instruction from actual teachers". meaning i did have some instruction, just not enough. which i added as an edit on july 18th for just this reason. your post is from july 28th, in case it seems like i edited my op too fit this discussion, because that is not the case. i find it odd that you came too the conclusion that i didn't have one, and decided it was necessary too tell me that i wasn't really practicing zen, as if it's a hip club and you just one upped me by telling me i was never really in it.
The time would not pass. Somebody was playing with the clocks, and not only the electronic clocks but the wind-up kind too. The second hand on my watch would twitch once, and a year would pass, and then it would twitch again.
There was nothing I could do about it. As an Earthling I had to believe whatever clocks said -and calendars.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
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