How To Practice ZenMeditation
Catching the Ox
I seize him with a terrific struggle.
His great will and power
are inexhaustible.
He charges to the high plateau
far above the cloud-mists,
Or in an impenetrable ravine he stands.
All mankind's troubles are caused by one single thing, which is their inability to sit quietly in a room." Blaise Pascal.
Catching the Ox comes from sustained, long-term zazen. We can get a glimpse of the ox by studying The Precepts, repentance, renunciation, and taking refuge, but catching the ox, getting more than just a glimpse, requires sitting meditation.
The commentary for the ox-herding pictures says that Catching the Ox requires a great struggle because the Ox repeatedly escapes and the Zen practitioner must exert great discipline to bring it back.
In other words, the Ox is glimpsed frequently, but it keeps getting away. When you find a teacher, he or she will tell you to return to the practice whenever you drift away from it. Glimpse the ox, lose sight of it, glimpse it again, and so on. As you practice the discipline of returning to the practice, the glimpses will come more frequently; you will settle down and see the Ox for extended periods of time.
Are we catching a glimpse of enlightenment or a glimpse of our mind? Is there a difference?
Bodhidharma, an Indian monk, spent nine years meditating in a cave before beginning his career as a teacher at the now famous Shao Lin (Small Forest) monastery in China. He is credited with introducing gong fu (kung fu) to the monks to help them remain physically fit despite long hours of sitting meditation. He is also the twenty-eighth and final Zen patriarch of Indian Zen and the first patriarch of Chinese Zen
It is very difficult for a physically unfit person to practice zazen. If we are overweight, stiff and inflexible, we need to work on reducing weight and becoming more flexible as a part of the fourth step.
To prepare ourselves for zazen, we can take long walks and perform simple exercises of the type taught by the great Chinese Ch'an master Sheng Yen, founder of the Dharma Drum Mountain Ch'an Center. The exercise set is called "Eight Form Moving Meditation."
Another worthwhile physical pursuit is the gentlest of the martial arts: tai ji quan (t'ai chi ch'uan); it is a form of qi gong (ch'i kung). Qualified teachers of t'ai chi are hard to find and qualified teachers of ch'i kung harder still. Try to find one near your home, and learn the routine.
The ch'i in ch'i kung means "vital energy." The chi in T'ai chi, having no apostrophe in the Wade Giles system, means Ultimate. T'ai chi means "supreme ultimate."
Since this is a course on Zen, that's all we'll say about t'ai chi and ch'i kung. Their practice is good because they will help keep the body limber despite long hours of meditation. If performed properly, both forms of exercise are truly moving meditation. Both help the practitioner become more aware of the dantian (tan t'ien), just as Zen meditation does. T'ai chi and ch'i kung, like sitting meditation (zazen), require daily practice. Don't waste time with a commercial t'ai chi class on Saturdays only. We must supplement classroom practice with daily practice at home.
Although the term "zazen" is usually translated as "sitting meditation," the actual practice of sitting meditation is just a part of the Zen package, i.e., the full practice of Zen includes zazen but it also includes much more.
The practice of Zen is a full time undertaking. It's not separated from daily life in the way church-going on Sunday is. Zen isn't a hobby that you do one day a week. It isn't something you do for half an hour every day.
We're almost ready to start an authentic zazen practice. But first, we need to create a practice space.
To Catch the Ox, we need to be physically fit and we need a meditation practice. An authentic meditation practice requires a home zendo. Going to a public place of meditation once a week is good but not good enough. Setting up a home zendo is a critical step that should not be skipped. This is where we will nurture our authentic Zen practice every day.
The photo below is a typical home zendo. ("Do," pronounced with a long "O," is Japanese for Hall so a zendo is a meditation hall or room). Note that the top shelf holds a Buddha statue; in Asia, it is felt that a Buddha statue should never be used as a casual home decoration. Accordingly, it is displayed only in a meditation room and it is the highest object in the room.
Asian Buddhist custom is also to display live flowers on an altar not just for their beauty but also because they die quickly, thereby serving as a reminder of impermanence. Most Americans prefer to use fake flowers, like those in the photo, to avoid killing flowers needlessly. Even though the artificial flowers seem to be permanent, we can still look upon them as reminders of impermanence.
