Zazen practice - Questions and suggestions regarding the practice

[Mornings Son]

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[Mornings Son]

about practice
from http://onedropzendo.org/wayofzazen.htm by Shodo Harada Roshi
We begin by using the text of Hakuin's teaching from the first night of the rohatsu osesshin. He spoke to the many disciples lined up in front of him in this way:

    For those who wish to enter deep samadhi, it is best to put down thick cushions, sit in full lotus and wear loose clothes. Make your spine straight and your posture erect but comfortable. Begin by doing susokkan, the best possible way for entering deep samadhi, focusing your ki in your tanden. Next, concentrate intensely on your koan until you dig out the roots of your self-conscious awareness completely. If you then continue to practice zazen day after day, kensho will be realized as certainly as you hit the ground when you strike at it. Put everything you have into it.
Deep samadhi, deep samadhi.
We all speak about kensho,
but if we don't develop our samadhi,
don't work inventively on developing our deep samadhi,

it all becomes something far away up in the sky.

The
Sixth Patriarch and Rinzai Zenji both taught that only kensho

was of greatest importance and that samadhi and
liberation
were not to be considered as problems. They said that
there is only
kensho to be concerned with and that is all that is
necessary;
that enlightenment is the most important thing and that
this is
the essential point of Zen.

The
experience of the Buddha was deep enlightenment. When he
saw the
morning star he experienced his true nature clearly.
Without such
a thing there is no Zen or Buddhadharma. But, just
to say
kensho doesn't mean that we can realize it.

...
This
does not mean that the goal is to develop our own quiet
world. The
goal is to realize one's true nature. For doing this we
need to
develop deep samadhi. For this reason people of
training
constantly need to concentrate on their zazen and
employ
this mind of practice as the base of their daily life and
all activity.
****
If you want instructions for doing zazen - go to the http://onedropzendo.org/wayofzazen.htm

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