Category: Sitting Meditation

Zen Shikantaza – Breath Counting Meditation (Seated Meditation)

—An Interview with Grace Schireson, Part One—

In this three part meditation interview, Zen Instructor Grace Schireson speaks on the types of meditation she both teaches her students and practices herself, primarly Zen Shikantaza (seated meditation) and Breath Counting. She goes on to compare letting go to turning toward the light, and concludes with an encouraging approach towards Habit Mind.

 

Meditation How: What form of meditation do you practice?

Grace: My home base for meditation practice is 45 years of experience in Soto Zen shikantaza, or the school of silent illumination. Many times throughout the day I will find my breath for a minute or two of practice. I meditate every day (20-30 minutes) with this method, once or twice a day. I also lead regularly scheduled meditation retreats, classes and workshops where I teach this practice and point out the way it changes your life from the inside out.

 

I have determined that this specific practice is most reliable for me and my students and does not require close supervision from a teacher. While I believe it is essential for meditation students to have a teacher for guidance, some practices are more risky in my view—that is they can create energetic imbalances and require closer supervision. For example, koan practice from the Chinese, Korean and Japanese traditions may require a kind of forceful effort that may leave a student off balance or depleted.

I have studied this method with my own teacher in Kyoto, Fukushima Keido Roshi of Tofukuji monastery, but I only teach it to students who are committed to working closely with me, and who are of a steady and mature temperament. I have also studied Tibetan practices and visualizations, but I believe that these more elaborate trainings require closer supervision and ongoing and extensive trainings.

Meditation How: Thank you. I am excited to hear more. I am a bit confused. You mention that you “find your breath” for a minute or two, and then you write that you meditate for a 20-30 minute period once or twice a day. Are these separate practices, and what do they entail exactly. Perhaps you can describe the process of each.

Grace: Finding the breath is informal meditation wherever you may be, sitting for 20-30 minutes is formal meditation. One needs to practice both ways.

Meditation How: Can you describe to me how “finding the breath” works?

Grace: My teacher always said that a good Zen student always knows where her breath is. So even though we breathe automatically, we can become conscious of the subtle qualities of the breath—where it is in the body, is it long or short, tight or loose— and work to develop a softer, more refined and healing breath. We can notice where our bodies are tight, breathe into the tension and let go.

Seated meditation involves taking a meditation posture, as is customary in a particular tradition, and focusing on the breath, especially counting the exhale at the beginning. One counts from one to ten, exhales only and returns to one again. The attention is focused on the breath, and the mind is like a big sky, where thoughts cross, but are not engaged as a thinking activity. As concentration deepens subtle signs appear—peacefulness, bliss and a quality of engaged and tangible presence.

Meditation How: Is it your personal experience that these practices of breath counting meditation and sitting meditation carry over something of their quality into those moments when you are not in meditation?

Continue with Part Two:
Toward the Light – Let Go (Being Present, Breath, Exhalation)

 

Here and Now – In the Moment – Meditation, Heart Chakra

—The Art and Practice of Non-Doing in Meditation, Part Two—
>>> Part One: The Practice of Non-Doing in Meditation – Wu Wei, Nature

This is not a shutting down of the self, but a shutting down of the ego. It can get confusing. The key is to stay alert and affirm life-affirm the life that is radiating out from within. If you mistakenly send the message of annihilation to the self you can inadvertently trigger emergency systems in the body. This is something that I managed poorly my first go round and temporarily burned out my adrenal glands. Remember that we are not trying to drop awareness, only the prevailing pathos that thinks obsessively.

There is a tremendous freedom dwelling deep in us all. We are in a habit of expressing that freedom by identifying with our choices. However, it is not freedom at all if we are doing it habitually and unconsciously. Still, our identities (ego) WILL put up a good fight. Just toying with the idea of “non-doing” can have us stand up in defiance and shout- “Come on! You mean just sit around like a pinball in a pinball machine? We need to fight like hell for what we want! I’m not just waiting around for some destiny! I have responsibilities! There are things to do!”

