Real Zen for Real Life Course [1][1-5]

Real Zen for Real Life Course Lecture Notes

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

Professor Biography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i

Course scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
LESSON GUIDES
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Lesson 1 What is Zen? recovering the Beginner’s Mind . . . . . . . . . 3

Lesson 2 The Zen Way to Know and forget Thyself . . . . . . . . . . 10 

Lesson 3 Zen Meditation: Clearing the heart-Mind . . . . . . . . . . 17 

Lesson 4 how to Practice Zen Meditation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 

Lesson 5 The Middle Way of Knowing What suffices . . . . . . . . . 34 

Meditation Checkup: The Middle Way of Meditation . . . . . . . . . . 42 

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Lesson 6 embracing the impermanence of Life . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 

Lesson 7 The True self is egoless . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 

Meditation Checkup: Lead with the Body and Physical stillness . . . . 62 

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Lesson 8 Loving others as yourself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 

Lesson 9 Taking Turns as the Center of the Universe . . . . . . . . . 71 

Meditation Checkup: from Mindless reacting to Mindful responding 77 

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Lesson 10 Who or What is the Buddha? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Lesson 11 Mind is Buddha: if you Meet him, Kill him! . . . . . . . . . 87 

Meditation Checkup: Dealing with Unavoidable Pain . . . . . . . . . . 95
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Lesson 12 Dying to Live: Buddhism and Christianity . . . . . . . . . 97
Lesson 13 Zen beyond Mysticism: everyday even Mind . . . . . . . .104 

Lesson 14 engaged Zen: from inner to outer Peace . . . . . . . . . 112
Meditation Checkup: Dealing with Distractions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 

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Lesson 15 The Dharma of Karma: We reap What We sow . . . . . . 120
Lesson 16 Zen Morality: follow and Then forget rules . . . . . . . . 127 

Lesson 17 The Zone of Zen: The freedom of No-Mind . . . . . . . . 133
Lesson 18 Zen Lessons from Nature: The giving Leaves . . . . . . . 138 

Meditation Checkup: Three Ways of Breathing in and out . . . . . . .144
===[7]
Lesson 19 Zen art: Cultivating Naturalness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 

Lesson 20 Zen and Words: Between silence and speech . . . . . . . 154 

Meditation Checkup: Chanting as a Meditative Practice . . . . . . . .160
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Lesson 21 Zen and Philosophy: The Kyoto school . . . . . . . . . . . 162
Lesson 22 Just sitting and Working with Kōans . . . . . . . . . . . .168
Meditation Checkup: Walking Meditation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
===[9]
Lesson 23 Death and rebirth: or, Nirvana here and Now . . . . . . 175 

Lesson 24 reviewing the Path of Zen: The oxherding Pictures . . .180 

finding a Zen Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

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WHAT IS ZEN? RECOVERING

THE BEGINNER’S MIND

LESSON 1

Z

en practice aims to bring us down to earth—to the here and now of our real lives. It is largely about clearing our hearts and minds. actually engaging in this practice is vital

to understanding what it is all about. Zen meditation is a practice of clearing the heart-mind. Metaphorically, it is about emptying one’s cup.

Emptying One’s Cup

• The way of Zen itself is a matter of continually emptying one’s cup, clearing one’s mind, and returning to what in Zen is called the beginner’s mind. The 12th-century Chinese Zen master Dahui implores: “Do not lose the heart and mind of a beginner for an instant.” The beginner’s mind is an open mind. a know-it-all is incapable of learning anything.

• The greek philosopher Plato points out the paradox that in trying to learn about something new, we need to already have some knowledge of what we are looking for. otherwise, how would we even know what to look for, and how would we know when we’ve found it?

• The problem Zen calls our attention to is that we tend to think we know all too much about what we are looking for. The problem is that we have lost the beginner’s mind: our original and innocent openness to the world.

Debunking Medieval and Modern Reconstructions

• When we open a book on Zen, we need to ask ourselves: What is already in our cup? What preconceptions about Zen fill our minds and will perhaps get in the way of learning about it?

• in the West, Zen has connotations of being hip, cool, liberal, and progressive. in Japan, by contrast, Zen is usually associated with the severe discipline of a conservative religious establishment, while Christianity has connotations of being modern and even fashionable.

• The cultural appropriation of Zen in the West has often been insufficiently critical and self-critical. however, in Western academia these days, the pendulum has swung in the other direction. Today, the trend is to use historical and philological scholarship to debunk the spiritual and romantic image of Zen fashioned by earlier generations of writers, an image that still circulates in popular culture.

• in erudite books with clever titles like Chan Insights and Oversights and Seeing through Zen, this critical—and sometimes polemical—debunking is aimed in part at the ways in which asian and Western authors such as D. T. suzuki and alan Watts have presented Zen to Westerners. yet their critique is also aimed at the traditional self-conceptions and self-presentations of the Zen tradition throughout its 1,500-year history.

