Some Ways of Opening Up to Samadhi and Relating to it Wisely

By: Bob Zeglovitch

At a recent session of Just Show Up (October 11—dharma talk posted on the website), we dipped our toes briefly into the vast topic of samadhi (concentration, collectedness and unification of mind/body).  While samadhi is not the goal of Zen practice, it is not unrelated to it.  One can find various references to samadhi in the Zen literature of our tradition (for examples, see the quotes from Dogen and John Daido Loori on our Readings page).  Samadhi can arise organically as we practice “just sitting” zazen, but it can also be intentionally cultivated and appreciated as a resource—allowing us to navigate challenging mind and body states, opening up possibilities for us to see more deeply into our moment-to-moment experience, and providing a “platform” for letting go.  Samadhi most commonly arises during a retreat, but its qualities can be recognized in less extended meditation practice as well as in daily life. 

There are various “entry points” to samadhi, including practices like following or counting the breath that are sometimes suggested to beginning Zen students.  At our recent session we touched on some other modes of attention that can be useful, and I thought it might be helpful to set down some brief reminders.  I’m drawing here from Rob Burbea’s book, Seeing That Frees: Meditations on Emptiness and Dependent Arising.  He helpfully characterizes samadhi as, among other things, a caring for heart and mind and a condition of harmonization and well-being.   

While concentration can arise from narrowing the focus of attention to a specific area of sensation in the body (e.g., the breath as felt at the upper lip of the nostrils or somewhere in the abdomen), a contrasting approach is to allow the awareness to take in the wider field of the whole body.  In doing so, you can orient the awareness to the “felt sense”, which you may experience as texture, vibration, energy,  or tone.  Burbea encourages filling that space with an “aliveness of awareness, of presence, that permeates the entire body.”  Invariably, there will be a tendency for the awareness to shrink to a smaller area in the body—perhaps to a place of contraction, tenseness, or pain/discomfort.  The suggestion at this point is to notice the narrowing and then to “stretch” the awareness back to the whole field of the body.  This “stretching out” of the awareness is something that you might wind up doing a number of times during a meditation session. 

A variant of the above approach is to mix the awareness of the whole body with another object of mind, such as the breath or mettā (in Early Buddhism, mettā practice is understood as functioning to develop concentration).  If you choose this mode, you can play with attending to how the changing characteristics of breath or mettā impact the felt sense in the body.  You might find yourself moving back and forth between breath/mettā and the whole body.

Burbea encourages opening to and being sensitive to any areas of pleasantness within the body. This may be quite subtle or modest—just work with whatever is present.  It can be helpful to “tune into” this sense, to enjoy it, and to see if it can expand further in the body.  There is no rule that you cannot enjoy your meditation!  The overall sense here is to gently encourage feelings of well-being and harmonization/unification, without making a big effort or feeling like you need to create some experience or hang on to pleasant feelings, which may of course come and go during your meditation.  If you discover pleasant sensations, you can lightly take that bodily feeling of well-being as an object of attention. You don’t have to bear down and use willpower, but instead can proceed with an open and receptive awareness. 

When you notice areas of contraction or discomfort, one way to respond is to breathe in and out of the area, or to breathe through the area, seeing if the energetic motion of the breath gracefully brings any change to the area of difficulty.  Don’t worry if thoughts come—just see if you can allow them to come and go without giving them much attention. 

There are many other modes of awareness that can foster the arising of samadhi.  I hope these couple of examples will give you some possibilities for practice and play that are alternatives to simply following the breath.  Whether you are new to Zen meditation or an old hand, it can be helpful to deliberately practice the cultivation of samadhi/concentration, so that it may be more available to you.  You might “cross train” by setting aside particular sitting sessions devoted to this cultivation.  Or you could practice the gentle cultivation of samadhi more consistently, for a number of weeks or months, making sure to be kind to yourself so as not to measure some sense of progress.  If you are practicing the more subtle “just sitting”/shikantaza that is characteristic of Soto Zen (another big topic!), you could play with “establishing your seat” for a portion of your sit through some cultivation of samadhi, and then open up to shikantaza. 

Samadhi is a tricky area, because we can easily become confused and think that it is the end goal of practice, or become entranced by the pleasure that can accompany a relatively concentrated mind/body and develop unhelpful cravings for something we think is special.  Or, we can get lost in a kind of fuzzy trance-like state that we take to be samadhi.  We can also wind up solidifying a sense of self, either because we believe that there is some “I” that is responsible for creating samadhi and that we are either “good at it” or “bad at it”—or that we “have it” or “don’t have it”.  It is probably most helpful to think of samadhi as being on a continuum rather than an “on/off” switch or a succession of levels.  On some occasions there will be more collectedness and on other occasions there will be less.  Many factors are at play. We have an opportunity to develop a wise relationship with samadhi, seeing that it is accessible, that it comes and goes with various causes and conditions and is not our personal possession, and that its characteristics of collectedness and well-being can assist us in our practice.

Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche's "Three PIlls"

By: Bob Zeglovitch

Last Friday, I gave a talk based on Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche’s meditation practice of the “three pills” of stillness, silence and spaciousness. The recording can be found on the dharma talks page of the website. Tenzin Wangyal is a highly respected teacher in the Tibetan Bön Buddhist tradition. This is a practice that can be repeated many times during the day, in the spirit of “short sessions, many times” that is characteristic of Tibetan teachings. This is one concrete way of “actualizing” the continuous practice that Dogen speaks of. We turn our awareness to the qualities of stillness, silence, and spaciousness that are present, not pushing away the rest of our experience or manufacturing some special state. Instead, we are becoming familiar with what is naturally present, our original mind.

The essence of this practice is open and receptive non-doing, which seems to me to be in keeping with the core of shikantaza. While there is some directionality and intention associated with orienting toward these qualities of stillness, silence and spaciousness, it is subtle, gentle and not forced. The overall spirit is receptivity. My attempt at phrasing the “tasks” represented by the taking of the “three pills” is as follows: Come to stillness; listen for silence; and open to spaciousness. Then, as Tilopa says, rest.

I have found Tenzin Wangyal to be a refreshing and direct teacher. You can find a five minute talk by him on this practice here, and a fifteen minute talk here. If you are interested in learning more about this practice and related teachings, his book Awakening the Luminous Mind: Tibetan Meditations for Inner Peace and Joy is a good resource.

Tilopa's Six Words of Advice

By: Bob Zeglovitch

It is sometimes helpful to step outside one’s tradition in order to more clearly understand the tradition. I find that this is sometimes the case in Zen—either to read a description of practice that is consistent with Zen but put in different language, or to see a clear contrast in practices within the broader field of Buddhist meditation. An instance of the former is Tilopa’s Six Words of Advice (also referred to as Tilopa’s Six Nails), which we have been introduced to in our last couple of sessions at Just Show Up. These directions for meditation practice from the Tibetan Mahamudra tradition, for me, resonate strongly with the practice of just sitting/shikantaza as presented by Dogen. Many commentators note the similarities between Mahamudra and Soto Zen practice.