This is where the paradox lies. If we take a closer look we see that these defiant statements above are all future-based and consequently fear-based. The truth is that when it comes time for us to fight we will not be thinking about it-we will be fighting. There will be no stopping us. It needn’t be planned. Life is a kind of martial art that way. We will need to learn how to trust our awareness in the moment-each moment.

Non-doing is in our hearts. The heart is naturally non-doing. It is an involuntary muscle. When it comes to the heart we cannot help ourselves-which is a good thing. Are we in our hearts or in our heads? When we are in our heads we dull life down, dragging the baggage of identity into every life circumstance. The result is a narrowed responsiveness. If we can instead manage without expectation, we remain in readiness-aware and alert.

One of the easiest ways to learn the art of non-doing is to try and not do anything. There is a simple breathing meditation which is to try and not breathe. This does not mean hold your breath. Just try and not be the one that is breathing. Trust that life will breathe for you. Know that this meditation practice may bring up some issues- especially any suppression of energies in the lower chakras. If this is the case, this is good a time as any to start processing whatever that may be.

Try meditation. Meditation works wonders. When doing sitting meditation simply encounter the idea of not doing anything-to not be the one doing- whether it is breathing or anything else. It will soon be obvious to you that “trying to not do” is still doing. This is not something that can be resolved by the mind. The mind will simply flip-flop back and forth and will always be up to something (doing). Relaxing the will helps. This automatically slows the parade of thoughts.

Breathe. We are seeking balance. There are seven major chakras. The heart chakra is in the center and it is the balancer. It oxygenates the blood. The blood is connected to the will and oxygen with consciousness. If we look at a cross (any cross) and liken it to the body, we see a vertical line and a horizontal line. Our will is the horizontal line while the vertical line is our attention to the moment. The two lines meet in the here and now. All ideas are sacrificed on the cross of what matters-the heart.

There is a wonderful book by Esther and Jerry Hicks entitled “The Astonishing Power of Emotions” that goes far in dealing with the practice of non-doing. Interesting that both these books I have made reference to have been channeled (non-doing). This book is about The Law of Attraction and The art of allowing. The Art of Allowing is the same as the art of non-doing. Our feelings are indeed our true means of navigation. We “feel” our way through life.

>>> Part Three: Just Sitting in Meditation – Relaxation, Breathing, True Nature

About Meditation – Becoming Aware – Paying Attention

—An Interview with Chris Lance, Part One—
This brief conversation and meditation testimonial with Chris Lance of Austin Zen Center is short and to the point. I ask him about meditation and what it means to him, and he puts it very simply.

Meditation How: what does meditation mean to you?

Chris Lance: To me, meditation practice is about becoming aware and accepting of whatever experiences arise within my mind and body.

Meditation How: So, does it matter what you are doing at the time? Is meditation the awareness alone– the willingness to witness and accept? You call it a practice. Is there a specific form you use in terms of posture, movement, or approach?

Chris Lance: I would say that formal sitting meditation (such as sitting quietly, still and upright) is a way of cultivating an awareness and acceptance that can then be experienced in any given moment both on and off the cushion. As the habit of paying attention is developed, it takes on a life of its own (so to speak) and an individual discovers that s/he is increasingly available and aware in a natural, unforced way. So it doesn’t matter what one is doing at the time when they are engaged in being awake. Eventually one realizes that the end and the means are the same.

Meditation How: Thank you for your answer. I find it compelling and very clear. I especially like the bit about paying attention become a habit, and taking on a life of its own. I am interested in hearing more about how you first became interested in meditation, but first I want to ask you something that your response has brought up for me. I am particularly curious about the nature of the initial willingness one has to pay attention or witness oneself more clearly, deeply, etc. Do you have any ideas about where this impulse or willingness comes from, or how it arises?

Chris Lance: I don’t have a definitive answer as to what inclines an individual to pay deeper attention to her or his life. My sense is that one can approach such a question from a position of playful inquiry and perhaps discover the answer for themselves. I think it’s accurate to say that a traditional Buddhist explanation would be that a person’s mind and heart may lean in such a direction as a result of their karmic conditioning. That doesn’t answer the question as to what the initial cause is however and I’m not sure it’s something that can be answered through means of speculation.

