Our true nature expresses itself
HONRAI NO MENMOKU GENZEN SEN. Our original face manifests itself. Naturally, spontaneously. The secret is to allow it.
What does it mean to allow it?
For our purposes, as devotees of Fukan-zazen-gi, it means to find some space and time to be set aside for the physical/temporal act of sitting in lotus.
Then it means to make an effort to kick-start the natural, spontaneous process, without the grasping which will sabotage that very process.
To understand what kind of effort this is, the work of FM Alexander has been, in the Zazen practice and experience of me for one, absolutely invaluable.
FM Alexander, while well aware of how misleading words can be, called it “thinking.” In Fukan-zazen-gi also, Master Dogen exhorts us to think. But it is not thinking as we generally understand thinking. It is certainly not speculative, intellectual thinking. It is a kind of clarity of intention. It is the intention to allow something that happens spontaneously.
How can a spontaneous process be intended?
How can the state of not thinking be thought?
Non-intentionality. Non-thinking. Non-allowing.
Non-allowing means allowing that gets rid of itself.
In other words, allowing the neck to be free, to allow the head to release out from the body (“forward and up”), to allow the spine to release in a lengthening direction and the back to release in a widening direction -- altogether, as one integral act of allowing.
One integral act of allowing that spontaneously turns into one integral act.
Just sitting.
What does it mean to allow it?
For our purposes, as devotees of Fukan-zazen-gi, it means to find some space and time to be set aside for the physical/temporal act of sitting in lotus.
Then it means to make an effort to kick-start the natural, spontaneous process, without the grasping which will sabotage that very process.
To understand what kind of effort this is, the work of FM Alexander has been, in the Zazen practice and experience of me for one, absolutely invaluable.
FM Alexander, while well aware of how misleading words can be, called it “thinking.” In Fukan-zazen-gi also, Master Dogen exhorts us to think. But it is not thinking as we generally understand thinking. It is certainly not speculative, intellectual thinking. It is a kind of clarity of intention. It is the intention to allow something that happens spontaneously.
How can a spontaneous process be intended?
How can the state of not thinking be thought?
Non-intentionality. Non-thinking. Non-allowing.
Non-allowing means allowing that gets rid of itself.
In other words, allowing the neck to be free, to allow the head to release out from the body (“forward and up”), to allow the spine to release in a lengthening direction and the back to release in a widening direction -- altogether, as one integral act of allowing.
One integral act of allowing that spontaneously turns into one integral act.
Just sitting.
posted by Mike Cross at 6:33 AM
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