Tilopa was an Indian Buddhist monk in the tantric Tibetan Kagyu lineage, who lived from 988 to 1069. He was a “mahasiddha” (great adept) and the teacher of Naropa, another famed master in this lineage. Tilopa’s Six Words are also sometimes referred to as The Six Yogas of Naropa. The most direct translation (which in Tibetan consisted of just six words) is:

Don’t recall.

Don’t imagine.

Don’t think.

Don’t examine.

Don’t control.

Rest.

Ken McLeod, a modern practitioner and translator, has come up with a slightly longer and more fleshed out translation:

Let go of what has passed.

Let go of what may come.

Let go of what is happening now.

Don’t try to figure anything out.

Don’t try to make anything happen.

Relax, right now, and rest.

Both of these translations have their virtues and we may resonate with one over the other. The first is more pithy. It also has a more directed sense, which may feel restrictive or a bit harsh, or in the alternative could provide just the right feeling of firm boundary for one’s practice. The latter feels a bit more relaxed and permissive in tone, although the substance is essentially the same. I’d like to tweak it just a bit and for the fourth and fifth lines, suggest the following alternative phrasing in case it fits for you: “Let go of trying to figure anything out” and “Let go of trying to make anything happen.” This feels even a bit softer and has the advantage of the repetition of the “let go” instruction throughout. After one becomes familiar with the detail of the instructions, they could all be collapsed into the simpler instruction to “let go and relax”—or even just “relax.” This doesn’t mean, of course, to relax like you might by going into a light trance in a hot tub, or getting sleepy on the couch. Instead, it is the relaxation that naturally flows from and is in accord with the other instructions, which embody non-grasping. Coming at this from a different direction, I suppose one could start with the gesture of relaxing, which in turn is consistent with letting go of past, future, present, figuring things out, and making things happen or getting somewhere in our meditation.

These instructions have the flavor of non-doing and non-striving that is also present in Dogen’s Fukanzazengi. “Don’t try to figure anything out” harmonizes with “[y]ou should cease from practice based on intellectual understanding, pursuing words and following after speech…”. I’m also reminded here of the following sentences: “ Do not think good or bad. Do not administer pros and cons. Cease all the movements of the conscious mind, the gauging of all thoughts and views.” Tilopa’s “don’t try to make anything happen” harmonizes with Dogen’s “[h]ave no design on becoming a buddha.” The injunction to relax, or rest, squares with Dogen’s statement that the zazen that he is speaking of “is simply the dharma-gate of repose and bliss…”. While there may not be direct comparisons to the three lines advising one to let go of past, future and present, that instruction is certainly consistent with the “just sitting” style, where we drop likes and dislikes and practice simply being in the posture and vitally awake.

Tilopa directs: “don’t think.” Dogen’s pointer is to practice “non-thinking”, or thinking of not-thinking. My tentative sense is that these are likely in accord, and that the heart of the instruction here is not to banish all thought, but rather to relax the grip of thinking and to let go of our engagement with it. This theme has been discussed in earlier posts in relation to Dogen’s Fukanzazengi.

One last observation—I am struck by the instruction to let go of what is happening now. So often in modern mindfulness teachings we are taught to attend to the “present moment”, or to just “be right here, right now.” What is refreshing about Tilopa’s instruction is that it acknowledges that once you feel that you are in or with the present moment’s experience, it has slipped through your fingers and is changed, gone. This highlights a way in which modern mindfulness teachings may be encouraging some delusion. Tilopa encourages us to practice without any pretense of finding or noting the present. This relieves us of the need to try to grasp at what is essentially ungraspable. It doesn’t mean that we won’t have perceptions of what seems to be happening right now, but instead that we can let that perception or experience just fall away as it is naturally doing in any event.

Dogen's Dropping off Body-Mind in China

By: Bob Zeglovitch

Dogen traveled to China in 1223 and practiced in various monasteries there for about four years, returning to Japan in 1227. His enlightenment experience took place at Tiantong Mountain in 1225, practicing under the direction of the Caodong (Soto) Zen master Rujing. According to one biographical source, Rujing chided a monk sitting next to Dogen who had fallen asleep during an intensive meditation session: “To study Zen is to cast off body-mind. Why are you engaged in single-minded seated slumber rather than single-minded seated meditation.” Upon hearing this reprimand, Dogen attained a "great awakening”. He later entered Rujing’s quarters and reported that he had come “because body-mind is cast off.” Rujing responded approvingly, “Body-mind is cast-off (shinjin datsuraku); cast off body mind (datsuraku shinjin).” Dogen responded by telling Rujing, “Do not grant the Seal [of transmission] indiscriminately.” Rujing replied, “Cast off casting off.”

Keizan Jokin, an important Soto master two generations after Dogen, tells a similar story about the exchange with Rujing (with some extra elements) in his collection The Transmission of Light, although he leaves out the triggering incident of the sleeping monk (he does in another place state that Rujing scolded the entire assembly for sleeping). Keizan says that one night during meditation, Rujing said to the assembly that “Zen study is the shedding of mind and body.” Upon hearing this, according to Keizan, Dogen was suddenly and greatly enlightened.

I believe that the consensus among modern scholars is that the reprimand of the sleeping monk is a later fiction. I think that the account of his exchange with Rujing is similarly suspect. Interestingly, I’m pretty sure that Dogen does not include in any of his writings any description of the sleeping monk, of any great awakening experience that he experienced at Tiantong, or of the exchange with Rujing in his quarters. We can imagine that he perhaps did have a dramatic breakthrough of some sort that resolved his earlier doubts about the dharma but that he did not write about it—perhaps because his dharma (way) was one of continuous practice-enlightenment that did not stress the before and after experience of kensho (great sudden awakening). Or, perhaps his enlightenment was a deep but gradual unfolding. While the stories above may or may not be accurate, they have been carried forward in the tradition in the spirit of legend and practice instruction.

Dogen did write about his experience in China, in a text titled Hõkyõ-ki. It is an interesting read and is hyperlinked here. Dogen wrote to Rujing at or near the beginning of his time at the monastery, requesting permission to come to Rujing’s quarters so he could ask questions about the Dharma. He records Rujing’s response as follows: “From this time hence, day or night without regard to the hour, whether you are wearing your surplice (formal monk’s clothes) or not, you are free to come to my quarters and ask about the Way. I shall be just like a father allowing lack of ceremony in his son.”

Dogen wrote that Rujing taught: “Zen practice is body and mind dropping off. You have no need for incense-burning, homage paying, doing nembutsu (chanting Buddha’s name), performing penances, or reading sutras. Just single-minded sitting (shikantaza) alone.” Dogen says that he then asked Rujing, “What is ‘body and mind dropping off’?” Rujing responded: “Body and mind dropping off is zazen. When you do zazen singlemindedly, you are freed from the five desires [appetites for property, sexual love, food, fame and sleep] and eliminate the five restraints [hindrances].” Dogen challenged Rujing here, stating that the five desires and five hindrances were spoken of in the so-called doctrinal schools (the “Greater and Lesser Vehicles” based on various Buddhist sutras as opposed to Zen. Rujing rebuked him, stating, “Descendants of the patriarch Bodhidharma [meaning Zen followers] should not shun arbitrarily teachings of either Greater or Lesser Vehicle. Should a student betray the holy teachings of the Tathagata, how could he dare call himself a descendant of the buddhas and ancestors!”

