241112 - Zengården - Day 7

20241112 - 16:36

241112 - Zengården - Day 7

Tomorrow Sesshin starts. So no more writing for a while. I guess it’s already been waning. Things have been changing too quickly too keep up. I am settling in. Finding myself, more. The grief is changing. Not overcome, but shifting into something deeper, and threats of outbursts are lessening. I find so much aversion has been driving me, a denial of life itself. “I DON’T WANT IT”, my being has been screaming. And yet it’s here. And acceptance is the only way forward, not denial. Life is not going anywhere. Even letting go of it - letting go of everything - can only come through a pure acceptance of its existence. Aversion, denial, rejection, these lead nowhere. Life moves on, even if I am not ready to. It does not care. Moment by moment, it continues, and I am there. And so, my practice has been eased. My life-decisions perhaps will follow.

A gentle, curious, and attentive, awareness, is cultivated. An awareness that looks at the mind, at what is happening, and takes it as such. Without following the senses into the content, just to be aware of the presence surrounding it. There is seeing. There is thinking. Not getting involved, entangled, dividing, judging, or caring about what is happening. Just this presence, this awareness that they are. And the fact that there is awareness that they are. Whether I consciously am aware of it in the moment or not, the awareness is always there. It is the container for my experience, for life. The practice is just to come back to it, to recognize the fact that it is always there. Because whatever content there might be that I am currently involved with, that itself is only on the basis of awareness already being there. Thus, we might see, residing there is in a way effortless. It’s not about “summoning” attention and being very focused in order for it not to fall away. It’s just residing where we always are. This is ‘attentive awareness’. “Attention from the womb (source).” Yoniso Manisikara.

The Blessed One said, “What is the All? Simply the eye & forms, ear & sounds, nose & aromas, tongue & flavors, body & tactile sensations, intellect & ideas. This, monks, is called the All. Anyone who would say, ‘Repudiating this All, I will describe another,’ if questioned on what exactly might be the grounds for his statement, would be unable to explain and, furthermore, would be put to grief. Why? Because it lies beyond range.” - Sabba Sutta (SN 35:23)