The Impossible Four Great Vows

I visited a Zen practice group recently, and they recited the Four Great Vows.  I’m not sure I’m comfortable with saying them, because honestly I feel like they’re impossible. 

The Four Great Vows are recited as a regular part of the liturgy at almost all places of practice.  There are many translations commonly in use in English.  Here is a sampling: 

Sentient beings are numberless, I vow to save them.
Desires are inexhaustible, I vow to put an end to them.
The Dharmas are boundless, I vow to master them.
The Buddha Way is unsurpassed, I vow to attain it. 

Sentient beings are numberless – I vow to save them all.
Delusions are endless – I vow to cut through them all.
The teachings are infinite – I vow to learn them all.
The Buddha Way is inconceivable – I vow to attain it. 

The many beings are numberless – I vow to save them.
Greed, hatred and ignorance rise endlessly – I vow to uproot them.
Dharma gates are countless – I vow to wake to them.
Buddha’s way is unsurpassable – I vow to embody it fully. 

The very nature of a vow is that it’s somehow stronger than an ordinary promise or pledge.  It signifies a clear intent, a direction, a path that a person is determined to take, no matter what happens.  A vow is a way of declaring publicly (or in one’s heart), “I am going this way!  Period!”  Vows make us sit up and take notice of what we’re doing.  When we vow to do something, we get a certain in-your-face physical feeling of anxiety.  “What if I can’t do this?”  “What if something happens?”   “What if I change my mind?”  Whatever it is that comes up, we tend to take vows very seriously.

How do you take a vow to do something that is, almost by definition, impossible?  It is the nature of a vow to call our attention to the difficulty involved.  It is the nature of being human that failure, even repeated failure, is likely.  Yet, we make vows.  We try.  We make every conceivable effort.  We forget.  We fall short.  We fall down.  We get up again.  It gets interesting when we get up again – when we’ve dusted ourselves off and recognized our mistake.  Where do we go from there?  A vow, an unwavering intent, makes our direction clear. 

The Four Great Vows use words like numberless, boundless, inconceivable, endless, and infinite.  That’s heavy-duty stuff!  These statements reflect the reality of our practice though, and it’s not unuseful to know that from the outset.  The capacity for making mistakes is as endless and infinite as our potential for awakening.  There is an expression, “seven times fall down, eight times get up”.  Maybe the eighth time represents the inconceivable, endless and infinite number of times that we will dust ourselves off and keep going. 

We never “arrive” in the magical land of enlightenment and live happily ever after there.  This is the poignancy of being human.  But, what we can do is continue, moment to moment, day after day, to keep a clear direction. 

We wouldn’t want small, limited and limiting vows.   It would be too easy to interpret them in ways that fit us, are attractive to us, add something special to us, or allow us to avoid dealing with the things that we privately want to hang on to. 

Our practice is boundless.  The heart/mind is infinite.  And, the Buddha Way is, indeed, inconceivable.  Our practice is about breaking out of the small prison that we build for ourselves, deconstructing it and even removing the floor that we stand on.  Our practice is to open ourselves without reservation to the situations, people, and assorted sentient beings in front of us just now, just as they are, and to help in any way we can.  There is no limit to this process.  There’s no finish line.  Include everything.   

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Why Doesn’t Zen Teach the Answers to Life’s Great Questions?

It seems that Zen doesn’t answer any of the questions.  Rather, it questions all of the answers!   I just want the straight answers to the big questions in life.  Why don’t books on Zen provide them?

Why am I here?

What is this?

What is the meaning of life?

Who am I?

What is life?  What is Death?

To take up the practice of Zen is to throw yourself wholeheartedly into the core of human life with the resolute determination to see for yourself what the answers are to these questions.  It’s no small undertaking.  Philosophers, poets, and ordinary people have spent their lives trying to get a handle on these issues.  These are, after all, The Great Questions of human existence.   Perhaps they can’t be answered – at least not in a conventional way by reasoning and thinking our way to them. 

Certainly, one way to resolve these issues would be to adopt someone else’s philosophy or belief system.  But then, you haven’t really seen it for yourself, have you?  And wouldn’t it be a bit limiting to say, “The meaning of life is __________”.

So, we start to practice with a little faith – faith in the experience of other people who have taken up the Way for the past 2500 years or so, and with faith in our own inherent wisdom and capacity to resolve the questions.  We start small.  We start right where we are.  We take our first steps in confusion and doubt and with awkwardness, sensing the enormity of the journey, but setting off anyway, because something in us compels us to.