Undettered, Dogen pressed on and commented that “doubters” nevertheless said that the three poisons (greed, anger and ignorance) as such are the Buddha Dharma and that the five desires are the way of the ancestors, and that “if you eliminate them you are in effect choosing the good and rejecting the bad just like followers of the Lesser Vehicle [i.e., followers of the early Buddhist sutras akin to our our modern vipassana tradition]. What about that?” The translator of this text (Waddell) comments that Dogen’s question reflected a tendency in certain Zen circles of the time to superficially express the absolute unity between passions and enlightenment, “equating passions and enlightenment in an easy formula that would downgrade the role of practice and realization.” Rujing answered Dogen’s question: “If you don’t rid yourself of the three poisons and five desires, you’re no different from …[various] non-Buddhist groups that were found [at the time of the Buddha]. If a follower of the buddhas and ancestors rids himself [or herself] of even one hindrance or desire, it will bring immense benefit. It’s the time he [or she] meets and buddhas and ancestors face to face.”

In another portion of the text, Dogen recounts Rujing stating that “descendants of buddhas and ancestors”hr begin by ridding themselves of the five hindrances and then rid themselves of the sixth.” Rujing explained that the six hindrances are made up of the five traditional hindrances and the restraint of basic ignorance. Dogen asked Rujing, “is there some secret method for removing the five hindrances and the six hindrances? Rujing smiled and asked him, “What is the practice you have been working on all this time? That in itself is the way to eliminate the six hindrances…When buddha after buddha and ancestor after ancestor divorced themselves of the five hindrances and six hindrances….they did so without any recourse to gradual stages but by pointing straight to the mind and transmitting the Dharma personally. You work singlemindedly on just sitting alone and arrive at dropping off of your body and mind—that is the way to break free of the five hindrances and five desires.”

According to Dogen’s account, Rujing was singularly focused on just sitting as the key practice, and that he emphasized that just sitting was dropping off body and mind. There is some scholarly doubt as to whether Rujing actually used the expression “body-mind”, or even “body and mind.” Perhaps I’ll take up this additional layer of complexity in another post. For now, the key point is that whatever happened at Tiantong Mountain, and whatever Rujing actually said, what Dogen carried forward to Japan (and beyond) was that the dropping off of body-mind through just sitting was the essential practice, not separate from enlightenment itself.

Dropping off Body-Mind (Shinjin Dakaratsu)

By: Bob Zeglovitch

While Dogen describes “nonthinking” as the “essential art of zazen”, it can also be said that “body-mind dropped off” is the practice of shikantaza, or just sitting. In the Fukanzazengi, after Dogen advises learning the backward step that turns your light inwardly to illuminate yourself, he says that “body and mind of themselves will drop away, and your original face will be manifest.”

The Japanese words for body-mind dropped off are shinjin datsuraku. Shinjin is a compound word for body and mind. You will sometimes see the translation as “body and mind”, although more frequently as “body-mind.” Dogen used this compound to express a unified and holistic phenomenon. Dogen scholar Hee-jin Kim describes body-mind as “one’s whole being.” Additionally we can let go of our sense of the ordinary boundaries of what we take to be “myself” as we express, experience and become intimate with our “whole being.”

Datsuraku is a compound word that is variously translated as dropped off, cast off, sloughed of. One commentator has suggested “shedding”. Steven Heine (another leading Dogen scholar) says that the term refers to the moment of spiritual release or liberation and that it suggests an activity that is at once passive/effortless and yet purposeful/determined. Datsu means to remove, escape, or extract. Raku means to fall, scatter or fade. Heine points out that datsu has a more outwardly active sense, even as it points to a moment of withdrawal from, omission, or termination of activity. Raku implies a passive occurrence that just happens, as in the scattering of leaves by the breeze.

I appreciate this description of the complexity of dropping off, which we might call “the letting go gesture of zazen”. It takes resolve and determination and is not something we can do halfheartedly. In another short text titled Zazengi (“Rules for Zazen”), Dogen tells us: “Be mindful of the passage of time, and engage yourself in zazen as though saving your head from fire.” At the same time, it involves doing nothing and yielding, surrendering, acquiescing to our insubstantial and impermanent nature. Heine says that: (1) the decision of datsuraku is one of discarding; (2) its impact is a matter of release, and (3) its immediacy lies in unburdening. We let go of the “I”, the sense of separate self that grasps at itself and the objects of experience.

The dropping of body-mind is not something that is the result of shikantaza practice, as in a before and after causal relationship. Instead, shikantaza/just sitting practice is the ongoing activity of dropping off body-mind. We are not aiming to arrive at some exalted “enlightened” state—it is this subtle activity of dropping itself that is the enlightening. We can approach practice—and enlightenment (which Dogen does not separate from practice)—and ourselves—as a verb rather than a noun.

Of course, just sitting practice won’t always feel like a release, an unburdening, a liberation! We may often be lost, asleep, stuck, or grasping. We can think of these moments not as problems but as opportunities—in Dogen’s words, through “studying the self” and “forgetting the self.” In those moments, we can practice this gesture of release, letting go and dropping off “body-mind.” Relatively speaking, we might perceive a moment of dropping as simply relaxing and releasing a bit from an obsessive train of thought, a critical self-judgment, or a bodily sensation. Or, the dropping may feel more dramatic as a deep ease in the body and spaciousness in the mind manifests. Ultimately speaking, however, there is no need to measure these moments of dropping. The practice is not one of improving—in itself a great relief! Just the dropping gesture itself, and ultimately dropping the concept of dropper and even dropping itself. I recognize that this last line sounds like improvement, and I confess that I don’t have an easy answer for that conundrum.

Forgetting the Self--Varying Translations of Dogen's Genjokoan

By: Bob Zeglovitch

This week at JSU we are taking up the crucial sentence in the Fukanzazengi: “Body and mind of themselves will drop away, and your original face will be manifest.” The dropping of body-mind is central to Dogen’s practice of shikantaza (just sitting). It is mentioned many times in his writing, with the most famous reference likely being the passage about studying the self and forgetting the self in his Genjokoan. One translation of this passage, by Kaz Tanahashi and Robert Aitken, is set forth on the Readings page of this website. Here are some others:

Norman Waddell and Masao Abe:

To learn the Buddha Way is to learn one's self. To learn one's self is to forget one's self. To forget one's self is to be confirmed by all dharmas. To be confirmed by all dharmas is to cast off one's body and mind and the bodies and minds of others as well. All trace of enlightenment disappears, and this traceless enlightenment continues on without end. 

