How To Practice ZenBeginning, Intermediate and Advanced Zen
Getting Started
Since Zen simply means meditation, let's look at the two known types of meditation.
The first type is meditative absorption where the meditator is advised to find a quiet place and to follow a procedure that develops the ability to cut off all thoughts and all contact with the external world. The Buddha taught this form of meditation and it is taught today in the Theravada school of Buddhism. This form of meditation is also taught in Hindu or Yogic and Tantric schools but the Buddha is said to have taken it to a new level. The Buddha reported that he once sat through a thunderstorm and never heard a thing.
The best book I've ever found that explains this form of meditation was written by the great Theravadan monk Ajahn Brahm. You can visit the Bookstore section of this website to get a copy of it. Anyone with an interest in meditation should read Ajahn Brahm's great book.
Zen is so different from the meditation taught by the Buddha that some scholars conclude that Zen isn't even a school of Buddhism. However, the Zen sect accepts the Four Noble Truths announced by the Buddha. It differs from classic Buddhism because it teaches the second form of meditation.
A Zen meditator is not told to find a quiet place such as a soundproof room and to follow a procedure designed to cut off all thought and all contact with the external world. To the contrary, the Zen meditator is told to sit anywhere with eyes partially open and to be incandescently aware of the surroundings. The old masters could sit with their backs to a door yet know when someone had silently entered the room.
The point of Zen meditation is not withdrawal from an external world that is deemed to be an illusion. To the contrary, Zen teaches that a belief in an outside world from which one must withdraw creates a duality that isn't there. There is no mind and body within, no world without.
Zen's rejection of external and internal produces a practice that does not involve techniques for withdrawing from one world so that another world can be entered. A Zen practitioner is fully awake and alert at all times; a Zen practitioner hears thunderstorms. But the Zen practitioner eventually learns that it is hearing awareness that hears thunderstorms, not the practitioner. There is no self that hears.
The absence of an abiding, independent self that sees, hears, smells, tastes, touches, and thinks was taught by the Buddha. But the Buddha taught that one enters nirvana/nibbana by withdrawing from the world of samskara/samsara through the process of meditative absorption and the Zen school teaches that nirvana and samskara are not two different things and no self exists to journey between the two.
In other words, Zen teaches that Buddha nature is inherent in all sentient beings and that we can wake up to that fact by being awake to the moment. Thus, there is no withdrawal because there is nothing to withdraw from and no one to do the withdrawing. We just wake up and experience nirvana, the Buddha nature that we already have. We take no journey, we go nowhere, we accomplish no thing.
We just sit, wide awake, and count our breaths, work on a koan, or perform whatever Zen practice a teacher assigns to us. By doing so, we create the conditions that allow awakening to occur. And we don't withdraw into the dark recesses of the mind in an attempt to find absolute stillness.
So if you are drawn to meditative absorption, read Ajahn Brahm's book and join a Theravada group. There is nothing at all wrong with that approach and it obviously leads to awakening since the Buddha himself taught meditative absorption.
I personally believe that Zen practices evolved over the centuries from the practice of meditative absorption as practitioners gradually realized that the act of withdrawing from the world was creating a duality that does not exist.
However, the Buddha is also believed by many to have taught the Zen method as well. He is reputed to have addressed an assembly of monks by saying nothing, holding a golden lotus up for inspection. Mahakashyapa is said to have smiled, indicating that he understood that the Buddhadharma was beyond words. The Buddha then handed the golden lotus to him, thereby confirming that a transmission had occured without words, from mind to mind. A lovely story, but nowhere is it found in the Pali canon.
Whether Zen practices evolved from meditative absorption or were created by later Buddhists (scholars tell us that Zen emerged when Theravada Buddhism was carried from India to China where it mingled with the Chinese indiginous practices of Taoism), is a matter of scholarly debate.
All we have to know is that Zen offers an alternative set of practices to classical Buddhism. The proponents of Zen say it "strikes directly at the heart of man(kind)" and that the earlier practices are fine, but are not the only practices that lead to enlightenment.
"I" chose the Zen path under the influence of the sixth patriarch of Zen, the Chinese master Hui Neng, who very politely said that meditative absorption and withdrawal was not the right path for him. He said there was no mirror shining bright and no place for the dust to alight. There is nothing to withdraw from and no one to do the withdrawing. So we offer this course on how to practice Zen. It starts off ridiculously easy, and increases in difficulty thereafter.
However, the path of Zen is a rocket ship that goes straight up, bursting through the clouds of ignorance into the bright sky of enlightenment. And "you" get to be awake as you practice. The practice is the awakening.
How to practice Zen is provided at three levels: Beginning, Intermediate and Advanced.
Beginning Zen appears in the Introduction. Its steps are also provided in a tri-fold brochure for handy reference. Just Contact Us, mention the brochure, and we'll email it to you.
The intermediate level is for those who master the beginning level and decide to deepen their practice. Its steps cannot be summarized in a tri-fold brochure but they are included in this website. The intermediate course follows the same ten steps as beginning Zen but expands each.
The advanced level is for those who are very motivated to practice Zen every day. It follows the same ten steps but at a still deeper level than the intermediate level. Only a fully awakened Buddha can complete the advanced level but everyone can take the advanced level course after mastering the beginning and intermediate courses.
Perhaps the greatest reason for not maintaining an authentic, every day Zen practice is the student's desire to advance too fast. So relax, enjoy the course and try not to rush through it.
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