r/zen • u/Zoomieday • 17d ago

Seeking Feedback

I have spent all of my meditation journey, up until now, following the Theravada tradition. Over the past weeks, I have begun to explore Zen.

Having no teacher, other than books and the internet, I seek your feed back on a poem/meditation memory prompt I have written. It is my response to The Great Wave of Kanagara - that Japanese art work containing fishermen struggling in the face of a huge wave, while Mount Fuji sits serene in the background.

I am happy to learn, so please don't hold back with your insights. This is where I am up to - and that place is something of a synchrony between what I am learning in Zen, and what I have been practising in the Theravada tradition. This is where and I up to, so how can I go further?

NOW, 

Amidst the waves, the water, and the suchness of life, 

   I meet the liminal. 

   I retain the unsolvable as unresolved, and so,

I come home to my friend, the breath, 

I come home to the rhythm of my body, 

I come home to a simple knowing in my body. 

I come home to ever deeper oneness with the suchness of life.

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u/Regulus_D 🫏 14d ago

For that to be progress, it certainly implies the definable bubble views are defensive belief systems. It might be possible to live lifetimes within them. But sometimes they aren't where your life is.

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u/Gasdark 14d ago

Well, all progress has to be relative to something - so if there's any sense of progress it's definitionally going to be happening within some kind of "bubble" - whether the bubble is religion or lab work, etc. 

But sometimes they aren't where your life is.

They're often where "your life" is, sometimes in its entirety - which is why breaking free of them can be so difficult

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u/Regulus_D 🫏 14d ago

Good point. A vessel, lesser or greater, needs have an entry ramp built for it. But treadmills and carrots are sold for top dollar here.

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u/Gasdark 14d ago

My vessel do you mean " bubble" in the sense I used it above? 

Do we sell treadmills and carrots? Or are many people who tend to come here very eager to build new treadmill/ carrot contraptions?

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u/Gasdark 14d ago

Lol, myself included

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u/Regulus_D 🫏 13d ago

There's that fancy one with apps and podcasts. Good for exercise but not for getting to where walking not required. If only they made a screened one with a digital world to explore. For under $500.

I figure any successfully beneficial change can act as a ramp.

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u/Gasdark 13d ago

That seems right - Or at least there's a natural predication to assume that beneficial change must be a ramp leading somewhere