Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
I will tell you the order, and the most important things that a beginner must know to be able to practise zen meditation, which is called zazen.
First of all I will explain how to place your legs.
A sitting cushion is good if it's as comfortable as possible, and usually is thick.
The cushion's height changes according to the condition of the practitioner's zazen.
So firstly I will explain how to place your legs.
This way of putting your legs is called "full lotus position" - you cross both ofyour legs.
You do it by
first putting your right foot onto your left inner thigh,
then putting your left foot onto your right inner thigh.
This is called full lotus position.
If you cannot do this, you can sit in half lotus: put the right foot onto the left thigh,
or the left foot onto the right thigh - either way.
The important thing is, that that either the right or the left feet facing up is fine,
but the lower back must not lean backwards, and the lower back and the back must not bend.
keep your lower back firm in the middle; A straight backbone is very important in our posture.
Once you have crossed your legs, turn your right hand palm upwards and put it on your legs.
Then put your left hand, also palm upwards, on the right hand.
The thumbs are gently pressed against each other.
This is the circle known from zazen.
With the two thumbs, a circle is formed.
Beginners might tend to find this difficult at the beginning,
often they have difficulties in keeping the posture, aligning to the form,
and so, you can also hold your hands like this.
But the foundation of zazen is this;
forming the circle - this is the foundation, the basis.
If somebody practices zazen for a long time and gets used to it,
they will understand with time the importance of this posture.
So if you managed to cross your legs like this, and the position of your hands is also fixed,
tilt your lower back a bit forward just above the tail bone, so that the lower back does not lean backwards.
With this, the backbone will be settled in the middle.
It feels similar to pushing your bottom a bit backwards.
In this posture we gently stretch up our lower back, gently stretch up our backbone,
and gently pull in our chin.
It feels as if we slightly raised the sky with the top of our head.
It is not good if you lean sideways with the right or the left shoulder.
In order that the right and the left become parallel,
keep the line of the ears and the shoulders horizontal.
And also keep the line formed by the nose and the navel vertical.
The stomach and lower back need to lean a bit forward, or
our posture won't be correct.
We pull in the chin, and hold the sky gently with the top of the head,
and in this posture the backbone becomes almost straight.
Then we direct our look, looking down along the line of the nose,
roughly one metre ahead of us, in a natural way.
without making efforts with to stare with your eyes,
do not close them.
We practise zazen to settle our mind, or we could also say, to put our mind in order,
but we don't just simply sit.
In everyday life our eyes are open, so zazen must be of use in this case, too.
We open our eyes in as much as possible, a natural way .
Our field of sight includeS the view in front of us.
Our awareness may be put in our left palm; we put our palms together like this,
and we place our awareness on our palm.
We can also put our awareness about five centimeters below the navel, in the lower abdomen.
We focus our awareness on one of these places.
The reason why the place of the awareness and the place of our eyes' focus is somewhat different is that
although the eyes' position is natural, the centre of our awareness is there, where the mind is.
We could also say that the place of the awareness becomes the centre of the zazen.
So we receive the sky's chi, the sky's energy through the top of our heads,
and pull up the earth's chi, the earth's energy from below,
and these two unite in the lower abdomen.
This teaching is the basis of zazen.
So, for the moment, we have put the form in order.
However, even if the form is in order, if your mind is not in order,
if your mind does not calm down, then no matter how much you sit in the form,
you will not find rest.
Being able to put the mind in order: that is what is difficult.
It is about putting in order the formless mind;
those who are used to it, understand it, but for those who are not, it is difficult to understand.
For putting in order the mind, the formless mind, it is an important tool
to put in order the breath, because by doing so we gradually lead the mind towards order, too.
Putting in order the breath means that we sit in zazen like this,
and we let go of the forcing, the tension from the whole upper body: the shoulders, the neck muscles and the chest.
We hold our upper body relaxed.
Especially important is this place below the ribs, that is called the diaphragm (the muscle between the chest and the stomach) and the place where the esophagus enters the stomach.
This is the place that becomes tense the most easily.
If it does not open up, we cannot breathe deeply.
Being unable to breathe deeply means that chi, the energy, gets stuck in this upper part of the body.
Because of this, we think so much in everyday life, and we are preoccupied with the outside world
and no matter what we do, our chi or energy rises up easily.
As we go through our whole life in such a state,
the esophagus's entrance into the stomach and the diaphragm become tense and hard very easily.
And so, our diaphragm is unwilling to move even if we breathe.
This state can quite easily happen, in fact it is common that it happens.
That is why it is so important in zazen to let the breath go down to the lower abdomen,
enabling us to breathe more fully by using the diaphragm and the stomach.
The exhalation relaxes our body.
And the inhalation regenerates vitality, a sense of fullness, energy and activity in our body.
Having understood these principles of the body's breathing,
let out the breath as long and as slowly as possible.
