I don’t do all the ceremony, but my experience of doing the actual meditating when I tried it for a while was similar. Isn’t something more interesting supposed to happen though? People I take seriously take meditation seriously, for reasons they seem to have trouble articulating, but seem to think the practice is worth it somehow, for reasons I still don’t fully understand, so I tried it. I had hoped to at least get a glimpse of these reasons, but after a month or so of practice, I didn’t notice any progress beyond what you’re describing and kind of moved on.
The Zen answer is that there’s nothing special that necessarily happens. That said, sometimes weird, exciting, etc. things do happen while meditating, but to just let them come and go as they please. Some kinds of practices in other traditions do more to cultivate these sorts of experiences, whereas the method I’ve described doesn’t and instead sees meditation as a kind of evidence gathering operation that will cause updates in your mind below the level of consciousness that will later result in insight, such as at the hearing of a “turning” word.
I think it’s hard to express the value of it because sometimes the recognition of its value takes a long time to be realized. Other methods give you something sooner that you’ll be excited about and come back to.
To make an analogy, these other methods I’m gesturing at might be like planting a field with a crop that sprouts after a few days, grows quickly, and fruits after a few weeks. Shikantaza is more like planting a field with seeds, water for weeks, eventually seeing some sprouts, and then continuing to care for it for months while the plant grows beneath the soil, only growing and fruiting suddenly after months of effort.
Of course, this analogy sort of leaves out why this might be a good idea, but hopefully that gives some flavor or why I choose to stick with it.
I don’t do all the ceremony, but my experience of doing the actual meditating when I tried it for a while was similar. Isn’t something more interesting supposed to happen though? People I take seriously take meditation seriously, for reasons they seem to have trouble articulating, but seem to think the practice is worth it somehow, for reasons I still don’t fully understand, so I tried it. I had hoped to at least get a glimpse of these reasons, but after a month or so of practice, I didn’t notice any progress beyond what you’re describing and kind of moved on.
The Zen answer is that there’s nothing special that necessarily happens. That said, sometimes weird, exciting, etc. things do happen while meditating, but to just let them come and go as they please. Some kinds of practices in other traditions do more to cultivate these sorts of experiences, whereas the method I’ve described doesn’t and instead sees meditation as a kind of evidence gathering operation that will cause updates in your mind below the level of consciousness that will later result in insight, such as at the hearing of a “turning” word.
I think it’s hard to express the value of it because sometimes the recognition of its value takes a long time to be realized. Other methods give you something sooner that you’ll be excited about and come back to.
To make an analogy, these other methods I’m gesturing at might be like planting a field with a crop that sprouts after a few days, grows quickly, and fruits after a few weeks. Shikantaza is more like planting a field with seeds, water for weeks, eventually seeing some sprouts, and then continuing to care for it for months while the plant grows beneath the soil, only growing and fruiting suddenly after months of effort.
Of course, this analogy sort of leaves out why this might be a good idea, but hopefully that gives some flavor or why I choose to stick with it.