Zazen, or who knew “just sitting” could be so much work?

Sentient entities are limitless;
I vow to liberate them.
Passions are inexhaustible;
I vow to release them.

Went to my first Zen Buddhist sitting in, uh… lots and lots and lots of weeks. Having my mind wandering was NOT one of my problems. It’s been so long since I did Zazen that I was forced to concentrate on my posture and my breath, otherwise I would receive a harsh rebuke from my back. The quote above is from the first two lines of the Boddhisattva Vows, which were the subject of the host’s Dharma Talk.

He discussed how the “standard” English translation differred from the midieval Japanese of the oldest known version of the Vows. For example, what was translated as sentient beings didn’t just mean people. Or other animals, or plants… He spoke about how we are an ongoing kaliedoscope of shifting, and even frequently contradictory thoughts and “personas”, and that each of these were “entities” too in the original sense of the vows (among many other things). also, the word that is usually translated as “desires” actually refers to something more akin to “passions” or “obsessions”, whether we covet something, or we try to avoid something unpleasant.

Also, in the “standard version” that last line was “I vow to ‘save’ them” rather than “I vow to ‘liberate’ them.” Obviously, there’s a Christian influence going there.

Anyway, I could go on for hours, but it’s waay past my bedtime, and I gots to go…