Do you incorporate koans into your practice? Any favorites?
As a kid, I thought koans were cool and mysterious. As an adult in great need of the benefits of meditation, I felt like they were kinda silly. But then I did Henry Shukman’s guided koan practice on the Waking Up app, during which I had the most profound experience of my meditative career. I was running outside and saw a woman playing fetch with her dog. In an instance, I had the realization that her love for her dog was identical to my love for my cat, which was in turn identical to her loving me and me loving her. By “identical” I don’t mean similar, or even an identical copy, but rather the same singular instance.
Thank you for writing things like this and also for your youtube channel. You exude a sort of default, undirected compassion—as if you are just as aware of śūnyatā (emptiness) as your are of anatta (non-self). I’m doing better on the latter than the former. Seeing an embodiment / reading rich descriptions helps me re-orient.
I’ve never used a koan intentionally. I’ve used exactly one, and that was by accident. Non-Buddhist Eliezer Yudkowsky called me a fake frequentist on Twitter. That acted on me as a koan, and it contributed to the train wreck that was my second insight cycle. Too much insight too quickly. That said, my local Zendo is Rinzai, and they do use koans sometimes.
You are correct that the specific insight you’re pointing at isn’t mushin. Personally, I’d call it “interbeing”. “Oneness” or “non-duality” might work too.
I’m glad you got something out of my YouTube channel. I like how a camera makes it easier to better communicate certain kinds of attitudes compared to text. I have stuff I can improve too. Just last week, I had an insight into how I could be doing compassion better.
Do you incorporate koans into your practice? Any favorites?
As a kid, I thought koans were cool and mysterious. As an adult in great need of the benefits of meditation, I felt like they were kinda silly. But then I did Henry Shukman’s guided koan practice on the Waking Up app, during which I had the most profound experience of my meditative career. I was running outside and saw a woman playing fetch with her dog. In an instance, I had the realization that her love for her dog was identical to my love for my cat, which was in turn identical to her loving me and me loving her. By “identical” I don’t mean similar, or even an identical copy, but rather the same singular instance.
It was really nice. Do you know the term for that experience? I don’t think it is mushin (aka “a burning, almost heartbreaking sense of the fragility and preciousness of each moment and each being”), because I get hit upside the head by that on a fairly regular basis.
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Thank you for writing things like this and also for your youtube channel. You exude a sort of default, undirected compassion—as if you are just as aware of śūnyatā (emptiness) as your are of anatta (non-self). I’m doing better on the latter than the former. Seeing an embodiment / reading rich descriptions helps me re-orient.
I’ve never used a koan intentionally. I’ve used exactly one, and that was by accident. Non-Buddhist Eliezer Yudkowsky called me a fake frequentist on Twitter. That acted on me as a koan, and it contributed to the train wreck that was my second insight cycle. Too much insight too quickly. That said, my local Zendo is Rinzai, and they do use koans sometimes.
You are correct that the specific insight you’re pointing at isn’t mushin. Personally, I’d call it “interbeing”. “Oneness” or “non-duality” might work too.
I’m glad you got something out of my YouTube channel. I like how a camera makes it easier to better communicate certain kinds of attitudes compared to text. I have stuff I can improve too. Just last week, I had an insight into how I could be doing compassion better.