{"id":951,"date":"2016-06-09T15:10:05","date_gmt":"2016-06-09T22:10:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/?p=951"},"modified":"2016-06-09T15:11:41","modified_gmt":"2016-06-09T22:11:41","slug":"sitting-idly-is-still-doing-something","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/2016\/06\/09\/sitting-idly-is-still-doing-something\/","title":{"rendered":"Sitting idly is still doing something"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve written from time to time about the benefits of meditation, and also contrarily\u00a0about the uselessness of meditation. Against the view that &#8216;meditation delivers benefits <em>X<\/em> and\u00a0<em>Y&#8217;<\/em> is the view that &#8216;meditation is simply the experience of life, being in the moment&#8217;. The latter does not mean stopping to think, &#8220;this meditation will put me in the moment,&#8221; but just sitting and being open to whatever the moment (life) happens to be.\u00a0The latter is true\u00a0zen.<\/p>\n<p>Here is a beautiful zen story that illustrates the mysterious adventure of &#8216;just sitting&#8217; without any ideas of gaining or losing.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>When Yakusan met Sekito, Yakusan was sitting in meditation, and Sekito asked him, &#8220;What are you doing?&#8221; and Yakusan said, &#8220;I&#8217;m doing nothing at all,&#8221; and Sekito said, &#8220;Then you&#8217;re sitting idly,&#8221; and Yakusan said, &#8220;If I were sitting idly, then I would be doing something.&#8221; Checking him further, Sekito said, &#8220;You say you&#8217;re doing nothing. What is it you&#8217;re not doing?&#8221; And Yakusan said, &#8220;Even thousands of old Buddhas do not know.&#8221; (taken from &#8220;The Book of Equanimity: Illuminating Classic Zen Koans&#8221;<br \/>\nby Gerry Shishin Wick and Bernie Glassman)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve written from time to time about the benefits of meditation, and also contrarily\u00a0about the uselessness of meditation. Against the view that &#8216;meditation delivers benefits X and\u00a0Y&#8217; is the view that &#8216;meditation is simply the experience of life, being in the moment&#8217;. The latter does not mean stopping to think, &#8220;this meditation will put me [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[39,38],"class_list":["post-951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-intention","tag-just-sitting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=951"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":954,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/951\/revisions\/954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}