In this particular arrangement, the main Buddha is flanked by a couple of Guanyin Bodhisattva figures and a couple of smaller Buddhas. There are no particular arrangement requirements. As you visit various zendos and temples, you will develop ideas for your home zendo. A table below the shelf can hold candles, a bowl of sand to hold incense sticks, or other suitable objects.
The long strip in the photo between the top shelf and the table is an inexpensive picture of a Thai version of the Buddha on a strip of wood that cost about $10.00. The gemstone inlaid picture of the Buddha below that, slightly obscured by a stick of Dragon incense, was purchased for a small amount on eBay.
In the photo below, the large square cushion (zabuton) and the smaller round one atop it (the zafu) are arranged directly in front of the table. They were purchased from the Rochester Zen Center marketplace at www.rzc.org.
If we don't want to build a formal miniature zendo like the one pictured, we can at least get a cushion and place it about a foot or so from a wall. When we sit, we face the wall. Try to put the cushion in a special, dedicated place. When we sit, we start our practice right away because we are in our special practice place.
Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki, founder of the San Francisco Zen Center, counsels us to approach Zen practice every day with the mind of a beginner. Thoughts such as: "I'm an advanced student; probably more advanced than anyone I know!" are the thoughts of a decadent, burnt-out practitioner who never got It. Start each sitting fresh, as a beginner.
The photo below is of a beginner.
The full lotus is the most anchored of all meditation postures and it is recommended only for the limber. The yoga practitioner on the left has the legs in full lotus; the practitioner on the right is in half lotus with the hands in proper zazen position.
Sitting in a chair requires one to maintain one's balance, but if we can get into the full lotus, the benefits are great. Obviously, it's an advanced yoga position.
It takes most of us a long time to gradually build up to the full lotus.
It's best for most people to sit in a half lotus position for a long time, alternating between left leg on top or right leg on top, before trying the full lotus.
If we can never get into the full lotus, that's OK. We can do the half lotus. That is still much more comfortable than the common cross-legged position. The quarter lotus is also an option; it's a good way to build up to the half lotus.
Other positions are the seiza position (sitting on the feet) and the Burmese position.
Here is a photo of a monk in the seiza position with the aid of a bench. Some people use cushions instead of a bench. The feet are tucked under the bench or positioned on opposite sides of the cushions. The Japanese practitioner on the right is sitting in classic seiza (sitting on the feet) without the aid of cushions. The square mat is a zabuton.
Here is a photo of the Burmese position:
Both feet and both knees are on the mat. Note the hands with the thumbs touching. The left hand is on top.
No amount of intellectual comprehension can arrive at an understanding of emptiness, of no-self. Meditation is the process by which the interdependency of all things is realized.
I sat for years on a flat floor with a thin, uncushioned meditation mat providing a barrier between me and the floor. After about twenty years of that, I started sitting at places that used cushions. A typical zendo (meditation hall) will have a large square mat called a zabuton at each sitting location. A round cushion called a zafu is placed atop the zabuton, flush with the end furthest from the wall, and the practitioner sits on the zafu with knees resting on the zabuton. The idea is to elevate the rear end a little so that the backbone will be comfortable.
Most people sit just on the front half of the zafu but we can experiment to find how much of the zafu we like to use. We sit cross-legged if we can and use a chair if we can't. When using a chair, we sit on the front edge with both feet on the floor, keeping our back straight and not using the seat back.
Most Zen centers are equipped with ordinary and ergonomic chairs in addition to zafus and zabutons.
As a part of this step-by-step guide, we recommend practicing at home alone for quite a while before looking for a Zen center. First of all, we may not live anywhere near a Zen center. Even if we do, the practice is difficult and many people who visit a Zen center early in their practice soon abandon their practice. The sittings are often too lengthy and too numerous for beginners and they give up.
So let's practice at home until we can sit three rounds of thirty five minutes each, separated by five or six minutes of kinhin between rounds.
The following instructions apply whether we are sitting alone at home or with a group in a Center.