If we do it like this, our body will become gradually relaxed and our mind find rest, too.
We often try to force inhalation,
but this is not really good.
As much as possible, allow our body to breathe in naturally.
The way of breathing that helps in this, is the following:
during zazen we usually don't use our mouth when breathing.
We inhale and also exhale through the nose.
As it is not easy to understand, now I will do it more simply, using my mouth and my hand.
Exhalation.
If we relax the upper body, the stomach always draws in when we exhale.
The reason for this is the make-up of our body.
Our stomach draws in and we can breathe out until our stomach cannot contract any more.
This lasts for eight to ten seconds on average,
so about eight seconds.
Aiming at an eight-second exhalation is fine, I think.
If somebody gets used to it, they will be able to exhale for as much as twenty or thirty seconds.
But until you get used to it properly, it seems difficult.
Besides, in everyday life you don't need such things anyway.
If we aim at eight seconds, the mind's rest is born step by step.
So the exhalation.
If we breathe out until we cannot continue any more and the abdomen cannot contract any more either,
the body will want to return to its original state.
The abdomen, the contracted abdomen that wants to return to its original state,
gives in to the force that wants to bring it back to its former state,
obeys the natural, drawing forces, and breathes in.
By no means should we force the breath up in ourselves.
So the body breathes in by itself, in this case.
These are the most important elements of right breathing and right zazen for beginners.
Practising like this, strive to prolong the exhalation naturally,
as long as possible, for eight or ten seconds;
and the breathing, if possible, should not end with the first one,
instead, a period of breathing should last for five minutes, ten minutes, if possible,
and then, having got ten used to it, concentrate to increase zazen-time to thirty minutes, one hour.
To achieve this, we fasten our attention to the exhalation,
exhalation and attention become one,
and so the breathing becomes orderly, or, as it is also said, the mind becomes orderly.
This is how we practise.
At this point a method called counting the breath must be mentioned, which increases the concentration of the breathing.
We count the exhalations,
like this: one.
Once the stomach is fully contracted, the body breathes in air fully.
And then: two.
I inhale long.
Like this: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
Once we reachX ten, we start from one again.
The main point is to do it with fresh, renewed energy, with a mind as if we have just sat down.
In other words, be careful: don't let the counting become a routine, keep your awareness always sharp.
This is very important in zazen.
With this, we gradually deepen our breathing and, step by step, this number of breaths becomes regular,
or better said, this peaceful state becomes our part in a natural way.
The mind then calms down, and doesn't wander away any more to unnecessary thoughts.
We could also call this state the unity of body and mind.
If the body finds rest, the mind finds rest, too.
And the mind, just as the body sits here firmly, puts down roots here in the present.
Our mind, or that what we call mind, ... there are many names for it, but now I will use the term 'mind'.
We have many types of thoughts.
Things about the past. Things about the future. Things connected to people. Unfamiliar, foreign things.
There are many types of things that produce thoughts in our mind.
And our mind follows them; it means that it keeps jumping around all the time.
Therefore even if we want to do a piece of work that is important to us, if we start to do something important,
our work will be of small value, because our mind keeps wandering away.
However, if our body is in rest, the mind finds complete peace, too.
In a moment, the mind calms down, too.
If the body stands up, the mind follows it as a shadow, and stands up with it.
If the body walks, the mind walks with it, follows it.
And so, if we work, the mind works, too, if we live in everyday life, it lives with us, too.
Putting the mind in order means that it follows us closely in all kinds of situations of life.
This way, our mind obeys us, here and now, in each particular situation.
Indeed, when body and mind are tightly linked,
when we sit like this, we feel that somehow a great calmness fills us.
However, when we are working we see, hear and experience many kinds of things,
and our mind becomes confused, as we call it.
Our calmness is disturbed.
But if we have already got really used to zazen,
then no matter if we work or sit in zazen, our state of mind won't be moved around so easily any more.
When we refer to this state we say: the place of practice is limitless.
We hardly see any difference between moving, working and sitting in silence.
Such is the calm mind.
With such mind, we gain a broader perspective, a perspective on our environment.
This is one of the most important things in zazen.
Therefore we seek not only our own happiness,
instead, calmly looking at the circumstances surrounding us,
we regard our environment as our companion, and we are able to maintain a calm and peaceful state.
Zazen means developing this kind of humanity.
seeking only our own happiness is not zazen.
Putting the mind in order in a wayX whereby it becomes the foundation of our whole life,
that is zazen.
Therefore zazen is firstX the natural way of body posture and breathing, a deep and rich way of these,
and also a form of mind, whereby the mind is perfectly linked to the state of the body in a particular place and time.
If somebody attains this in a natural way, I think they will understand better what zazen is.
With this in mind, I wish from the heart that zazen puts down deep roots in your lives.