Paul Jaffe:

To study the Buddha way is to study oneself. To study oneself is to forget oneself. To forget oneself is to be enlightened by the myriad dharmas. To be enlightened by the myriad dharmas is to bring about the dropping away of body and mind of both oneself and others. The traces of enlightenment come to an end, and this traceless enlightenment is continued endlessly.

Gudo Wafo Nishijima:

To learn Buddhism is to learn ourselves. To learn ourselves is to forget ourselves. To forget ourselves is to be experienced by millions of things and phenomena. To be experienced by millions of things and phenomena is to let our own body and mind, and the body and mind of the external world, fall away. [Then] we can forget the [mental] trace of realization, and show the [real] signs of forgotten realization continually, moment by moment. 

Francis Cook:

To study the Buddha Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be authenticated by the myriad things. To be authenticated by the myriad things is to drop off the mind-body of oneself and others. There is [also] remaining content with the traces of enlightenment, and one must eternally emerge from this resting. 

Thomas Cleary:

Studying the Buddha Way is studying oneself. Studying oneself is forgetting oneself. Forgetting oneself is being enlightened by all things. Being enlightened by all things is causing the body-mind of oneself and the body-mind of others to be shed. There is ceasing the traces of enlightenment, which causes one to forever leave the traces of enlightenment which is cessation. 

Kosen Nishiyama and John Stevens:

To learn the Buddhist way is to learn about oneself. To learn about oneself is to forget oneself. To forget oneself is to perceive oneself as all things. To realize this is to cast off the body and mind of self and others. When you have reached this stage you will be detached even from enlightenment but will practice it continually without thinking about it. 

Reiho Masunaga:

To study Buddhism is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things. To be enlightened by all things is to be free from attachment to the body and mind of one's self and of others. It means wiping out even attachment to Satori. Wiping out attachment to Satori, we must enter actual society. 

Fukanzazengi: Thinking is Not Outside of the Way

By: Bob Zeglovitch

On some days when we sit, our minds may be relatively quiet.  On other days, there may be a profusion of thoughts.  The practice of shikantaza calls for us to be fully engaged and awake to both thinking and not thinking, as they present themselves, with our whole body-mind.  The point is to “show up,” awake for what is present. 

If our minds are quiet, we can engage that condition, seeing if we can do that without hanging on to it.  Perhaps we begin to notice a layer of subtle thinking that we could not see previously, or perhaps we taste the awareness from which thoughts emerge.  We may notice the pleasantness of this state and our desire for it to continue, seeing what it is like for it to end. 

If waves of thought come and go, we have the rare opportunity to come face to face, intimately, with thinking “just as it is.”  We spend much of our ordinary waking hours thinking, but most of the time we are truly unaware of our thoughts.  Also, there are many thoughts that we suppress in the midst of ordinary activity.  These may find their way to our awareness when we come to sitting.     

The terrain of thinking is wide and nuanced.  In our shikantaza practice (and the rest of our life), there can be obsessive thoughts, fragmented thoughts, complex ideas, dreamlike thoughts, fanciful thoughts, mean and dark thoughts, imaginative and creative thoughts, compassionate thoughts, greedy thoughts, fearful thoughts, shamelessly self-aggrandizing thoughts, thoughts of images, thoughts of emotion, complex ideations, thoughts of beauty, thoughts of dharma and enlightenment.  Sometimes our thinking may be a long and complex chain that unfolds with seeming deliberation and logic; at other times thoughts can flash in and out of our consciousness with striking rapidity, leaving karmic effects which we may not glimpse.  What a parade!    

If the “way is basically perfect and all-pervading” as Dogen states in the Fukanzazengi, then this parade of thoughts is of course very much a part of the way.  The continuous, moment to moment practice-realization that Dogen outlines does not seek to avoid this territory.  Sitting still, with awareness engaged and relatively stable, we can see delusions, grasping, moments of letting go, moments of hindrance and lack of hindrance, the mind that squirms and tries to escape and the mind that has equanimity.  As we leave thoughts alone, we see their impermanence and their not-self nature.  We see that there is no solid “I” that is creating the thoughts, or at least we can relax the sense of that “I”. 

In Body-and-Mind Study of the Way, a piece that Dogen wrote at about the same time that he wrote the edited version of the Fukanzazengi that we are studying, he makes quite clear that the world of thought is not separate from the enlightened mind.  He says:

 “[t]o study with the mind means to study with various aspects of mind, such as consciousness, emotion, and intellect….There is the thought of enlightenment, bits and pieces of straightforward mind, the mind of the ancient buddhas, everyday mind, the triple world which is one mind.  Sometimes you study the way by casting off the mind.  Sometimes you study the way by taking up the mind.  Either way, study the way with thinking, and study the way with not-thinking.”  

Some Preliminary Thoughts About Thinking and Nonthinking

By: Bob Zeglovitch

In our sangha’s study/practice of the Fukanzazengi, we have reached what may be the key passage: “Think of not-thinking.  How do you think of not-thinking? Non-thinking.  This in itself is the essential art of zazen.”

In a further play on “thinking,” the somewhat enigmatic nature of Dogen’s language makes it clear that we cannot simply “think” our way through this portion of the text.  Instead, it is our task to realize it through practice.  We can, however, perhaps use our thinking to clear away some of the brambles so as to have some appreciation for the starting gate for the practice, or the general nature of the field in which we are playing.  I offer some preliminary and tentative thoughts here.  I use the word “tentative” because this feels like the best attitude to take in response to working with an instruction such as this, in a translated text from another culture and another time.  This attitude can help us remain open to different possibilities, to see complexity and paradox, to keep from getting stuck on an initial conclusion, and to have a spirit of experimentation and flexibility in our practice.  Because the topic has much depth and possibility, I’ll follow with some additional posts. 

I do think it is fair to say that the consensus view of modern teachers and scholars is that Dogen is not telling us to deliberately attempt to cut off all thoughts.  Dogen is not offering instructions aimed at entry into a deep state of concentration where thoughts are not present (referred to in the early Buddhist tradition as a “jhana” state).  There is some evidence from drafts of the Fukanzazengi and from Dogen’s other writings that helps to flesh this out, which I hope to develop in a later post. 

It is also seems clear that Dogen is not advising that we actively engage our thoughts.  We can intuitively see that getting involved in our thoughts or deliberately thinking during zazen is most likely not what he means by “nonthinking.”       

Even if we understand intellectually that stopping our thinking mind is not the point of Zen practice, there still may be a tendency for us to be disappointed, critical of ourselves, or even disregulated by the thoughts that arise during our zazen.  If we tend to encounter a significant amount of thinking in our practice, we may struggle with it and try to get rid of it, thinking that we are “not good at meditation.”  We may report that a peaceful and relatively quiet session was a “good” one and be less charitable toward ourself if there has been considerable thinking during our meditation.  Why is this?  Principally I suspect it is because the quiet mind is generally pleasurable and a relief.  We then mistake this for the goal of our practice.  Dogen is pointing us toward something deeper and more liberating than simply a calm state of mind. 