With regard to my curiosity about meditation: I first became interested 15 years ago as a result of stumbling across a book entitled “A Path With Heart” by Jack Kornfield. The hook was that it offered a clear approach to spiritual practice (meditation) which I could immediately employ. This was a first for me. As someone who’d been loosely associated with the Judeo-Christian tradition, I had never come across any material that instructed one on how to pray, for example. In contrast, here was a book that offered a specific, time-tested means for cultivating a peaceful presence.

Meditation How: You say that this book triggered your first experiences with meditation. I wonder if you could share a few of those experience starting meditation or beginning to meditate for the first time. The purpose being to share pitfalls or stumbling blocks you may have had to face while first starting out. Unless of course it all went terribly smoothly, then by all means I would like to hear about that. Perhaps you could include the form and practice (i.e. sitting, walking, breath).

Chris Lance: I’d say my first few years of my practice were pretty easy. It didn’t take much to motivate myself to sit even though I was practicing solo. I think this was mainly because I was under the delusion that meditation was a panacea that would somehow resolve ALL my problems.

After two or three years, unresolved issues that I was bypassing via spiritual practice began to surface. These were difficult to face at times – most of the time I’d say – and, in fact, I didn’t really face them until I started dropping the ideas I had about what meditation could do for me. This is a process that continues and is, most likely, indefinite. That’s actually something I’m grateful for since it means the possibility of experiencing greater and greater freedom as I keep practicing.

A concrete example of what I’m describing is how I’ve dealt with depression. Throughout my adult life it’s fair to say that I’ve been mildly to moderately depressed most of the time, with intermittent periods of severe depression sprinkled in there. On some level, I believed that if I practiced hard enough I would be able to overcome this malaise (which could be quite debilitating at times). My inability to do so only fueled the self-defeating thoughts I had about my capabilities as a person. For years, I continued to believe that depression was a character default of mine and compounded the problem by thinking I wasn’t a good enough meditator to conquer it.

Even though friends encouraged me at times to consider anti-depressants, I never did. Then last fall I had a period of depression as bad as any I’ve experienced. Therapy didn’t help and eventually I decided to explore medicine as an option. It’s probably more accurate to say that the therapist I was working with, and others, STRONGLY encouraged me to go this route. I did it and was skeptical frankly but much to my astonishment I began feeling better fairly quickly.

I realized that over the years I had built up a lot of shame around my experience of depression and tried to hide it from others. After starting the medicine, however, I began talking to my friends openly and “coming out” as a practitioner who’s dealt with depression for many years and used spirituality as a way to try to avoid some major issues in my life which depression was masking.

I hope you don’t mind me sharing all of this with you. It’s seems to be a long way of making a point, which is this: don’t have expectations about what practice will do for you. The path to inner peace is unmarked terrain for all, one that each of us had to navigate on our own accord in relation to our particular life situation. Any sense that we as humans “shouldn’t” be having the experience we are having (whether pleasant, unpleasant or neutral) is bound to create greater suffering for us. If we can remain curious and spacious with whatever comes our way, we will come to know liberation in more ways than we can imagine.

Meditation How: Thank you. Thank you for participating.

Experiences with Meditation - Becoming Awaren, Paying AttentionAbout Chris: Chris Lance is the Director of Austin Zen Center and has been involved with Zen practice since 2001. He lived as a resident at AZC from August 2005 until April 2007 before returning to serve as Ino in January 2009.

Just Sitting, Meditation Practice – Interview w/ Seikan Čech

—An Interview with Seikan Čech, Part One—
In this seven part meditation interview, Seikan Čech, a Zen monk based in Melbourne Australia shares his first experiences with meditation, the importance of just sitting in Zen practice, the practical side of meditation, thinking mind, letting go, the here and now, and more. Enjoy.

Meditation How: What was your first experience with meditation?

Seikan: My earliest memory of meditation is sitting on a sled in a lane in Prague, with big snowflakes falling all around me and on my body. The lane was flat, so I was just sitting there like a small hill. I would have been about 4 years old.