Once seated, we place the right hand on our lap, palm up. Then we place the left hand atop the right hand, also palm up and we let the thumbs touch each other lightly. We keep the thumbs in a vertical plane and put the tongue against the roof of the mouth. With the back and neck straight, the ears should be over the shoulders and the nose facing straight ahead. Some people find it useful to imagine a thread coming straight down from the ceiling or sky with its lowermost end attached to the center of the top of the head. The string is pulling up a little, taking some of the weight of the head away.
We should be seated with the front edge of our zabuton or the front legs of our chair positioned about a foot from a wall. Keep the eyes open just a little but don't focus on anything. We hold our head straight, not bending our neck to look down. We look down with our eyes only. If someone waves a hand in front of our eyes, we should be able to see it.
We are not trying to go into a trance and we will not be repeating a mantra until we get blissed out. Zen is not practiced to reach happy, blissful states of transcendence. We practice Zen to be here, now. This now and this place is the answer to all questions. Unconditioned Awareness is never someplace else at some other time.
When seated on a meditation mat, we are not running around town, burning up gasoline, watching movies, engaging in frivolous chitchat and otherwise generating karma. At last, we are beginning to break free of the karma-generating activities that most people call freedom.
The deluded hear of people who sit on meditation mats and say to themselves: Poor things, their life is so boring. The meditator soon learns that the opposite is true; the unexamined life is indeed not worth living. Those who run around and think they are having a good time are fish in an evaporating pool. Those who practice zazen are the boundless ocean.
To begin the meditation process, count the first exhalation as "One." If it's a long exhalation, count it as "Ooooonnnne," dragging it out to match the length of the exhalation. Then count the next exhalation as "Two," again making the counting match the length of the exhalation. Notice that we are not counting inhalations. We use the same technique all the way to "Ten" and then start over.
It is important not to celebrate the attainment of the number ten. When ten arrives, we just return to one and count the exhalations again until we reach ten again. When we think: "This is easy; I'm good at this," we're not concentrating on the breath and we are not good at it! Whenever such thoughts arise, we just go back to one again.
It is important to breathe as always. If we adjust our breath to our counting, we've abandoned the practice.
When we start daydreaming about miscellaneous stuff and forget what number we were on, we just go back to one. The breath is active, the counting is passive.
Many people say this meditation technique is idiotic. That's why Zen teachers proudly proclaim: "My teaching is idiotic!"
The Buddha himself just followed the breath, i.e., paid attention to the inhalations and exhalations and did not count either one. Master Hakuin noticed how hard it is for modern people (he lived about two hundred fifty years ago) to do that, so he came up with the idea of counting exhalations. This forces us to do what the Buddha was doing, paying attention to the breath.
Notice the absence of religious sentiment. No invoking of gods or gurus, secret teachings, no prayer to a deity, no philosophy, no divine revelations, just paying attention to the breath.
Awareness of the breath or working on a koan ripens into awareness of awareness until nothing is left...except Awareness.
Many people who know nothing or very little about Buddhism have concluded that Buddhism is an atheistic religion. It is not a religion, however, nor is it a philosophy or a belief system. It is just the practice of paying attention to the breath, or working on a koan, and nothing more. If you add anything more to it, you are growing a second head or painting legs on a snake.
When sitting in meditation, counting breaths, trying to solve a koan, or performing some other teacher-assigned practice, we are doing what a Buddha does; we are not engaging in abstract thought, metaphysical speculation, or wondering what's for supper. When we catch ourselves immersed in daydreams, we just drop them and go back to the practice.
How long should we sit and how many times per day? We just do whatever we can. The length of our sittings will increase if we stick with this program and we may start sitting more than once per day. The most important thing for now is to get fit and start a daily home meditation practice in our home zendo.
The Hindu religion expresses the need for repeated spiritual practice by observing how cloth was dyed in the old days. A white cloth would be dipped in yellow dye and the bright yellow cloth would be laid in the sun. After a day of exposure, the cloth would return to almost white, bleached by the sun. The cloth would then be dipped into the dye again, and laid in the sun again. That process would be repeated daily until the bright yellow color would fade less and less until finally it would remain bright yellow even after long exposure to the sun.