When we begin by sitting down, shutting up, and paying attention, we are already deeply engaged in the process.  The simple, silent, but profound act of bringing our attention to the present moment is as noble an effort as determining to single-handedly save the world.

We see almost immediately that in order to participate fully in this practice, we must make adjustments in ourselves that throw us out of our comfort zone.  Our mind wants to follow whatever thoughts and impulses appear like a dog off the leash at a dog park, running after every squirrel and new smell.  Bringing our attention back to our breath can feel like we might be missing something important.  Our mind wants to take us from the cushion and back into the flow of never-ending distraction.

We recognize though, that this tendency is interesting.  It is human.  It’s not personal.  And because we have courage and faith in ourselves, and we have these Great Questions that are more compelling to us than the whims of the mind at the moment, we persevere.  We go ahead and take the risk of missing some thrilling new thought or new squirrel smell, at least for the duration of our time on the cushion.  It’s absolutely startling how difficult it can be though, isn’t it?

We’re comfortable with our mind’s familiar habits, beliefs and assumptions.  We’re so comfortable, in fact, that we take them for absolute truth.  It has never even occurred to us to do otherwise.  We’re so identified with them, that we take them for who we are without ever stopping to investigate their nature.  Even the smallest step into the unknown seems to be a monumental risk, like stepping from the top of a hundred foot pole.  Risk and step.  Risk and step.  Yet, with each little risk, like returning to the breath, we find that we’re still here.

At some point, we are willing to risk the big one:  I don’t know. 

Why am I here?  I don’t know.

What is this?  I don’t know.

What is the meaning of life?  I don’t know.

Who is this “I” that doesn’t know?    …don’t know

When we don’t have an answer, a stance, a position, we’re available.   It’s like opening the door, just a crack, to see for yourself what’s really out there, and to let a little breeze in.  When we don’t have a fixed idea, there’s nothing in the way of our experience.  When the mind is open, when the heart is open, possibility is possible. 

This is the doorstep of Zen.  

You have to walk through for yourself.

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Teaching the Mind

I am beginning to meditate, and I am practicing counting the breaths.  What is the point of this?  It doesn’t seem to have much to do with awakening.  It feels like being in the kiddie pool!  And, I still can’t stop my thoughts.

The Fukanzazengi, “Guideline for the Universal Practice of Zazen”, was written by Master Dogen in the 13th century.  In it, Dogen asks us to “think non-thinking”.   While Dogen was brilliant in his articulation of this “non-thinking”, it’s easy to see why his admonition can cause a great deal of confusion.

There are people who have practiced Zen meditation for years who still are not clear about the thinking issue.  They try with great concentration to cut off the stream of thought during meditation as though they were trying to stop the flow of water from a garden hose by putting their thumb over the end.  You’ve tried that, I’m sure, and of course the result is that the water squirts out in all directions!   This approach is not what we’re after.

Human minds think.  That’s what they do.  In and of itself, thinking is neither good nor bad, nor is thinking itself a delusion.  The tricky business is recognizing that it is our attachment to and identification with our thoughts that causes the problems.  Further, until we begin to practice, we are almost completely unaware of the extent to which we let our thoughts form and concretize our “reality”.

Here’s an example:  You go to a foreign country where they eat some kind of insect or reptile.  You, because of your conditioning, have a deep revulsion at the prospect of eating bugs, slugs, or lizards. The people around you are happily chomping and slurping, laughing and talking, and you’re thinking, “UGH!  This is disgusting!!  Oh, how can they do this?!  They’re crazy!  I’d throw up if I had to eat that! I’d rather starve!”   Is eating a bug inherently disgusting?

Perhaps this is too easy an example.  We can understand what’s going on in this scenario, even if we still wouldn’t eat a bug.  But what about the very sticky process of identification with and attachment to our thoughts?  We know they are conditioned.  We know, in theory at least, that there is a fundamental difference between “how it is” and what our opinion of a situation is.  Yet, when our idealized concept of who we are is threatened in the tiniest degree, our opinions suddenly become very “real” and impassioned indeed.  People go to war over this sort of thing!

So, on a gross level, we intellectually understand the bumper sticker, “Don’t believe everything you think”, but how does this apply to meditation and counting the breaths?  We’re getting to that.

There you are on the cushion, with good posture and clear intent.  You begin your period of meditation, and instantly you are distracted by remembering that yesterday at the office this and that happened.  You wonder how many minutes more you have to go.  You hope that so-and-so calls this afternoon.  It’s endless.  It’s relentless.

