Fukan-Zazengi 8: The Great Cosmic Battle... (in our heads).


This section of Master Dogen's zazen instructions, that is a number of pithy directions for practice, continues... 


Do not think of good and bad. Do not consider right and wrong.

 

The constant rotations and regurgitations of our thinking mind can be annoying.

One of the things that I, and many people, experienced in first trying zazen was becoming aware of the slew of thoughts that the mind throws up in a panic when we do the very scary thing of just sitting down for 10, 20 or 30 minutes to do very little.

Seeing these thoughts as something 'bad' (as opposed 'peace', 'calm', 'enlightenment'  or whatever... 'good' in other words), or as something to try to resist or stop, is not what we are instructed to do here. We just let all that go when we notice we're doing it. We don't really try to notice this either ('awareness' or 'good' vs 'inattention' or 'bad'... good/bad thinking can get a bit subtle!), we just stop it when we notice we're doing it due to the 'turning the light around' that comes about naturally as we sit... or not -- some days are just a bit 'thinky', and we can acknowledge that as it is without ascribing it 'good' or 'bad' status.

In a broader sense, how much of our lives and what we think of as our selves or our personalities are defined by our tending towards 'good' and trying to avoid 'bad'...?

I want to feel calm and blissful (good) and not bored, stressed, depressed (bad).

I want to be seen as this kind of person (good) and not as an asshole (bad).

I want to be popular (good) and not lonely (bad).

I want politics, society and the world to be organised like this (good) and not be this chaotic shark pool (bad).

I want to feel the sense of achievement I imagine successful people must feel (good) and not the disappointment about my boring life that often wells up out of nowhere (bad).

I want to be enlightened (whatever I think that means! = Good) and not a deluded fool like most other people (bad).

I want life to be simple and easy (good) and not a bit fooked-up and messy (bad)...

'Dropping off body and mind', dropping off 'good' and 'bad', can be brought to bear on all such aspects of the self and we can thereby experience things directly as they are before we make them 'good' or 'bad'.

I'm sure we could all write our own list of the 'goods' and 'bads' by which we drive a wedge between us and things as they actually are.

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