This can be tricky territory for us, not only because calm states of mind are pleasurable, but also because the practice of just sitting can naturally give rise to states of concentrated quiet calm.  There is nothing wrong with this.  The challenge is to not seek after or become attached to these states--or in a rather subtle and blind fashion to abandon the just sitting practice for something quite different.  I don’t mean to suggest by this that just sitting is the only valid meditation practice or that choosing to engage in specific concentration practices is without merit—but rather that we remain as clear as we can be about whatever it is that we are practicing, and do our best to avoid lapsing into delusion and attachment with our practice.

So what is this practice of nonthinkng?  Different teachers express it differently.  Uchiyama Roshi calls it “opening the hand of thought”, or in other words, letting go of grasping at something with thought.  John Daido Loori tells us to “simply allow everything to be as it is [including thinking].”  Barry Magid says to “let thought just be thought, not something we have to do anything about whatsoever.”  Here are some starting places for our practice.  There are many other expressions.  Scholars have taken very different views on this aspect of Dogen’s teaching. 

I am reminded, as I have been many times, of a teaching line that I have heard from the excellent Insight Meditation teacher Steve Armstrong in numerous retreats: “Everything [that happens in meditation…[and otherwise] is nature.”  The wind brushes against the skin, the bird calls out, the stomach grumbles or the legs ache, and thoughts come and go in all of their variety.  All nature, all natural.  I imagine that Dogen might agree.  We could perhaps see the practice of nonthinking as non-interference, letting nature take its course.  What happens to our thinking then, when we just leave it alone and don’t give it any extra energy?  Letting go of the content, what can be seen about the process of thinking?  What is its nature?  What else may be known beyond our mere intellect?     

Fukanzazengi: No dust, no mirror

By: Bob Zeglovitch

At our session last Friday on the Fukanzazengi, we touched briefly on the following reference from the text: “Indeed, the whole body is far beyond the world’s dust.  Who could believe in a means to brush it clean?”  This is a reference to the legend of Huineng, the Sixth Ancestor in the Ch’an/Zen tradition.  I say “legend” intentionally, as historical scholarship has called into question much about the veracity of this story.  It is best to take it lightly as a statement of fact.  Instead, it highlights different approaches to practice, or ways of expressing the dharma.

According to the legend: Huineng was an illiterate wood cutter in 7th-8th century China who had an awakening experience upon hearing lines from the Diamond Sutra chanted in the marketplace.  He joined a monastery lead by Daman Hongren (the Fifth Ancestor in a lineage descending from Bodhidharma—another legendary figure with shadowy historical origins who is taken as the figure who brought Ch’an/Zen practice from India to China).  Given his lowly status, Huineng was assigned to kitchen work in the monastery. 

Hongren announced a contest to determine his successor, which called for poems to be written to express an understanding of the dharma.  Everyone expected his senior student, Shenxiu, to be chosen as the successor.  Shenxiu wrote the following poem anonymously on the monastery wall, supposedly lacking the courage to present it to Hongren:

The body is the bodhi tree

The mind is like a bright mirror’s stand

At all times we must strive to polish it

And must not let dust collect.

Hongren was not satisfied with the poem and gave Shenxiu another chance, but Shenxiu was unable to compose another verse.  Huineng heard Shenxiu’s verse, learned of the contest, and then spoke his verse to another monk who wrote it down:

Bodhi originally has no tree

The bright mirror has no stand

Fundamentally there is not a single thing

Where could dust arise?

Another version of this poem is:

Bodhi originally has no tree

The mirror has no stand

The Buddha-nature is always clear and pure

Where is there room for dust?

As the legend goes, Hongren recognized Huineng as his successor (after wiping away his poem) and gave him his robe and bowl in secret.  He told Huineng to leave the monastery because the other monks would not accept that a “southern barbarian” had the deeper realization.

In the Ch’an tradition, the two poems became illustrative, respectively, of the so-called “gradual” and “sudden” approaches to enlightenment, or the “Northern” and “Southern” schools.  You can see Dogen pointing to the latter approach and the legend of Huineng in his brief reference in Fukanzazengi.  Shitou, the author of the Harmony of Difference and Equality, is commenting on this from another viewpoint when he states, “The Way has no Northern or Southern ancestors.”  There is much more to say about this legend, its genesis, and its implications, but I’ll leave it at this for now.       

Fukanzazengi: The Way

By: Bob Zeglovitch

Yesterday we examined the first paragraph of the Fukanzazengi, paying particular attention to the term “Way.” The first line of the Fukanzazengi reads: “The Way is basically perfect and all-pervading.” Way is an English translation of Tao. Thus, we can immediately begin to see the connection between Taoism and the Zen tradition that Dogen brought to Japan.

Tao originally meant “way” as in “pathway” or “roadway.” It still has this meaning, and one, somewhat limited but practical understanding of way is the Buddhist path that we are walking along. But, it seems apparent from the first sentence of Fukanzazengi that “way” must be more than this. The Chinese translator/poet David Hinton tells us that Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu, the great Taoist writers, redefined it as a generative cosmological process, an ontological pathWay by which things come into existence, evolve through their lives, and then go out of existence, only to be transformed and reemerge in a new form. In China, practitioners of Ch’an were often called “those who follow Tao”, or more literally, “those who flow along with Tao.” This brings together “pathway”, or practice, and the ultimate reality that is beyond intellectual understanding that Hinton points to as the deeper meaning of the term.

Kaz Tanahashi says, “Tao is a secret of the universe, the ultimate reality, which cannot be expressed, spoken about, understood intellectually; it has to be experienced through practice…”. This non-intellectual experiencing of the Way through practice, of flowing along with the Way, is the essence of the “just sitting” practice expressed in the Fukanzazengi.

Here is a great quote from Maezumi Roshi, providing yet another vantage point on “Way”:

What is the Way?  In technical terms it’s anuttara samyak sambodhi, unsurpassable supreme enlightenment.  This Sanskrit phrase can also be translated as the “Supreme Way”, the “very best Way”, the “unsurpassable Way,” or as “Perfect Wisdom,” which is what enlightenment actually is.  Enlightenment is synonymous with the Way.  The Supreme Way, complete realization, is perfect in itself, by itself.

What is wisdom? What is anuttara samyak sambodhi?  It is our life itself.  We not only have that wisdom, we are constantly using it.  When it’s cold, we put on more clothing.  When it’s hot we take some clothes off.  When hungry, we eat.  When sad, we cry.  Being happy, we laugh.  That’s perfect wisdom.

And this perfect wisdom doesn’t only pertain to humans, but to anyone and everything.  Birds chirp, dogs run, mountains are high, valley’s are low.  It’s all perfect wisdom!  The season’s change, the stars shine in the heavens, its perfect wisdom.  Regardless of whether we realize it or not, we are always in the midst of the Way.  More strictly speaking, we are nothing but the Way itself

This points us toward a central point of Fukanzazengi—that practice and enlightenment are not separate.

