Gudo Nishijima Doing Zazen

89 year-old Zen Master Gudo Nishijima practicing zazen (zen sitting) at his apartment in Tokyo in June 2009. His apartment is near the train station, and there were plenty of station announcements and trains passing by. It was a very hot day and the window was open, so it got a bit noisy during zazen.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• zazen
• Gudo Nishijima
• Tokyo
• just sitting
• Zen
• Buddhism

[jamesejudy3]

@AnonymousPolitics5

thats not what Nishijima-sensei says. So there.

[grakus10]

What a great example of dedication what is the name of the Zen Center he belongs to?

[oiddy]

HELL YA!!!!!  get that zazen . he's attacking that zafu like a pit bull AARRGH AARRGH

[AnonymousPolitics5]

Just to clear something up Buddhism is not a religion...

[kanshiketsu1]

Re: Philosophy of action. Words and actions don't always tally in this world, though. Like the one teacher who says to question authority, and then closes the comments section on his blog because he doesn't like people questioning his authority.

[kanshiketsu1]

@hceggeberth I wouldn't really want to say should or shouldn't be compatible with Buddhism. My point was simply that Buddhism AS A RELIGION is a reactionary force in the world in much the same way as other religions are.

[kanshiketsu1]

@hceggeberth As (hopefully) an honest, questioning sceptic I try to approach political and social issues from a perspective of humaneness. As such, I feel that all the examples I gave were of Buddhists supporting inhumaneness. Nonetheless, I don't necessarily always support the left. I don't really have a problem with hunting (more humane than factory farming), for example. Nor do I want Gordon Brown or Michelle Obama telling me not to eat to much or that I have to eat 5 portions of fruit a day.

[kanshiketsu1]

@hceggeberth Thanks for your input. As long as we have healthy scepticism I don't see anything wrong with having a teacher, and I basically agree with what you've said about Gudo, who teaches Zen more as a philosophy of action rather than as a religion.

[kanshiketsu1]

@colloredbrothers You say that discussion is useless, but it was you who started it:) The truth is not words, but neither is silence. Quietism, sitting one's life away and becoming "a dead tree stump", is not any kind of solution, and many of the old Zen masters warn against it. Another thing that comes out in the old Zen records is that not every student is automatically a teacher. For example, the boy who got his finger cut off for imitating Gutei's one finger reply.

[kanshiketsu1]

@colloredbrothers They told people to abandon their ideas because attachment to ideas can be a hindrance in certain stages of practice. They certainly were not - as some modern commentators misunderstand - people who hadn't read books. There is a huge difference between (a) having knowledge but having the wisdom not to be attached to that knowledge, and (b) only having read one or two books. Otherwise Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin would be the most enlightened people on the planet:)