Meditation How: Like a small hill? Your description is inviting. Did you know even then that this was meditation?

Seikan: I guess that depends on what you mean by “knowing”. Small hills, young children, snowflakes, all are all states of knowing in themselves. So did the 4-year old know meditation as an experience? Yes. Did he know meditation practice? No.

Just Sitting, Meditation Practice - Interview w/ Seikan Čech

Meditation practice, particularly in Zen, is not so much about experience, as about a particular structure as a means of letting go. Most people that I meet who first come to Zen meditation seem to do so with a hope of experiencing special mind states. But in practice we either manage to settle for the structure of sitting meditation, or we soon stop coming and look for special experiences somewhere else.

So in Zazen, or Zen meditation, the often touted notion of “just being” ceases to be something abstract and starts being the physical reality of “just sitting”. In the first instance, this can often involve sitting with some pain or discomfort. Ironically people come to Zen mostly looking for pleasant experiences of the mind, and instead we discover the body and usually meet with pain.

This reminds me of a story of Bodhidhama, the legendary Indian monk said to have brought Zen to China and to have spent many years just sitting in a cave facing a wall. When a young monk approached him there for advice on how to settle his mind, Bodhidharma’s advice was that he should go find his mind and Bodhdharma would settle it for him. When the monk eventually returned to say that he had not found his mind, Bodhidharma replied: “So there you have it, I have settled it for you”.

>>> Part Two: Thinking Mind – Peace of Mind – Zen Practice (Ideas, Structure)

Kindness and Compassion – Namu Kanzeon Bosatsu

—An Interview with Genko Rainwater, Part Four—
>>> Part One: Shikantaza Meditation – Sitting, Practice, Techniques

Meditation How: I get what you mean about the barking dog scenario. However, I want to rephrase it and then check in with you for clarity— encountering the barking with wonder and innocence (and hence, appreciation) as opposed to allowing it to trigger assumption, unconscious mind-tripping, etc. Please tell me if I am getting this.

I had a similar experience growing up—with anything emotional being utterly discouraged. It has taken years to heal (and still healing). There is this common view of gurus or masters as being blissful 24-7. So we assume we must overcome so-called “negative” emotions. Do you have any experience with the devaluing of less comfortable feelings, and the belief that mastery will mean no longer having these?

Also, you speak of noticing the difference in various mind-states and observing the process with compassion. Do you find yourself able to navigate on just a feeling level towards compassion? What I mean to ask is if you can recognize deeper alignment without going into the mind? Are you able to move in that direction without interpreting?

Genko: As far as the barking dog goes— yes, I think that’s a fair summary of what I’m getting at. And still, noticing when the assumptions, mind-tripping, etc. click in. For example, what does that process look like? What triggers it? What does it feel like?—and having compassion, curiosity, and acceptance in the face of that.

In regard to ongoing bliss—yes, I’ve learned to be careful with some of the especially Asian monks’ teachings that seem to say we must simply get rid of these feelings, because that feeds right into habit patterns of destruction/denial of emotions. Over time, I see to what degree all of those teachings are true and how they are different from my habit energy. But at first, it looked the same. As I began to differentiate them, I began to see them as parallel tracks, right next to each other. The destructive rut is right next to this new pattern I’m trying to cultivate, and at the slightest provocation, I can slide right over into the old rut.

Again, notice. Notice how it feels, both the slide and recognizing the difference. At some point, I may get to that blissful state of not having any more negative emotions. Not there yet. Mostly what I find now is that I can have those emotions without necessarily believing them, without having to act on them or react to them. A little bit of equanimity, which simply involves acceptance, recognizing that they are like the weather— now it’s sunny, but tomorrow it’s supposed to get colder and rainy again. It’s all just as it is.

You asked if I am able to navigate on a feeling level. I’m beginning to be able to. It was tricky, because the whole deal was learning about my feelings. First there were only two states: denial or overwhelmed with terror. I had to learn to sit still with the terror, find ways to avoid Shut-Down and allow it to be. I had to learn to cry and accept crying. I had to learn to accept anger, to say yes to all those “No. Don’t Want!”—2-year-old tantrums and see what I could learn from them.