Zen practice works the same way. Every day practice adds up. A tenuous, uncertain practice will morph into a rock solid practice. Sit like a mountain.
Even after a few tastes of kensho (an experience of enlightenment that can range from shallow to deep), one must return again and again to the sun of daily life after each round of practice. Even the Buddha continued his meditation practice after his incomprehensible enlightenment.
Comfortable for at least thirty five minutes in the full lotus, the half lotus, or any other formal position? If so, you're ready to move to the next level, to sit with experienced practitioners in a formal zendo.
Sangha is a Sanskrit word defined as a community of monks or nuns. In the U.S., we use the word loosely to indicate a sitting group of lay people.
Buddhism is changed by every culture that practices it. In the States, Buddhism has changed in three major ways from Asian Buddhism.
First, Americans are not concerned with the Asian division of Buddhism into Northern School Mahayana practiced in China, Japan, Korea, and most of Viet Nam and Southern School Theravada practiced in Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and parts of Viet Nam along the Cambodian border.
The division of Buddhism in Asia into two major schools was based primarily upon geographical separation and cultural differences. In the States, Mahayana and Theravada groups attend each other's events and individuals move freely between the groups.
Secondly, Buddhism in the States is primarily a lay movement. There are very few people who qualify for the title Sensei or Roshi; the vast majority of practitioners are lay people. In Asia, few lay people who self-identify as Buddhists practice daily meditation.
When in Japan on business, I usually mention to my Japanese counterparts that I enjoy visiting and meditating in temples. When I tell them I meditate daily at home and that most of my friends do the same thing, even though none of us are monastics, they are simply flabbergasted. "Why, why?" they ask. Then they explain that it is the job of monks to meditate and to dedicate the merit thereby gained to lay people. Therefore, lay people do not need to meditate and if one does meditate as a lay person, it is as if they do not trust the monks to do their job.
Thirdly, men and women practice together in the States. Asian Buddhism is primarily segregated due to its monastic nature.
Most Zen practitioners belong to a sangha and have a teacher. A list of Zen centers in the U.S. can be found at www.buddhanet.net. (Click on World Buddhist Directory in the top line on the home page). Another good list is found at www.americanzenteachers.org. If you live near any of them, you should have no problem in finding a qualified teacher. Most are called Sensei, Japanese for teacher. A few are called Roshi, Japanese for Old Master. If you can’t find a Zen center near you, start a Walk In Zen Center and get listed on buddhanet.net.
If the Zen center nearest you has no ordained teacher, it's still better than nothing. Sitting with a lay group is good practice; there is a difference between sitting alone and with a group. If nothing else, group sitting motivates every member of the group because no one wants to be the one who quits! Perhaps that's a weak reason, but in the early days of a group, it's true. As the group grows and matures, no one wants to quit because everyone wants to continue practicing together.
WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN VISITING A ZEN CENTER
You should arrive at least a few minutes before formal sitting begins just to say hello to your fellow practitioners. Just like church. In most cases, you will leave your shoes outside or in a rack in the foyer. Whether you go barefoot or with socks is your choice.
At the appointed hour, the Han will begin to play.
The Han is a flat wooden board that is struck by a wooden hammer. The person playing the Han will strike it once loudly, tap it twice lightly, and then repeat a loud, light, loud, light pattern several times and then the last loud will be preceded by two light taps so that the Timer will know that the last loud is about to be sounded. The Timer then brings a pair of wooden clappers together loudly, almost simultaneously with the final loud sounding of the Han.
Everyone heads for their mats during the playing of the Han and gets settled down before the Han stops playing. The player of the Han is watching the people in the room so he or she knows when to sound the final loud tap.
In most Zen Centers, the mat of the Timer is assigned to the Timer. You will see a mat with a clock or timer, wooden clappers, and a small hand bell positioned between the mat and the wall. If the Center has a Sensei, a Roshi, or a senior student who is the leader of the group, a mat will be reserved for them as well; it is usually directly beside the Timer's mat at the entrance to the zendo. All other mats are open; few Centers have assigned seating except during formal retreats when assigned seating is the rule.
