I spoke with several people over the years who told me they were aware of our local Zen center (The Clear Water Zen Center in Clearwater, Florida) but were intimidated by the thought of going there. I heard comments like: "I've heard Zen is really tough. I also figured you guys had a pretty tight-knit community and didn't want to be bothered by outsiders." The fact that we had a nice website (www.clearwaterzencenter.org) welcoming new members and put announcements in the local paper, the St. Petersburg Times, every week inviting people to attend seemed to have little effect on those perceptions.

I am a Zen student, not a Zen master. I began writing How To Practice Zen as an instruction booklet to give to the public in the hope of attracting people to the Clear Water Zen Center. Thanks to the depth of Zen practice, the booklet soon grew too lengthy so I put up this site instead.

I frequently re-write this website to correct errors, although no one, not even a fully enlightended master, could say everything exactly correctly. Language is inherently open to interpretation and that is why even the enlightened masters say that their words merely point to the moon and are not the moon itself, i.e., the map is not the territory.

Anything that I say in this site that is stupid or that falls short of the True Dharma will hopefully be corrected as people embark on an authentic day-to-day Zen practice, and learn the True Dharma for themselves.

Even the Buddha said not to take his words as absolute truth, but to test them and to reject whatever teachings were found to be false. And to embrace and practice the teachings found to be true.

By presenting an entry level of Zen practice that is welcoming instead of intimidating, our hope is that we can help a lot of people get started in a Zen practice. I say "we" and "our" because this website has had input from a lot of Zen practitioners, many of them more experienced than me and all of them more qualified than me.

Some long-time practitioners of Zen may find it offensive to characterize Zen practice as "easy." However, it's our thinking that makes things hard or easy. One thing we learn when practicing Zen is to see things just as they are without putting labels on them. Following the ten steps of this program at the beginning Zen level is easy because it involves just a little memorization, short daily sittings in meditation, and a few other very short (non-time-consuming) daily practices. The only hard part of the program is to do it every day and to stick with it over time.

Regardless of our age, we never know when we are experiencing our last day of life in the human dharma realm. The wise live every day as if it were their last.

Why should we meditate, chant, recite The Four Vows, perform a few prostrations and Buddha Name Recitations every day while cultivating happiness and generosity? By doing so we are forming a habit that will lead to stronger sittings, more mindful prostrations, and more effective Buddha Name Recitations. The same applies to our sutra study, our night sittings, and our working to spread the Buddhadharma. We start easily so that our practice can grow naturally upon a stable foundation.

As a child, I used to climb a hill near my West Virginia home and sit on a flat rock, about half-way up the hill. I called it my meditation rock. I must have gone there dozens of times over the years because I remember it well and I know I could find it again. I was about forty years old when it finally occurred to me that it was remarkable that as a ten year old I had sat in my own special place on a mountainside, cross-legged, at least trying to meditate. I don't recall having any insights as a result of my efforts. Sitting there in silence without moving just seemed to be the obvious thing to do and I thought nothing of it at the time. I had never received a lesson in meditation and that word was never spoken in my home or school or by any of my friends. How did I know that word and that practice so that I could sit there like a Zen practitioner and call that flat stone my meditation rock?

Our local Zen meditation group was sitting in the zendo (meditation hall) during a Sunday morning round of meditation sometime in 2007. The founder of the group, a senior student of Roshi Philip Kapleau, gave a short encouragement talk shortly after the ringing of the third bell. "There are two and a half million people in the Tampa Bay area," he began, "and this Sunday twelve of them have gathered in this zendo at 8:00 in the morning to sit in silence, unmoving, facing a wall for two hours. Why? Week after week, year after year, decade after decade, lifetime after lifetime. Why are we doing this?"

"We do this because we have done it before."

Glenn and David at the old Clear Water Zen Center (the blinds were never open during a real sitting)

Buddhist teachers explain that there is no self that gets reborn as in the Hindu theory of reincarnation. The Buddhist concept of re-birth is perhaps best explained by the way one ball strikes another in the game of pool or billiards. No essence passes from the first ball to the second when the first ball strikes the second ball. The first ball simply stops and its momentum is transferred to the second ball which then follows a path determined by the path that had been followed by the first ball, by the angle of the collision, and by how much power had been imparted to that first ball.

So there we were in the zendo, second billiard balls following a course imparted to us by a first billiard ball, which had been following a path created by the ball that had struck it, and so on back into time.

My only qualifications for putting up this website are my childhood practice of meditation and my forty years and counting (2011) of practicing meditation as an adult in this lifetime. Having spent more than a decade on mantra meditative practices, my formal zazen practice didn't begin until 1985. That was only twenty six years ago so I am not an authority on the vast subject of Zen practice. 

Some people think twenty six years is a long time. I am reminded of the encounter between Henry Kissinger and Chou En-Lai in the 1970s when Dr. K asked: "What, in your opinion, were the effects of the French Revolution?" referring to the unpleasantries of the early 1790s. The Prime Minister of China replied: "It's too soon to tell."

If you incorporate the ten easy steps of Beginning Zen into your daily life, drop us a line at Contact Us and let us know. If there are no established Zen centers or sitting groups in your area, please let us know and we'll send instructions on how to start such a group if you want to do so.

This website is more Chinese Ch'an influenced than it is Japanese Zen influenced. For example, Buddha Name Recitation is not practiced in American Zen centers that are in a Japanese lineage, as far as I know. In Japan, Buddha Name Recitation practice is the most popular form of Buddhist practice, but it is considered a separate sect (The Pure Land) from the Zen sect.

However, American Zen centers that are in a Chinese lineage routinely include Buddha Name Recitation as a part of Ch'an practice. It does not conflict with Ch'an/Zen practice if performed with the understanding that Amitabha Buddha is not an other; it is our own Buddha nature. We recite our own name to help us remember who we are. Thus, it is the Buddha who recites the Buddha's name.

This course is also very influenced by the Theravada school of Buddhism. Although most Zen teachers will strongly disagree, my own opinion, for what it's worth, is that the simple method of meditation taught by the Buddha is still the "best" method. The Anapanasati Sutta recites the sixteen stages of that type of meditation and it has become the one I most often practice and recommend.

Venerable U. Vimalaramsi

None of the people or institutions pictured or mentioned in this website participated in the building of this site and I did not ask anyone to provide their consent to be pictured or mentioned. For example, Venerable U. Vimalaramsi is a hero of mine but I suspect he has no knowledge of this site.

Here is a link to the Dhamma Sukha Meditation Center where he teaches.

Speak one sentence less of chatter,

Recite once more the Buddha's name.

Recite until your false thoughts die,

And your Dharma body will come to life.

With gassho, metta, and deep bows,

The How To Practice Zen Foundation

Dunedin, Florida

Beginning Zen