Not easy. Not always skillful. Keep sitting still. Take a break. Accept. Come back— a stubborn persistence in the face of sometimes overwhelming despair. It’s not that the mind isn’t involved at all, but that over time I came to see (with the help of my teachers) that it isn’t the best tool for teaching me about emotions. In fact, sometimes it’s a huge obstacle. That’s where body meditation practice comes in, where just sitting still with pure awareness becomes extremely valuable. Not easy, of course, but increasingly important.

So, two things—one, as I mentioned, is that it is extremely helpful to work closely with a teacher, because they can both model acceptance, kindness and compassion, and also see more clearly what’s happening and encourage movement in the positive direction. The second thing for me has been the use of Other Power—in my case, Kanzeon, or Avalokiteshvara, as the embodiment of compassion.

My first hearing of the Universal Gateway Chapter of the Lotus Sutra brought me to tears and I didn’t know why. Now I think it has to do with the affirmation that there is a force in the universe that cares and has power to change one’s life, one’s mind. When I got the most overwhelmed and agitated, I would use a mala and do 108 repetitions of “Namu Kanzeon Bosatsu” (Hail to the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara). It would change my mind state enough to make it easier to get through whatever it was. Kanzeon is the statue on my altar. I think, for me, it is a visual and mental reminder of the kindness and compassion I find living here, that I can rely on.

>>> Part Five: Meditation Experiences – Teachers, Buddha, Bliss-States

Shikantaza Meditation – Sitting, Zazen Practice, Techniques

—An Interview with Genko Rainwater, Part One—
This six part meditation testimonial and interview features Genko Rainwater who speaks on Shikantaza Meditation, Breath Counting Practice in Meditation, Following the Breath, Kindness and Compassion, Meditation Teachers, and Zen Buddhist Meditation Experiences.

Meditation How: What first attracted you personally to meditation practice?

Genko: I had been interested in Buddhism for a long time, but basically got into it because my partner (who had been diagnosed with a terminal illness) got involved, wanting to know more about death and dying. Zen is all about meditation, and so that’s what the first workshop was about. The question was asked at that first workshop, so are there books we should read about this?

The workshop leader said there are lots of books, but the most important thing is to practice. Sit every day for a month and then talk to a teacher. I was impressed by that answer, and in fact did just that. Sat every morning for 10 minutes, whether I felt like it or not. After a month I could tell that something was different. Didn’t know what it was, but it felt like something I needed.

Meditation How: How long ago did you start with that month of ten minute meditations? Also, do you now know what was going on that made a difference?

Genko: This would have been a little more than 10 years ago. I’m still not sure how to explain it. The way I describe it now is that my mind settles down somehow. I begin to be aware of how jangly I am, how much my mind is jumping around. Sitting still allows the mind to begin to settle.

Shikantaza Meditation Practice, Meditation, Just Sitting, Zazen Sitting

Meditation How: What type of meditation do you practice currently, and is it for longer than ten minutes?

Genko: Oh, yes. In Zen we practice what we call Shikantaza, which means just sitting. We can use various techniques like breath meditation (breath counting), mantras, etc., but basically we simply sit still. These days I sit for 1-2 hours each day. During retreats a few times a year that goes up to 8 hours each day.

Meditation How: How long have you been practicing this way, and does Shikantaza involve non-doing—simply sitting with no technique?

Genko: I’ve been practicing for going on eleven years. For many of those years my sitting was more like a half-hour most days, with some days more. For the last 4-1/2 years I’ve been in residence at the Dharma Rain Zen Center the 1-2 hours a day is what I’ve been doing. Shikantaza does involve non-doing, and sitting with no particular technique other than staying focused and awake. Watching things rise and fall, whether that be thoughts, feelings, or sensations. It is theme-less, in that there is no particular visualization or thought.

Meditation How: I understand. You mentioned the benefits from your initial stint in meditation. I wonder if you could describe your experience now as you meditate. I am eager to get a sense of what the state is like for you. Also, do you prefer theme-less over theme?

>>> Part Two: Breath Counting – Forms of Meditation, Meditation Teachers