Maybe you concentrate fiercely on the floor in front of you for a few minutes.  (This is like putting your thumb over the end of the hose).  Perhaps you’re swept up in a romantic sense of peace and serenity.  But, all of this, including the romantic serenity, is like being thrown around in the back of a horse-drawn wagon which is careening down a road in the middle of the night with no reins on the horses and no driver in the seat.   People live out their whole lives this way, perpetually distracted from what’s actually happening in their lives.

Caveat #1:  Just because we feel that something is pleasant, or that it reinforces our notions of who we are, doesn’t make it Truth.  Just because we don’t like something, doesn’t make it bad.

Caveat #2:  What’s “really happening” is not what you THINK is happening.  There is an overwhelming tendency to say to oneself, “Oh, I KNOW what’s really happening!”  And then to follow that assertion with something equally ridiculous and ego-oriented, like, “These people are trying to kill me by making me eat bugs!”  Nonsense.

It’s very subtle.  It’s more subtle, in fact, than you can possibly imagine.

What the heck am I supposed to be doing if I’m not thinking about stuff? 

Have you ever watched a meteor shower?  Lightning bugs?  Have you ever smiled spontaneously when a child smiled at you?  Have you ever deeply listened to music?  Have you ever walked outside on a beautiful fall day and just listened to the sound of the crunching leaves under your feet?  Have you ever lifted a cup to your lips and really tasted the tea?   Then you know already what it is to experience the world with an open heart, and a vivid, alive, present mind.  It’s not alien, new, or a special skill that you have to learn.

Zen is about the process of waking up from the dream of identification with our sense of the world as we construct it, to the clarity of how it really is and what we really are.

What does this have to do with counting the breaths?

To get the horses to slow the wagon down, we first have to climb into the driver’s seat.  Minds love to be busy, so we give them something to do – something completely neutral.  We count the breaths.  Thinking mind can become content with this little “something to do”.  When random fantasies appear, we gently return to the breath.  We become “one… “  We become “two…”  The numbers begin to count themselves.  We practice, again, and again, and again, not being distracted, letting the plans and fantasies and all of that stuff fall away as we return our attention to the breath.   How can it be, that something as compelling as the thought that we were having, can simply dissipate like smoke when we put our attention elsewhere?  There are infinite lessons to learn in this process.   But, you’ll have to experience that for yourself.

When fantasy, planning, remembering, figuring out, and all the other forms of linear thought can dissipate like air; when “five…” breathes itself, there on the cushion, with the sound of the traffic going by;  when the floor in front of you is brown…  What is this?

Be careful!

one….   two….  three…
just this

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Eating the Dharma Elephant

… one bite at a time.

There can come a time, especially in the early stages of practice, when it’s really not clear to us why we are practicing.  We don’t feel better.  We are a little discouraged and confused because the ideas about Buddhism and Zen practice that originally inspired us don’t seem to match very well with the experience that we’re having.

We might have begun our practice with the goal of reducing our suffering, or getting enlightened, or finding a path through the daily grind to a more peaceful and insightful way of living.  These are noble, worthwhile goals, and they are absolutely valid reasons to begin practice and to continue it.  Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Yet, as we keep hearing Dharma talks, reading books, or worse still, trying to sift through the “helpful” information on the internet, we get some pretty hefty and upsetting messages:  There is no enlightenment.  (or)  Zazen IS enlightenment.  Everything is “empty”.  Don’t attach to anything.  Be present.  There is no God.  There is no Self.  Everything is illusion/delusion. Stop thinking! Save all sentient beings from suffering! There’s no goal, no point, no trying.   If this isn’t enough, there are incomprehensible vows, and impossible “Zen-speak”, and koans (good grief!!), and… and… and…

This is a LOT to take in, and without the guidance of a teacher and the support of a sangha (group of people to practice with) it can be hard to develop an appropriate approach to all of these ideas.  Even with a teacher and a sangha we can get very confused and frustrated, but feel as though we shouldn’t ask about it.  We may have the sense that even though we don’t yet fully understand these things, that we should try to apply them.  We may feel that we ought to at least try to “stop thinking”.  No?

There are few things more likely to end in disaster than hurling yourself into the practice of not trying, with no goal, to attain nothing, with no point.

Please, slow down.

Please, please, slow down.   Take a breath.