In a typical Zen center, you will hear the small hand bell ring three times as soon as the Han playing has finished and the wooden clappers have been sounded. The idea is to settle down as the three rings are sounded, spaced a few seconds apart. By the sounding of the last bell, you should be settled into a position that you can hold without movement for at least 35 minutes. Some centers sit for 20 and some sit 40 minutes or even longer. Call ahead or check the website if visiting an unfamiliar center.
The timer will ring the small hand bell one (1) time when the sitting is over. In Chinese Ch'an centers, it is common for people to perform a short self massage before rising from the mat. In Japanese Zen centers, everyone performs a palm-to-palm bow while still seated when the bell rings, and rises with no massage. We stand on the floor in front of our mat/zabuton, with hands in the gassho (palm-to-palm) position and facing away from the wall. When everyone is standing, the timer rings the small hand bell again, and we all bow to one another at the waist, bending about forty five degrees. We then turn to our left and begin kinhin.
Although the practice can differ between Zen Centers, the typical kinhin is a single file walk at normal speed. Just remember the person in front of you so if you leave the kinhin line to get a drink or go to the bathroom, you will be able to fall in behind that person as you re-enter the kinhin line. The person in front of whom you are stepping will have their eyes down so lower your right hand and perform a wave as you step in front of them. The kinhin will typically be traveling in a clockwise direction. If in a counterclockwise kinhin, the left hand would be waved.
Place your right thumb inside your right fist. Then bend your right elbow a little more than ninety degrees so that your right fist is centered on your chest, above your stomach. Then bend your left arm the same way and cover the right fist with your open left palm.
That is how you will hold you hands during a fast outdoor kinhin or a slower indoor kinhin. If you need to leave the kinhin, keep you hands in that position as you leave and as you return. At night when the sesshin day has ended, we go to our assigned sleeping spot with our hands in the kinhin position. During a work period, even if we are mopping a floor, we return to the kinhin position whenever we can.
As strange as it may seem now, we will come to appreciate the sound of the Han, the wooden clappers, and the hand bell. We will feel right at home, content in the knowledge that we are doing what a Buddha does.
It is perfectly OK to practice counting-the-breath meditation on your own, without a teacher. However, eventually you will want to talk to someone who is qualified to discuss your meditation. A Sensei or Roshi may assign a koan or shikantaza (just sitting) instead of a breath practice; however, they will do only what they feel is best for you after they become familiar with your practice.
Zen has several schools in China and Japan but in the U.S., most Zen Centers are either Soto or Rinzai but some Centers blend Soto and Rinzai practices together. The Zen centers of the Roshi Kapleau lineage, for example, sit facing a wall, Soto style, but most of the practitioners are working on teacher-assigned koans, which is a Rinzai practice.
In the Soto tradition, any one who has practiced for at least ten years is given authority to teach.
In the Rinzai tradition, authority to teach is much more difficult to obtain. The student must “pass” a large number of koans, for example, and the process typically takes more than ten years.
As a result, you will find many more Soto teachers than Rinzai. Both teach Zen, but a Soto teacher will go easier on you, encouraging you to awaken gradually by maintaining a sustained practice for a long time. A Rinzai teacher will put more pressure on you, encouraging you to wake up Now! A Rinzai teacher will hit you with a stick! (But it won’t hurt).
Both schools have their advantages and disadvantages, but ultimately they are the same. If your practice develops faster by following a Rinzai teacher, you will still maintain a meditation practice for the rest of your life. So it cannot be said that Soto is long, slow, and gradual and Rinzai is short, fast, and abrupt. Both require a lifetime of practice.
Read what Master Hsuan Hua has to say about the various sects of Buddhism.
Master Hakuin, a Rinzai teacher, is credited with having invented the counting-the-breath method in relatively modern times. (He lived in the eighteenth century; he also created the famous koan: What is the sound of one hand clapping?).
