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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.