Encountering Fukanzazengi

By: Bob Zeglovitch

Today we began our exploration of Dogen’s Fukanzazengi (Principles of Seated Meditation). As evidenced by our discussion today, some of this “meditation manual” leaps off the page as clear as a bell, across the centuries and the ocean. However, this is a 13th century text from Japan, which incorporates various references and bits of teachings on meditation from hundreds of prior years of Ch’an Buddhist tradition in China. Many of the references are cryptic and need to be deciphered according to an ancient culture and lore that is unfamiliar to us. The Ch’an tradition itself is a product of cultural contact and transformation—the meeting of Indian Buddhism and Taoism in China. To make matters even more complex, we are working in the field of a translated text, which necessarily carries with it the potential for different meanings and misunderstandings.

While one could certainly be forgiven for asking why we should make the effort to penetrate the writings of a medieval Japanese monk, so far from our culture and time, here are just a few reasons to consider. First, this short writing is a distillation of a wisdom tradition that has been passed on from teacher to student for well over a thousand years. There is a good chance that there is something precious to discover here. Second, like with any work of philosophy or great literature, we are required to return again and again to the text, to become accustomed to new concepts, to uncover layers of meaning, to let it sink into our bones and become part of our lived experience. Third, encountering teachings from another culture and another time holds the possibility of illuminating ways of being and understanding that have previously been inaccessible to us given our cultural conditioning and blind spots.

Ultimately we are involved not only in reading a translated text, but also in a process of embodied cultural translation as we practice the Buddhist teachings with others in our own culture. While we may decide that it is important to realize as best we can the actual meaning of Dogen’s teaching and practice, invariably it will in practice be something a bit different. The evolution of human wisdom, and the Buddhist tradition, did not stop in the 13th century. We might ask what sources in our American cultural and spiritual tradition resonate with this teaching, elaborate it, make it more directly meaningful to us and others. If we are Vipassana practitioners, or sometimes practice the mindfulness teachings, how might that practice complement or inform this "just sitting” style? Lastly (only for now), what might our Western psychological tradition have to offer?

Yesterday I came across this passage from the writing of Paul Shepard, a provocative thinker and human ecologist, which seems pertinent to the project of cultural translation:

“Not only the genome and ecosystem but human culture, genetically framed and socially created, is also an integrated and lively conglomerate. Specific art, tools, and beliefs are sometimes gained or lost, moving from culture to culture, carried by people or shared by neighbors. Trailing bits of the context they arrive rough-edged and isolated, but are eventually assimilated as part of the whole. Genetic systems, ecosystems, and cultures are mosaics that share a common mobility. Genes pass from parent to offspring. Life forms move within and between natural communities by their own power or are carried by other organisms, wind and water. Cultural elements are borrowed or transported by the migrations of peoples.”

I hope that this study and practice of Fukanzazengi is enlivening and opens up new horizons of practice-enlightenment for you.

Aspects of Just Sitting: Hands

By: Bob Zeglovitch

What do you do with your hands when you are just sitting? In the Soto Zen style of sitting, the hands are held in a very particular way. Suzuki Roshi describes this in Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind:

Your hands should form the “cosmic mudra.” If you put your left hand on top of your right, middle joints of your middle fingers together, and touch your thumbs lightly together (as if you held a piece of paper between them), your hands will make a beautiful oval. You should keep this universal mudra with great care, as if you were holding something very precious in your hand. Your hands should be held against your body, with your thumbs at about the height of your navel. Hold your arms freely and easily, and slightly away from your body, as if you held an egg under each arm without breaking it.

If you are new to this style of sitting, these instructions about what to do with your hands might seem unimportant, a bit fussy, or even esoteric. That is understandable, but I suggest that you give it a try and stick with it for a while. There is utility in holding your hands in this manner. You can get a sense from Suzuki Roshi’s instruction of the quality of mind (great care) that is being expressed directly by the cosmic mudra. Also, the hands are not separate from the mind—they function as a barometer for the mind’s condition. If you find that your hands are pressing tightly against each other, or that you are holding them up rigidly, it is an indicator that you are perhaps striving too hard in your meditation or otherwise grasping and clinging. You can relax a bit and ease up on the mudra to find that quality of “great care” again. If you find that your mudra has collapsed, such that the “beautiful oval” is no longer present, you are probably drifting off in hazy thoughts or becoming sleepy. You can adjust by finding the mudra again with some precision, and seeing how the mind wakes up accordingly.

If your hands are resting in your lap, the oval will likely be centered around the hara (soft belly and lower abdomen), which is considered the seat of the body’s physical and energetic power in Asian medical traditions and many Western mind/body therapeutic systems. This helps to serve as an embodied reminder to to rest your consciousness in this place, grounding yourself and getting out of your head. You may need to experiment a bit with where your hands rest naturally, so that you can maintain the mudra with some ease while also allowing your shoulders and arms to be relaxed.

Aspects of Just Sitting: Relaxation (continued)

By: Bob Zeglovitch

The last post suggested that relaxation is important to just sitting because it allows for ease in the posture, expands the range of what can be known, and avoids a tight approach that can lead to bypassing. While these are all good reasons to relax the body/mind, there is a more fundamental reason: the bodily tension that we create and hold is a manifestation of the grasping that causes suffering.

When there is contact between either the five physical sense organs or the mind (considered a sixth sense in Buddhism), and the corresponding sense object (e.g., eye and sight, mind and thought, etc.), feeling arises. Feeling in this context means the quality of pleasant, unpleasant, or neither pleasant nor unpleasant that is involved in every mind moment. Because of feeling there is craving (desire)—to obtain the pleasant and get rid of the unpleasant. Craving in turn causes grasping (also called clinging).

This grasping expresses itself directly in the body. With repeated observation, you may begin to see the relationship between your grasping and bodily tension. You can feel it in the clenched jaw, tight abdomen, furrowed brow, labored breath, tightness in the chest, etc. Relaxing the body is a gesture of letting go, of non-grasping. After you complete your initial sweep of the body to relax, you can continue to observe where there are increasingly subtle areas of physical tension and holding and then further relax as best you can. Along the way, you can also explore whether there is mental tension that you can relax.

The topic of relaxation relates back to the passage from Gregory Kramer regarding the “human predicament” that Kate Savage shared with us in her blog post on February 16, 2022. Kramer notes: “The body-mind’s sensitivity is the the seedbed of longings and their occasional gratification. The entire organism tenses against the world’s sensory and social onslaught, hungering in vain for stability and settling instead for temporary pleasant stimulation…Pings of pleasure cause a reflexive grasping as we struggle, individually and collectively, to hold on to what we like and avoid what we don’t like.” The tension that arises from our grasping, Kramer observes, forms into a core sense of self, an “I” or a “we” that would be protected and satisfied.”

In my last post, I highlighted the reference to relaxing completely in the 8th Century teaching poem Song of the Grass Roof Hermitage. Upon a closer look at that poem, I’ve found that it contains other references to calm, rest and relaxation (check it out on the chants page of this website). This led me back to Dogen’s Fukanzazengi (also on the chants page), in which he states: “The zazen I speak of is not learning meditation. It is simply the dharma-gate of repose and bliss, the practice-realization of totally culminated enlightenment.” Here is an endorsement for relaxing from the founder of the Soto lineage in Japan, who often presents as a stern taskmaster!