You can’t just consume a Zen catechism and start trying to accept it and believe in it.  You can’t eat the whole elephant at once!  Zen is not a belief system that you can read about and then adhere to.  It isn’t a philosophy that you can intellectualize your way though, agreeing here and disagreeing there.  It is not a religion, in which should + ought + belief = salvation.

The practice of Zen is an on-going process of seeing for yourself what is at the core of who and what you are.  And no, “What you are” in the Zen-sense, has nothing to do with your story, your thoughts, your opinions or your beliefs.  But, all of this is what you discover for yourself – slowly, care-fully, and with great gentleness and compassion.

There is a vast body of writing about Zen, going back many hundreds of years.  But it is neither a curriculum nor a chatechism.  As you practice, over time, your own work will guide you to take up questions like What is emptiness?  or, What is delusion?  As this happens, you’ll find plenty of material to chew on.

You can only start each day right where you are, just as you are.  If you’re brand new to Zen, start here.  If you have a headache, start here.  If you’re depressed, or angry, or grieving, start here.  If you’re deeply motivated by wishing for enlightenment, or wishing for a way to help others, by all means, start here.  Each day, each moment, enter the Great Way here.

But for today, even if you’ve been practicing for eons, simply take up the practice of sitting on your cushion, doing your best.  When you’re not on the cushion, do your best.  Practice being kind to others – really look into that.

As for your wish for enlightenment, use it.  It’s an incredibly useful tool.  But, know, somewhere in the back of your mind, that it is a tool.  At some point, you’ll need to put it down.  No need to keep carrying the hammer around with you after a nail has been driven home.

Be gentle.  Do your best.  Start where you are.  Right now.  It’s enough.

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Practicing with Openness

Have you ever been in the presence of someone, and felt utterly accepted and welcome? When those people come into our lives, even for a short time, we feel it deeply.

For most of us though, the impenetrable barriers that we erect to keep our ‘self’ safe preclude this kind of openness. We brace for impact at every turn. Yet, despite our best efforts, the world has a way of grinding against our sense of safety and seldom operates on our terms. What would happen if we were to open to life exactly as it is? What would happen if we were to open to one another in this way?

Here is a wonderful story about one of the greatest Zen masters of all time, Hakuin Ekaku, (1686-1768). Hakuin has a reputation for being brash, harsh, and flamboyant. He was a brilliant man, whose energy and excellence has inspired countless students.

A beautiful girl and her parents who owned a food store, lived near the monk, Hakuin. One day, to their horror, this girl’s parents discovered that she was pregnant. They were furious, and demanded to know who the father was.  For weeks, she steadfastly refused to confess his name. But, after much harassment, at last she pointed the finger at Hakuin. In a rage, the parents went to the master and confronted him, telling him about their daughter’s condition. “Is that so?” was all he would say.

After the child was born, it was brought to Hakuin. By this time he had lost his reputation as a monk. Still, he took very good care of the child. He obtained milk from his neighbors and begged for money for everything else that the child needed. A year later, the girl could stand it no longer. She told her parents the truth – the real father of the child was a young man who worked in the fish market. The mother and father of the girl went at once to Hakuin to ask forgiveness, to apologize at length, and to get the child back. Hakuin willingly yielded the child, saying only: “Is that so?”

Few of us would be able to manage this level of welcoming whatever comes! Even in our meditation, we want things to be just so. We want something nice, something extra, something that will be a beautiful add-on to how we already envision ourselves. But the art of zazen, of meditation, is to be a welcoming host to whatever lands on our doorstep – to get our ‘self’ completely out of the way, so that how things really are at this moment, can appear fully. Rather than bracing for impact, or struggling to achieve something, the art is to welcome.

This isn’t a new experience for any of us. It’s not something alien or a special skill that we have to learn. If you’ve ever had a butterfly land on you, you know the moment of total stillness, of wonder, of incredible gentleness, as you simply let it be a butterfly, just where and as it is.

I invite you to sit in this way.

Listen to the sound of the rain outside, or to the hum of the fan. Feel the temperature of the air. Experience the sensation of your own breathing. Welcome each sensation, each thought, each breath, each moment, on its terms. Notice the insubstantial nature of the thought that the air is too warm or cold, and return to welcoming, gently, moment after moment.  There is no dull indifference here, rather, it is the experience of being fully awake, alert, and alive.

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Hoping for Enlightenment … UGH!

As we begin to practice zazen, and encounter the loud and rowdy parade of thoughts, we might well wonder why this isn’t a more peaceful endeavor.  We probably began to practice because Zen is, almost by popular definition, “peace”.  We may even harbor a secret hope that we’ll have not only peace, but some pretty cool experiences as well.  And, what about the mother of all cool experiences, enlightenment?

