For me keeping 'don't know' mind helps. I got that from Hyon gak Sunim. Everyone wants to figure everything out and have their opinion on everything. Keeping don't know mind is kind of surrendering to everything, accepting everything as it is and just being present. It's really powerful just accepting that you don't know. I know it's a different zen tradition but they're all pointing to the same thing.. Just pure experience. (I guess?? I don't know!!!)

Just sit is the same as any other meditation instruction, trying to do something or trying not to do something are both trying and the ultimate lesson is the same.

Hey Brad! Thank you for continuing to be a positive influence in my life. your Dipped In Chocolate book was great help when my father died back in november. Stay safe.

Hey Brad, great video! That book sounds fascinating, I’ll have to add it to my reading list. My wife and I have lived in our current house for 15 years. We have a neighbor who is an absolutely horrible dog owner! Our home is usually very quiet, but off and on throughout the day and night, his multiple dogs have absolute conniption fits, and often don’t even sound like dogs....or anything even earthly! This has been going on the whole time we’ve lived here. I’ve tried talking to him to no avail, and there is nothing I can do legally. SO, you can imagine how jarring this might be whilst trying to do Zazen . Consequently, it has been a valuable object lesson in having to really embrace RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW, and be a real champion of the concept of impermanence. In all honesty, I find myself often cheating and wearing noise cancelling headphones during my times of meditation, because I really hate that asshole and his fucking dogs!! Yeah, still working on the whole compassion thing; nobody is going to confuse me with the Dalai Lama anytime soon.

Thanks Brad, the dog barking chimed with me. I usually sit when my young sons have gone to bed. Sometimes they chat, sing, whistle as I sit. This used to annoy the hell out of me. I’d fidget on the zafu, roll my half closed eyes and usually end up shouting at them. For me, I realised that this was my desire for a perfect silence and environment in which to sit. Maybe by sitting in silence would give me what I’m seeking? Anyways, the boys do still whistle, laugh and chat but now I more able to ‘just sit’ without their being boys distracting or not distracting me. Cheers, and keep up the good work.

I'm watching this a while after you posted it, but I wanted to thank you for this video. Both my husband and I are teachers about to return to school and we are scared. The anxiety is high. But for the moment, we are well. So I will try to stay with this moment.

Simply one of your best videos/talks and a really approachable explanation!

Thanks. Valuable video.

All the best for your choppers, Big Fella. Thankfully dentistry has progressed a lil since Dogen's time!

I found this video to be particularly helpful and inspiring, especially as I listened to this having bailed early from my just sitting practice but thought to "fill the time" with the subject matter anyway.

Good luck at your dental appointment tomorrow, Brad! I hope that being in this moment helps you at the dentist, just as it does with Ziggy. Lately I've taken to reading your books in the afternoon after work and trying to catch in the evening whatever you may have posted during the day, so one way or the other I'll be sending good thoughts, even if you cannot post a video. Have a great night!

I am an American who’s been living in Japan for over 28 years and I became a ZEN Monk, and went through two years of rigorous training. These days I believe ZEN training or SHUGYO in Japanese has changed a lot. Now the emphasis is more on how to run the little mom and pop temples. Yes, he died on the Japanese landscape rather than to do actual ZEN training.

You bring up a very good point that is totally forgotten in ZEN in the west as well as here in Japan. Westerners and easterners alike all think that if you meditate, he will sharpen your mind and you will become more adept at everything including sports, martial arts, etc. It’s just not true. ZEN is for ZEN and nothing else. It’s hard for Westerners and easterners like to wrap their heads around that. People like to look at Buddhism and practice it in terms of Christianity. It just doesn’t work. ZEN is Miles and Miles ahead of what Christianity could ever be.

One thing I've always wondered is that if just sitting is just sitting, how do we just sit without concentrating or putting in some effort to try and concentrate? Doesn't it take some sort of mental effort to catch yourself and actively go back to the present moment?

Before, "this very moment," give the dog a Xanax.

best way to do zazen is to stop doing zazen and start just sitting

Any thoughts on Zen Master Seung Sahn and the Kwan Um School?

Great video! I always thought it's 止観只座 :P

Hello. I would appreciate if you made a video about the book Oxherding and explain it a little bit. Thanks

Orientation

HAVE YOU TOUGHT ABOUT TELLING ZIGGGY JUST TO SIT ? ..........

Hey Ziggy. Tell Brad to listen to Billy Collins reading his poem "Another Reason Why I Don't Keep A Gun In The House."

Hey Brad! I would be interested about your opinion of monastic life. I remember you have talked about it somewhere but it would be nice to hear your ideas about living in monastery/ becoming a monk.

Ziggy Roshi.

Hey Brad, have you ever discussed in a video your approach dullness/sleepiness when doing shikantaza? Do you just let yourself fall asleep, do you just cut the meditation short, or do you perhaps just do standing/walking meditation? I know through practicing other styles, such as those in TMI (The Mind Illuminated), that there are techniques that are suggested to get out of dullness, however none of the techniques really seem to ever work, and it doesn't seem to be an issue with lack of sleep, as I get plenty of that. The main thought now is that perhaps I just need to try changing my relationship with sleepiness/falling asleep and not struggle against it, like one would with thoughts and emotions.

On the UFO subject you might like to look up the chapter on this matter in the book Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future by Fr Seraphim Rose. Greetings. Michael

Hi Brad, thanks for another great video! I was wondering if you've covered the subject of karma and free will before? Depending on how you define both, they might seem to be contradicting each other. I was wondering what your thoughts on that are :)

Anybody else here, ever get `ambrosia brain?` lol.

Started watching this in the middle of a panic attack.... just heard of a young person dying of the virus. You made me laugh anyway and that's worth a million dollars. Sorry I don't have it.

The concept of the "dharmâ-positions" (--> two possible basic/paradigmatic models: multiple dharmâ, projected a) on a movie-screen, or b) seen in an caleidoscope, so to say) can be---and is, here, now and then---interpreted in different ways, in connection with other concepts, like: a) "constancy in change" (of a "fleeting world"), b) "Bundling-dissolving shifting" (of Gestalten, of vital space-time compartments ...), or c) the "basho" in the philosophy of Nishida Kitarô. The interchangingly appearing-disappearing dharmâ---i.e., those "mysterious sense-atoms", as which Theodore Stcherbatsky once characterized them---function as the constituents of every single one (that is, perceived as "discrete" by the senses of the sense-pyramide, with the store-consciousness at the primordial end) "scene", played before the mundane and/or Dharma-eye (reminding somehow of the ancient Yìjing-system). Makes sense, or no-sense, or non-sense?

My dad used to say the first requirement for training a dog is: You have to be smarter than the dog. So, according to him I may not be qualified to train dogs, at least not the one who lives with me. There are times she trains me. That said, I will be surprised if ignoring Ziggy's outbursts works. I have to admit it sounds logical, though. Hang in there. Let us know if it works. Seriously. My neighbors have a rescued dog who loves to bark.

Can’t help it: does Zig have Buddha nature?

Shikanyoutube 😁

mountains are never not mountains and streams and lakes never not streams and lakes the fools bury themselves in meditation missing the point