Aspects of Just Sitting: Relaxation!

By: Bob Zeglovitch

I’m getting back to this series of planned posts on “just sitting” after a hiatus due to various demands on my attention. I’ll try to keep these coming a bit more regularly. The last post addressed coming to proper alignment. This post introduces the importance of relaxation.

If you align the body and forget to relax, the resulting tension will make sitting more difficult. This tension will also constrict the range of what can be experienced and known in the body/mind. Will Johnson, in his book The Posture of Meditation, uses the wonderful image of a soldier standing tensely at attention at boot camp to represent what it is like to be aligned without relaxation. The soldier, by bringing tension into the body, lessens awareness of sensations and feelings—and thus becomes more compliant. I find this to be a particularly apt image for our consideration, since we may carry an internal picture of a Zen practitioner as intense, rigid, almost militaristic. This in turn could lead to a conscious or unconscious approach to sitting that is striving, tight and tense.

Some teachers and communities can also foster this kind of rigid practice by overemphasizing outer forms and appearances. I previously practiced in a setting like this, for many years. While I developed concentration and a certain amount of equanimity from this style of practice, there was also considerable physical and emotional pain. This style of practice also contributed to some bypassing of emotional and psychological dimensions, for myself and also others.

While alignment without relaxation is problematic, alignment can help you to relax. If your body is not vertically aligned, you will rely on muscular tension to support yourself against the forces of gravity. This makes relaxation more difficult. With alignment, you can surrender the weight of the body to gravity. This enables you to expend less energy and to let go, without resistance, in the upright container of your body. Relaxation does not mean going slack or becoming a wet noodle. It is not synonymous with laziness.

So you have taken your seat and aligned the body—how to relax from there? You might begin by taking three deep breaths, allowing the exhalation to be longer than the inhalation, and having a sense of letting go of tension in your body with each exhalation. You might also do a modified and very brief body scan. Begin with the face, inviting relaxation and releasing tension in your forehead, the area around your eyes, and your your jaw. Then continue to your neck, your shoulders, your chest, the muscles of your abdomen, your back, your arms, hands, and legs. To take a simpler and more general approach, you could just remind yourself that your posture incorporates a gesture of relaxation, and allow a natural response to this suggestion. The modern Chan Master Sheng Yen also gives this important instruction to relax more than just the body: “Next, relax your attitude and your mood; make sure that your mental attitude, the tone of your approach, and your mood are also at ease.”

Your invitation to the body/mind to relax is not an attempt at controlling an outcome or attaining and maintaining a particular state. You may of course experience tension or holding in your sitting despite your intention. If that is the case, you can renew the invitation to relax and see what unfolds—and above all else be present with whatever is arising.

The classic Zen literature does not frequently refer to relaxation, to the best of my knowledge. There is, however, this wonderful practice instruction from Song of the Grass Roof Hermitage by the Eighth Century A.D. Chinese ancestor Shitou (author of The Harmony of Difference and Equality): “Let go of hundreds of years and relax completely. Open your hands and walk, innocent.” The full text of this poem is on the Chants/Foundational Texts page of this website.

Aspects of Just Sitting: Finding Alignment in Your Sitting Posture

By Bob Zeglovitch

In Soto Zen meditation, we place considerable emphasis on the details of posture. Think of this as helpful rather than fussy! In Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, Suzuki Roshi commented: “These forms are not the means of obtaining the right state of mind. To take this posture is itself to have the right state of mind. There is no need to obtain some special state of mind.”

Playing close attention to your posture helps you to not be lost “in your head.” Zen meditation is not “what you think” (in more ways than one!). Instead, it is an integrated expression of body/mind. Suzuki Roshi captures this as follows: “Our body and mind are not two and not one. If you think your body and mind are two, that is wrong; if you think that they are one, that is also wrong. Our body and mind are both two and one. We usually think that if something is not one, it is more than one; if it is singular, it is plural. But in actual experience, our life is not only plural, but also singular.”

Where you sit—whether on a chair or in the various ways that one can sit on a meditation cushion or bench—does not matter. What is important is the proper alignment of your body. If you are not well-aligned, extra effort will be required to maintain your seated posture. You will be fighting against gravity and tension and holding will arise. This will cause pain and discomfort in the body as well as agitation in the mind. Here are some basic keys to proper alignment in your sitting posture:

• The pelvis should be elevated higher than the knees. This enables the pelvis to tilt forward slightly, which in turn places the upper body so that it can rest directly above or even a bit in front of the sitting bones of the pelvis. If you are on a chair, you may have to put some kind of pillow or cushion on the seat in order to elevate your pelvis. If you are on a cushion this will be natural, although you may need to experiment with the height of your cushion to find the right angle for your body and to have your knees resting on the flat cushion (zabuton).

• If you are on a chair, avoid sitting with your back resting against the back of the chair if you are able. Instead, come forward on the seat of the chair a bit and allow your spine to be supported by your upright posture. If you need some support, try putting a small pillow or bolster at your lower back and then keep the rest of your back off the chair back. If your feet do not reach the floor, rest them on a cushion or small bench that is the right height.

• Locate your sits bones at the base of your pelvis. You may want to reach down and find them with your hands. Feel yourself planted firmly on your cushion or chair on your sits bones. This is your foundation.

• Sit upright, without leaning right or left or forward or backward. Let your spine settle into its natural S-curve. Find this upright and straight position by rocking your body left and right, and forward and backward, in gradually smaller movements, until you land at your center point.

• Arrange your body so that your pelvis, belly and lower back, chest and upper back, neck and head are stacked vertically, like a set of building blocks. Imagine that your head is suspended from the ceiling by a string that is connected to the top of your skull. Tilt your chin down just a bit to elongate the spine at the back of your neck. Pay particular attention to resting your head at the top of your neck so that it is not tilting forward or backward. Your head weighs about 12 pounds—but if it is tilted forward it can add up to 30 pounds of abnormal leverage on the cervical spine. This can pull the entire spine out of alignment, and can also result in a significant reduction in vital lung capacity.

• Relax your shoulders, imagining that the back of your shoulder blades are dropping into your back pockets. Lift and open your chest a bit, without straining.

Each time you take your seat to meditate, attend to these basic principles of alignment deliberately and with care. You are taking your seat and sitting in a dignified posture, like the Buddha. During your meditation, you can remain aware of your alignment and make subtle corrections from time to time as appropriate. Over time, you will begin to notice that your body and your mind are, as Suzuki Roshi observed, not two and yet not one.

Additional Resources:

I cannot recommend highly enough a slim volume called The Posture of Meditation: A Practical Manual for Meditators of All Traditions, by Will Johnson. I wish I had discovered this book decades ago. Johnson is an experienced meditator with training in various Buddhist traditions and a practitioner of Rolfing, so he is intimately familiar with the structure of the human body. The next couple of blog posts will be drawn from his work.