We can get a bit wonky with these hopes and expectations.  It’s easy to do.  If we didn’t aspire to something, we’d have little motivation to practice.  But here’s the trick:  There’s a big difference between the efforts of aspiration and the efforts of expectation.  Aspiration is an intent, a path, a direction.  Expectation is a little like driving down the road and asking impatiently, “Are we there yet?”

It can be particularly confusing to hear that zazen IS enlightenment, when what you’re experiencing is boredom, discouragement, raging monkey mind, and a sense of, “I don’t get this.” or, “I must not be doing this right.”  We can get pretty uptight just TRYING so hard to get something – kind of a samurai mentality.  Some people are, by nature, fiercely compelled to meditate.  They’re just wired that way.  Others have more of a one day at a time constitution.  It doesn’t matter so much.  Just practice.  But practice well.

Practicing well means doing your best.  And that simply means to sit upright and devote yourself to counting or being aware of the breaths for your 15 minutes or whatever reasonable time you’ve set for yourself.  It means noticing your thoughts and returning to the here and now, again and again.  It means opening to the experience of sitting there on the cushion.  Not analyzing or judging or collecting it, but actually experiencing it!

When you’re in a new place, and there’s something interesting going on, you’re totally there.  You’re open and interested and paying attention.  Just sitting in silence on a cushion doesn’t seem to offer much.  We’re bored by that kind of thing.  But as you sit, notice everything.  Notice everything with attention – not samurai con-cen-tra-tion (oof!), just open, aware, attention.  Thoughts appear.  That’s normal and natural.  Trying (oof!) to squash your thoughts is like forcing a cat to lie down quietly.  It ain’t gonna happen.  Just be present, now.  Breathing is happening.  Counting is happening.  The sound of cars going by is happening.  It’s really quite wonderful.

There are 10,000 lessons to be had in this kind of practice, as you’ve already begun to see.  And, it is endless.  There is no end to the potential of a human being to awaken.

We don’t practice in order to achieve something special.  It’s not a goal that can be reached, like getting to Philadelphia.  There is no destination of “Enlightenment” or even of “Peace”.  How can you have a “goal” in just this moment?!  And, now is all you have.  Past is a dim and inaccurate recollection, future doesn’t exist.  Our minds make all that.  And here’s a hint:  We make “enlightenment”.  The only thing for sure is your sitting here reading this page.  Notice that!  Right now!  So, practice like that.

It’s a paradox.  If we practice for a while, there will be times of peace.  There will be insight.  There will be openings of the heart.  If you practice for years, it’s inevitable that some unusual states of mind will come up.  But these things are a by-product of zazen, not a goal, and they’re not particularly special.  As for enlightenment, it’s just a word, and perhaps an aspiration, a direction.  Don’t grasp at it.  It’s like grasping at smoke.

Then why do this?  Why put myself through all this?

We do it to discover who and what we really are.  We get a peek, now and again, as we sit still with attention, of who we are – without all of our thinking, without our opinions, without our grasping, without living in the past or the future.  Little by little, we begin to wake from the dream of who we think we are.  Little by little, we begin to experience what it is to be fully alive.

You can’t think your way to it.  You must see it for yourself.  You must learn first-hand.   And the crazy thing is that at some point in your practice, you will begin to recognize that this effort is not about you at all.

More on that next time.

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On Beginning to Practice Zen

People are attracted to Zen for a variety of reasons.  Some are drawn to an austere and simple aesthetic as the backdrop for spiritual practice.  Others are motivated by a sense that they need to slow down and adopt a more conscious approach to their movement through the world.   There are even those who come to Zen with a burning wish to see their true nature through practice.

No matter what has drawn us to Zen, we stumble into the practice with so many expectations, hoping that it will “fit” – that it will feel right to us.

Armed with our expectations, our hopes, our ideas about how this is going to be,  we enter the zendo or begin to practice at home.  We have our instructions about how to “sit” and we settle ourselves on the cushion.  Breathe….

Then, the disaster! 

Our hopes for peace and a blissful experience are in ruin less than five minutes into the sitting as our mind rages out of control and our body wants to be anywhere but here, in this position.  We are uncomfortable and uncertain and our only weapon is the instruction to “follow the breath, pay attention, and sit absolutely still”.

