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Sitting Just to Sit

Article
Larry Rosenberg
Fall 1998

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The intimacy of practice is the practice of non-separation, of being at one with whatever is happening. We tend to think that we are not all right now—we’re too fearful, greedy, angry, whatever—and if we take up some spiritual practice we can improve ourselves. By doing this, we think, we will be all right at some mo­ment in an imagined future. This is the mind that works on the “in order to” prin­ciple—we are always doing this in order to get that, or to be that. Yet this very tendency—to strive, be ambitious, set a goal, get ahead of ourselves—takes us out of the present moment, away from how we are right now. It actually prevents intimacy from this moment; our wish for intimacy prevents us from being intimate.

One of my favorite Buddhist traditions is the Soto Zen lineage of Kosho Uchiyama roshi. Uchiyama was the dis­ciple of Sawaki-roshi, and their ex­changes informed several of Uchiyama-roshi’s books. Sawaki, who had a difficult, orphaned childhood, practiced a very austere and “home­less” form of Zen. He was a powerful and charismatic teacher, while Uchiyama presents himself in his writ­ing as being timid and weak. At one point as a young monk, Uchiyama says to Sawaki, “If I practice zazen for many years, will I be as strong as you?” Sawaki, without a moment’s hesita­tion, says, “No, you won’t. I’ve always been this way. Zazen didn’t do this for me.”

Sawaki was famous for saying that zazen was entirely useless. He said he wanted his epitaph to read, “Here lies Sawaki-roshi. Wasted his whole life sit­ting on a cushion.” (But if you don’t wholeheartedly do this useless activity, he would say, your whole life will be use­less.) Sawaki was trying to counteract the “in order to” mind, and insisted that his students sit just for the sitting. Prac­tice Dharma for the sake of Dharma, and not something else. He was in the tradi­tion of the great teacher Eihei Dogen, who made the puzzling statement that it is not practice that leads to enlighten­ment, but that correct practice is en­lightenment–wholehearted sitting is already an expression of the awakened mind. Dogen even invented a com­pound word for this concept, and re­ferred to it in his writings as practice-enlightenment. He wanted his students to sit and know they were enlightened.

Fall98_LR

On the one hand, sitting is one of the most practical things you can do. It defi­nitely has beneficial physical and psy­chological effects, as anyone will tell you who does it (though it is not always easy to define those benefits). But when you sit in order to gain something—the way Uchiyama wanted to be like Sawaki—you are undermining yourself. You limit what sitting can do for you.

So, after you have learned how to calm and stabilize the mind, simply be as you are. You may find that your willingness to be nakedly face this moment exactly as it brings with it an extraordinary ful­fillment, a fulfillment that is independent of the actual content of the moment. Over time, the mind will hanker less after notions of a better future.

In the words of Ajaan Chah, the great Theravada teacher, “Don’t try to get any­where in practice. The very desire to be free or to be enlightened will be the de­sire that prevents your freedom. You can try as hard as you wish, practice ardently night and day, but if you still have the desire to achieve you will never find peace….simply let go. Watch the mind and body mindfully, but don’t try to achieve anything.”

Excerpted from a talk given by Larry Rosenberg at CIMC.


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Insight Journal

Fall 1998

Download PDF

In this volume:

To the Forest for Refuge

By Joseph Goldstein

Interview

Practicing for Awakening

By Jack Engler

Article

Mindfulness: Gateway into Experience

By Carol Wilson

Article

One Tool Among Many: The Place of Vipassana in Buddhist Practice

By Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Article

Upon the Tip of a Needle (Mahā Niddesa 1.42)

By Andrew Olendzki

Sutta Study

Sitting Just to Sit

By Larry Rosenberg

Article

Let the Wilderness Serve! (Saṃyutta Nikāya 6.2.3)

By Andrew Olendzki

Poem

 

All issues:

See all Insight Journal issues

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  • Home
  • About Us
    • New and Notable
    • COVID-19 Safety Protocols
    • Mission and Values
    • Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
    • Board of Directors
    • IMS
    • Staff
    • Job Openings
    • Getting to BCBS
    • Mailing List
    • Contact Us
  • Onsite Programs
    • Current Course Calendar
    • Everything You Need to Know About Residential Programs
    • Typical Residential Schedule
    • Continuing Education Credits
    • Financial Assistance
    • Teacher Dāna
  • Online Programs
    • Upcoming Programs
    • Wisdom Collaborations
    • Previously Offered Programs
    • Cancellation Policy
  • Path Programs
  • Teaching Faculty
  • Resources
    • Insight Journal
    • Bhikkhu Anālayo’s Offerings
    • The Daily Sit
    • Freely Offered Dharma
      • Events
      • Courses
    • BCBS Publishing
    • BCBS Bookstore
    • Access to Insight
    • Dharma Seed
    • Ways to Engage in Social Justice
  • Generosity
    • Donate
    • Recurring Donations
    • Planned Giving
    • Other Ways of Giving
    • Teacher Dāna
    • Volunteer