For a wonderful discussion of how just sitting, or zazen, is different from other forms of meditation because it emphasizes the holistic body/mind instead of a psychological process that seems to occur in the head, see the article “Zazen is Not the Same as Meditation” by Rev. Issho Fujita. Reverend Fujita was the Resident Teacher of the Pioneer Valley Zendo in western Massachusetts for many years. I’ve also included an excerpt from the article on the Readings page of the Just Show Up website.

Aspects of Just Sitting: Wholehearted Practice

By Bob Zeglovitch

The spirit of practicing wholeheartedly is central to "just sitting" meditation. This spirit also applies to our entire life.  In the words of Dogen, "It is not a matter of being smart or dull, well-learned or foolish, but that when one practices wholeheartedly to find the Way, that is nothing but the accomplishment of the Way."  I find these words to be encouraging.  You don't have to measure up to a standard of perfection or to have an idea of accomplishing something in your meditation. Return, again and again, and do your best to fully engage with your practice.  Maezumi Roshi, the founder of the Los Angeles Zen Center, commented that practicing wholeheartedly means, "to become one with whatever you do."  How do you do this in your meditation?  Throw your whole self--body, mind, heart and soul--into the practice of just sitting.  Do this without reservation and as an expression of your life, just as it is.  Sit with urgency but without expectations.  Dogen captures this sense in the Fukanzazengi: "You have gained the pivotal opportunity of human form. Do not waste your time in vain. You are maintaining the essential workings of the Buddha way."

There will be times when you feel depleted or distracted and cannot give one hundred percent of yourself to the practice.  In a talk I listened to recently by Norman Fischer on Dogen's Bendowa (Talk on Wholehearted Practice of the Way), he said that on those occasions where you can only give a quarter of a half of your heart, then that is okay--you should do that wholeheartedly, while being aware that you are aiming for full wholeheartedness even if you cannot martial it.  This is further encouragement.  Do the maximum that your circumstances permit.  Then do your best to avoid judging yourself when you feel that your meditation is somehow “not good enough.”

Note: This post includes links to the referenced talk and texts.

Aspects of Just Sitting: Clarity About Your Practice

By Bob Zeglovitch

When you sit down to meditate, are you clear about what you will be practicing?  This essential detail is very easy to overlook, even for very experienced meditators.  Through habit, inattention, confusion, or doubt, you can find yourself on your meditation seat without really knowing what you are about.  Is your intention to follow the breath, to count the breath, to practice some form of vipassana (there are many varieties, many objects of awareness to be mindful of), to engage in concentration practice, to practice metta, or to engage in just sitting?  If you don’t have a clear sense of what your practice is before each session, then you will likely wind up practicing some form of confusion!  It will be more probable that you will drift off, fall asleep, or hop from object to object of awareness

These blog entries are about the specific practice of just sitting.  The point here is not to elevate one style over another (another practice may be more suitable for you)—but instead to emphasize the importance of being clear about what you happen to be practicing.  If you take up or experiment with just sitting, you can remind yourself before you sit that this is what you intend to practice. You can also play with intentionally placing a particular aspect of just sitting “in the foreground.” You may discover that it is helpful to begin a session of just sitting with a few minutes of “settling” (e.g., breath counting or following the breath) — another thing to be clear about at the outset of a session.  You’ll then know what to return to when you wander off during meditation.  If a teacher asks you what your practice is, you will be prepared to answer the question. You’ll be developing your practice with purpose. 

Aspects of Just Sitting: Introduction

By Bob Zeglovitch

I’ve begun working with some of the members of our sangha who are newer to Zen, giving some guidance on traditional Soto Zen meditation practice.  In connection with this effort, I’m going to write a series of posts to capture some of the unique elements of this style.  I’m hoping these posts will be of interest to others as well.  My goal is to highlight one aspect of the practice in each post, although it may turn out that certain aspects deserve more than one post.  I’ll do my best to keep the posts relatively short.  This practice is subtle and deep. I don’t pretend that my entries will be fully comprehensive or an “authoritative word” on the matter!  This posting is an introduction--I’ll move into the details of the practice in future entries. 

There are many varieties of Buddhist meditation.  It is perhaps an obvious point but it is worth saying anyway--they are not all the same practice!  The core meditation practice in Soto Zen is shikantaza, or “just sitting.”  This is sometimes referred to as a “methodless method.”  The classic Zen texts on just sitting contain much commentary, with a lot of beautiful poetic language, but not too much detail on how the practice should be done.  This is likely purposeful, because just sitting is not a step-by-step practice where you “get better.”  You might say that it is more direct, more “immediate”.  You are not concentrating or focusing on a particular object of your awareness, blocking out thoughts or the “outside world”, working with images, or reflecting on anything.  You are not engaging in thinking (and yet thoughts may come and go).  You are not trying to make anything happen or go away.  But you are not indifferent or drifting off.  You are “just sitting” with vital awareness of the totality of the ever unfolding present moment, together with the universe. 

Of course, most of us come to meditation for a reason, trying to improve or to get something for ourselves.  Our current cultural milieu supports this—I’m thinking in particular of the mindfulness movement and its emphasis on the clinical benefits of meditation.  And we invariably want to know, “am I doing it right?”  So the practice of just sitting presents us with some challenges and requires a major shift in perspective.  Further, while this is not a goal oriented practice, we take care to avoid complacency or an attitude of “anything goes.”  

For starters, you might just allow yourself to be curious about what it means to “just sit”.  In Dogen’s seminal text Fukanzazengi (Universal Instructions for Zazen), he states: “This zazen [meditation] I speak of is not learning meditation.  It is simply the dharma-gate of repose and bliss, the practice-realization of totally culminated enlightenment.”  Can you allow yourself to sit like this right now, without trying to figure the meaning out or trying to achieve anything and regardless of what feelings of deficiency or lack you may have?  Going forward we’ll try to flesh this out a bit. The complete text of Fukanzazengi is found on the Chants/Foundational Texts page of this website.  

A historical note:  The founder of the Soto lineage in Japan (referred to as Caodong in China, where it originated) was Eihei Dogen (1200-1253).  Dogen’s great awakening, realized while practicing just sitting, took place in China, where he was studying under Tiantong Rujing (1163-1228).  Another key figure in the lineage is Hongzhi Zhengue (1091-1157), a prior abbott at Rujing’s temple.  Hongzhi taught the practice of “silent illumination”, which is essentially another name for shikantaza/just sitting.  The just sitting practice has roots that go way back in the tradition of Chan (Zen) Buddhism in China.  Elements can be found in the writings of the eighth-century Chinese master Shitou Xiqiang (700-790) (the author of the Harmony of Difference and Equality) and his successor, Yaoshan Weiyan (745-820).  (The text of the Harmony of Difference and Equality is found on the Chants/Foundational Texts page of this website). And the origins go back even further.  We may return to some of these masters and their writing in future posts.