Our thoughts are incessant, urgent, and loud!  We come to all kinds of conclusions about how “This isn’t for me…  This is not what I expected… This is difficult…   I can’t still my mind for a single second…”  On and on and on.

Here’s the good news:  This is normal!  This is what you can expect.  It is natural.  And, it gets better.  What you’re experiencing is not an inability to meditate.  It’s something quite different.  What you’re experiencing is a glimpse at your own mind.  It can be a bit overwhelming at first.  It’s as though you are watching a movie, a documentary, about the nature of your own thoughts.

All of us, without exception, operate on the premise that “If I think it, it is true.”  Also, we are in a perpetual state of avoiding discomfort of any kind, and searching for a pleasant state.  So, this loud, racing, judgmental “monkey mind” screams at us that zazen might have seemed like a good idea, but …

Stay with it!  This is the first lesson, and it’s a powerful one.  Watch these thoughts, these emotions, these demands that the mind makes.  Watch how completely you (all of us) identify with these pronouncements.  We identify so strongly with our thoughts that we are absolutely convinced that we ARE our thoughts.  But thought is conditioned, it is learned though our experiences.  Thoughts are dependent upon our circumstances and colored by our expectations.

Stay with it!  Return to awareness of the breath, of simply being present.  Return to here – to now, again and again.  Use the practice of counting the breaths, up to ten, then beginning again.  Use this practice as a touchstone, a reminder, to let the urgent, demanding or chaotic thoughts disintegrate and fall away. They will anyway, you know, sooner or later.  Let them go now, and return to the breath.  Notice.  Notice how hard that can be.  Just notice, and let that go too.

All things in this world, thoughts included, arise, stay for a while, dissipate, and are replaced by something else.  This is the nature of everything.

Please, don’t pass judgment on yourself as you practice.  “I’m no good at this” is just one more identity, one more thought.  Let it go.  Return to the breath.

As you sit, you will find that there are moments when you are simply aware – moments when you are slightly less besieged by your thoughts.  You hear the sounds outside – just sound.  You feel the weight of your body on the cushion, and it’s just what it is.  Notice these times as they happen, then let them go too.  Return to the breath.

It takes a great deal of courage and dignity to do what you are doing.  There is no book, no teacher, no intellectual understanding that can teach you what you are learning, even during this, the very beginning of your practice.

When you arise from the cushion and take the next step, watering the plants or answering emails, take care.  Take great care not to compartmentalize your experience on the cushion.  Don’t let your mind rebound and make hard and fast judgments about how the experience was.  Just water the plants, with care.  Notice the tendency to get a firm mental grip on what just happened.  Notice, and let it go.  Listen to the sound of the water being poured.

 

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Tips for Beginning the Practice of Zazen

Zen simply means meditation.  It is the Japanese pronunciation of the word Ch’an.  Ch’an is Chinese – and it’s the way the Chinese said “dhyana”.  Dhyana is the Sanscrit word that simply means “contemplation” or meditation.  So, Zen means meditation.  The history of how this little word went to China, and then to Japan, and now to the west, is fascinating.  Look it up some time.

Zen, as a practice, is not terribly concerned with (Buddhist) scriptures, or intellectual grasping of the meaning of enlightenment.  Zen concentrates its energy on the living, breathing, alive manifestation of our awake, alive nature – right NOW!  In this very moment!

Wait just a minute!  In THIS moment, I’m hungry, and I’m annoyed with my partner, and I have to get the dog fed and my kid needs help with his homework.  I’m definitely not feeling enlightened in THIS moment!

That’s right.  We’re always running around like the proverbial headless chicken, believing that if all of our issues would just quit for a moment, then we’d be happy!  Then, we’d be able to be… here… now… to quote old Ram Dass.   Here’s the news:  “THEN” never happens.  We have NOW to work with – in all of its confusion and chaos.  NOW is really all we’ve got.   We fill our now with staggering amounts of busy-ness.  We all do it. We’ve been practicing that since we were kids.

This is why we need to practice being still.

But wait!  Can’t I just read a lot of books on Zen?  Then I can understand all about it.  Surely that’s enough.  Hey, I’m pretty smart!

Sure.  Read away.  But it’s like reading every book in the world on how to skydive.  Until you’re standing there in the open door of the airplane with all your gear on, scared out of your mind, then jump……….    Until then, you haven’t experienced skydiving.    You’ve learned some things, but you haven’t even come close to what it is to skydive.