A period of formal sitting meditation is usually concluded by chanting The Four Bodhisattvic Vows, usually shortened to The Four Vows. A Boddhisattva is a Buddha-to-be. In a typical Zen center, instead of ringing a bell when the last meditation round is over, the lead chanter will begin the chant by intoning:
The Four Vows:
All beings without number...
and then the members of the group join in and conclude the first line and the remaining three lines of the chant:
I vow to liberate.
Endless blind passions, I vow to uproot.
Dharma gates, beyond measure, I vow to penetrate.
The Great Way of Buddha, I vow to attain.
The Four Vows are repeated three times.
At the obvious, mundane level, the first line of the chant means what it says: That the chanter, as a Buddha-to-be, will work to spread the Buddhadharma so that all sentient beings can attain Buddhahood. The great Bodhisattvas have already vowed that they will not enter into Nirvana until the hell worlds are empty and all sentient beings have attained Nirvana. Like a captain of a sinking ship, they work to save themselves last. The Earth Store Bodhisattva is one of those Bodhisattvas.
On a more subtle level, the beings referred to in the first line are your thoughts. To liberate all beings is to stop clinging to your thoughts.
In Buddhism, everything can be understood at an obvious or mundane level, a more intellectual level, and a level that is not renderable in words. It is the continual recitation of The Four Vows at the conclusion of a formal round of meditation that leads to the beyond-words level.
The other three lines are self-explanatory, at least at the mundane level, but they require hard work. Try uprooting endless blind passions! That's why Zen is a practice. Pick out a passion that you would like to be free of and work on uprooting it. It requires patience, perseverance, and practice.
There is an interesting flow to the four vows: The vow to liberate all sentient beings obviously begins at home; you surely cannot liberate others before you have liberated yourself. To liberate all sentient beings including yourself requires no longer clinging to your thoughts, to your endless blind passions that must be uprooted. And uprooting endless blind passions requires penetration of Dharma gates beyond measure, the study of sutras, repentance...all aimed at the attainment-realization of Buddhahood.
A young monk in his studies came across a passage saying that a certain great master had meditated for eons without attaining Buddhahood. This discouraged him. He went to the Master of the monastery and inquired: "Why should I bother to meditate? Why did this great master fail to attain Buddhahood after so many lifetimes of meditation? How can there be any hope for me?"
The master replied: "He did not attain Buddhahood because he did not attain Buddhahood."
The young monk understood, and happily returned to the meditation mat.
No amount of intellectual comprehension can arrive at an understanding of emptiness, of no-self. Meditation is the process by which the interdependency of all things is realized. We cannot think our way to Buddhahood.
From the very beginning, all beings are Buddha.
Buddhahood is inherent in all of us and it is not something we attain. When we vow to attain Buddhahood, the vow is to wake up and experience the Buddhahood that has been there all along. Not to intellectually attain Buddahood, but to experience it. By emptying the cup, following the precepts, repenting, sitting in zazen alone and in groups, performing prostrations, practicing Buddha Name Recitation, chanting, sutra study, yaza (Step Nine in this course), all of which are Dharma gates, we are not causing awakening or enlightenment to occur but we are creating the conditions that allow it to occur.
Repeating the four vows at the conclusion of a formal meditation session is another way of reminding us that Zen practice never ends; we don't get up from the mat and forget all about zazen. We conclude by vowing to wake up and that keeps the meditation alive as we walk to our cars in the parking lot or head for the subway and re-enter the mundane world.
I once thought it would be funny to tell my Sensei that I had just discovered to my chagrin that I had been reciting The Four Vows incorrectly for years. I then chanted:
All beings without number, I vow to penetrate;
Endless blind passions, I vow to attain;
Dharma gates beyond measure, I vow to liberate;
The great Way of Buddha, I vow to uproot.
He didn't think it was funny.
But he did his best impression of the Queen and said:
"We are not amused."
Intermediate Zen
Intermediate practitioners sit for thirty to forty minutes per sitting and may sit more than once per day. The quarter lotus and the half lotus are recommended.
Advanced Zen
Advanced sitters sit for an hour or more per sitting, several times per day, in full lotus. The Ananda Marga order, a tantric sect teaching a blend of Hindu and Buddhist teachings, recommends sitting before breakfast, lunch, dinner, and bedtime.