Whatever your motivation for trying such a crazy thing as meditation, something has drawn you to Zen-flavor sitting, called zazen.  It’s called that because the Japanese made up the word a very long time ago.  So, you’ve read about how to “sit”, or you’ve gone to a zendo or temple or sitting group and had some instruction about how to do it.  (If you’re just starting, or if you’ve never had really good instruction, check out this page at Zen Mountain Monastery for an excellent beginner’s guide to how to arrange your body for zazen).

Considering all of the practice we’ve had at living in total chaos, it can be pretty strange to JUST SIT.

It’s going to take practice.  But just like anything else, when we’ve practiced it for a while, it starts to get easier.  Do you remember the first time you tried to drive a car?!

Ok, so what are the things that everyone seems to have trouble with at the beginning?  The following list of 6 tips for zazen will help you, if nothing else, to realize that you’re not alone in your struggle to take a moment out of your life to simply sit still.   Don’t worry.  Everybody who starts meditation has had the same experience that you’re having.  It’s just like when you learned to drive mom’s Oldsmobile.

1.  Time
Aim for 15 minutes at first.  You can do just about anything for 15 minutes.  When 15 minutes are up, STOP.  Get up and go walk the dog.  Do your 15 minutes again tomorrow.

2. Posture  – beautiful
If you have questions about any aspect of what your body should be doing, including eyes open or closed, please read this page.

Do sit up straight.  No leaning back onto the wall or slumped over.   Whatever your excuse is, (unless there is some serious physical issue) do what your mother told you and “Sit up”.  Your skeleton is the perfect armature to rest your body comfortably,  in an upright, alert position.  Whether you are sitting full-lotus, Burmese, seiza, or even lying on your back, be a mountain.  Be regal.

3.  Movement – Don’t.
Don’t move.   Just don’t.  It’s as simple as that.

When you collapse into your lazy-boy at the end of the day, you want to rest, not fidget.  Right?  Same here.  You want to be alert, upright, and still.  Body and mind are not separate.   If you’re shifting and scratching and moving when you feel the slightest, teensiest discomfort, what you’re practicing is running away from how things are, right now.  You don’t want to do that.  Try simply relaxing into the posture.  Breathe your way through it.  This kind of training is incredibly helpful in our day-to-day lives.  Give it your best without injuring yourself.   And if you MUST move, move verrrrry, verrrrrry slowly, with great attention to what you’re doing.

4.  Breathing – yes, please do.
Just breathe.  No need to practice fancy breathing during meditation.  Sounding like Darth Vader will irritate other people to no end.  Simply become aware of your breath.   One thing though – breathe from your belly.   It’s the natural way.  Most of us breathe from our upper chest all the time because we’re stressed.  Relax your gut and feel how your belly expands and contracts with each breath.

Ok.  Now what?!  I’m sitting here, and my mind is racing, and I think I’ve made a ridiculous mistake.  This is probably not for me.  I “can’t” sit still.  (aye aye aye!)  …and I’m certainly not feeling enlightened or even calm.  I’m a WRECK!  I can’t still my thoughts for even a second….

Take heart!  You’re just like everybody else on the planet!  Again, this is why we call it practice.  It will get better.  But really, what are you doing, while you’re sitting there, breathing, with your good posture? (Mom would be so proud.)

5.  Count your breaths
You want to begin to train yourself that your all-over-the-place thinking mind is not in the driver’s seat.  So, you give it something to do.  Minds like having something to do.  It’s what minds do best.  Count your breaths.  Count ONE for the inhale, and TWO for the exhale.  Just get up to ten, then start over.  Honestly, if you can get up to four or five before you’ve forgotten what you were doing, you’re doing very well!

But wait!  This is crazy!  This isn’t enlightenment!  This is DIFFICULT!

Yup.  I’m glad you brought that up.  It leads us nicely to the last point:

6.  Stay with it!
When the impulse to leap up and get a beer strikes you, notice that.  When you beat yourself up because “I’m no good at this”, just notice that.  When you find that you’ve counted to 47 and didn’t realize it, notice that.  Relax.  Be gentle with yourself.  Go back to one.   Too hot?  Too cold?  Phone is ringing?   Neighbor is playing hip-hop loud enough to break your windows?  Just notice it.  Notice it all, and return to the counting.  Return to the breath.  Over and over and over again.

When your 15 minutes is up, begin moving slowly, gently, and with attention.  Stand up with dignity.  Notice that.

What is Zen?

 

Welcome to the very first post of this new site.   It is my sincere hope that you will find something helpful in the articles to come.  There is so much information about Zen on the internet, and so many books on the shelves in bookstores, that it seems almost foolish to have one more voice join the chorus.  But, whether you have just begun to think about meditating, or you have been practicing for some time, there is always room for encouragement and inspiration.  I hope that you will find both here. 

What is Zen?  You’d think we would all know.  You can’t get through a day without hearing or reading the word Zen.  It’s in advertisements for everything from energy drinks to underwear.  It shows up in self-help books, is sprinkled liberally throughout websites, and even comes as a mandate in corporate training sessions.  “Zen” has become virtually synonymous with any form of meditation.  It’s absolutely everywhere.  But, what is it?  The popular definition would probably go something like this:  It means to really be in the moment.

Where else could you possibly be?!   More about that later.

So, there’s this popular notion that we’ll get some peace of mind and some kind of rush, or even some sort of super-human boost (the Zen of tennis, running, basketball) by concentrating on “being in the moment”.    There’s also the notion that if we arrange our homes a certain way, with the latest and most expensive imported-from-somewhere coffee table and futon ensemble, that we’ll have that zen thing going on, and we’ll feel more spiritual.

More spiritual feels good.  Peace of mind is the universal pursuit.  A rush is a good thing, and improving your tennis game isn’t bad either!   But, if you’ve bothered to find this article and if you’re still reading, you already know that there must be more to Zen than this.  Perhaps you’ve read some books about Buddhism and Zen.  Perhaps you have begun to sit in meditation, or have visited a monastery or Zen Center.  And now, you’re REALLY confused!  What’s with the cryptic language?!  What’s all this bowing and chanting and robes?!   What’s up with the mental and physical discomfort?   Why won’t anyone tell me what Zen is???   And what does any of this have to do with peace of mind and feeling good?
Bodhidharma

Bodhidharma

Bodhidharma, a crusty old Zen Master who was around in China (or not)
more than 2000 years ago, said this about Zen:

A special transmission outside the scriptures;
Not dependent on words and letters;
The direct pointing to mind;
Seeing into one’s nature and attaining Buddhahood.

Shimano Roshi said, ” This special transmission of Zen is the realization of the Buddha’s enlightenment itself, in one’s own life, in one’s own time. This experience has been realized by Zen students and confirmed by their teachers for over 2500 years.”


WAIT!  Hold up!  I’m not sure I want to be Buddhist! 
Don’t worry.  The word “Buddha” simply means “awake”.

Awake?  What does that mean?
It means discovering (dis-covering) who and what you really are, and what your role is in this world.

But, I KNOW what I am!  I’m a father and the Vice President of Sales at my company.  I’m a member of this club, and active in that political party.  I’m a survivor of a trauma….  I have a history!  And opinions! And I’m a pretty good guy!

If you slowly and carefully look at the question, “What am I”, you’ll see that even without all of those things that you identify with, you’re still here.  So, without all of the trimmings and trappings (including all of your attachments – even the incredibly subtle ones) then, What or Who are you?  If you keep asking sincerely, you’ll come to a point where you’re stumped.  This is a precarious but wonderful frame of mind.  When you don’t know, you’re open.

One of my favorite stories is about the guy who goes to see the Zen Master and can’t stop talking.  The Zen Master welcomes him warmly, and asks if he’d like some tea.  As he prepares the tea, he asks if the guy has a question.  This man starts talking.  He talks and talks and talks.  He tells the Zen Master all about how it is, and he just can’t shut up.  Meanwhile, the Zen Master listens attentively, and as he’s listening, he pours the tea into the man’s cup.  He fills the cup, and then just keeps pouring!  Tea is running all over the table and into a puddle on the floor.  The man finally stops for breath and says, “Zen Master! What are you doing!  The cup is full!”  The Master says, “It is only when the cup is empty that we can receive anything.”

So, Zen practice isn’t about finding a way to permanently feel good, or feel spiritual, or add yet another identity to the pile that we’ve already accumulated.  It isn’t about the underwear or the aesthetic or the tennis game.  It isn’t about being intellectual or even about becoming enlightened.   Zen practice is the work of not knowing – of being the empty cup.  It is the clarification of what and who you really are.  It is the function of that presence in day-to-day life, for the benefit of this whole world.

It is very, very simple.  It’s not easy.

That’s what all the chanting and bowing and koans and meditation and cryptic language is about.  They are tools to work with.  We’ll talk more about all of these things in articles to come.

For now, stop and take a deep breath.  What are you doing, just now… ?  What do you hear?  What do you see?   Just listen.  Just look.  What are you?

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