• applying the historical-critical methods of modern biblical studies, scholars of Buddhism have shown that canonical Zen texts were in fact written down and revised by later generations of monks rather than being literal transcripts of the words of the masters. however spiritually inspiring and philosophically rich such classical texts of the Zen tradition may be, we cannot read them as unbiased and unembellished historical records or as innocent of sectarian politics and other mundane motives.

• Taking Zen’s lessons seriously certainly need not mean that one is taking Zen’s lore literally. after all, the texts of the Zen tradition were not written as academic history books.

• When reading a parable, it does not matter so much whether the events actually happened exactly as they are being told—or even if they happened at all. for Zen Buddhism, historical narratives do matter. But what matters most to sincere Zen practitioners is

how the teachings embedded in those stories can illuminate and change our lives—not when, where, and by whom they were first taught and written down.

Modern Western Zen

• The living tradition of Buddhism has always been concerned with applying traditional teachings to the here and now of people’s real lives rather than with preserving them as relics in a museum or transcribing them as chronicles in a history book. We do not live in 9th-century China or in 13th-century Japan. We have a lot to learn from Zen masters who did live then and there, but in the end, we must apply their lessons to our lives here and now.

• Buddhism was first introduced to China in the 1st century Ce. Later, starting in the 6th century in China, Zen was formed by way of a creative synthesis of Buddhist teachings and practices imported from india with Chinese traditions, especially Daoism. Centuries after that, starting in the 12th century, Zen was brought to Japan.

• There, for eight centuries, it developed in conjunction with Japanese culture and sensibilities. over the course of the last century, Zen has been imported to the United states and other Western countries, initially from Japan and later also from Korea, China, and Vietnam.

• in the West, Zen has continued its development, now in dialogue with Western traditions such as german idealism, english romanticism, american transcendentalism, medieval Christian mysticism, and modern psychology. The teachings of Zen have been deployed in the West in opposition to both religious fundamentalism and antireligious secularism. Zen teachings have also been used to critique consumerism, technological destruction of and alienation from nature, and other perceived ills of the dominant and domineering worldviews and lifestyles of the modern West.

Realizing Zen: Here and Now

• Zen can only become real for us insofar as we allow this asian tradition to take root in our real lives in the modern Western and Westernizing world. The 20th-century Japanese Zen philosopher Nishitani Keiji liked to use the english verb realize since this word can mean both “to attain an understanding” and also “to make real” or “to actualize.”

• in this double sense, our task is to realize what Zen is. on the one hand, realizing what Zen is means understanding what it has been, and this requires opening our minds and trying our best to understand the teachings and practices passed down by Chinese, Japanese, and other asian masters. on the other hand, to fully realize what those teachings and practices can mean for us, we have to relate them to our real lives.

• Zen kōans are the often-enigmatic and paradoxical stories, dialogues, sayings, or questions assigned as topics of meditation and used to trigger and test a student’s awakening. To attain such an awakening, we are told that we must “interlock our eyebrows” with past Zen masters and learn to see with their same eyes.

• yet the Zen tradition also recognizes that its universal and timeless truths must manifest themselves differently for different people in different times and places. Zen is neither a matter of subjective opinion nor a matter of objective doctrine; it is a matter of universal truths manifesting in ways and words appropriate to particular times and places.

• The term real in the quest for “real Zen” thus cuts both ways. on the one hand, we are not trying to flee our present circumstances and transport ourselves back in time or to another land. Nor are we just interested in a detached study of the history of other people’s beliefs and practices. We want to know what Zen can mean for our own lives.

• on the other hand, we want to set aside our prejudices and preconceptions to open ourselves to what Zen masters who lived in the past have to teach us. We will inevitably need to meet them in the middle, so to speak, but getting there requires that we question our presuppositions about both Zen and ourselves. We especially need to be open to the possibility that Zen may be able to teach us about ourselves.

The Zen School of Buddhism

• The practice of Zen can be and has been undertaken by persons of all religious and secular worldviews. Zen meditation in particular is practiced today by many Jews, Christians, and people of other faiths, by people who do not consider themselves religious at all, and by many people who consider themselves spiritual but not religious.

• in his books Buddhism Without Beliefs and Secular Buddhism, the contemporary author and former Zen monk stephen Batchelor argues that the core teachings and practices of Buddhism do not depend on any religious beliefs or traditional rituals. accordingly, he thinks they speak to people today who are looking for a spiritual path without all the religious traps and trappings.

• on the other hand, a modern Japanese Zen master, yamada Kōun, used to tell his Christian students in effect that he wanted them to practice Zen to become better Christians—not to become Buddhists. some of those Christian students are Catholic priests and nuns who went on to become Zen teachers without ceasing to be Christians.

SUGGESTED READING

heine, Zen Skin, Zen Marrow.

McMahan, “repackaging Zen for the West.” suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind.

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

1 What really is Zen? how has it has been repackaged by advertisers and watered down in the pop culture of the West?

2 how should modern Westerners who are interested in Zen go about adopting and adapting its teachings and practices?

THE ZEN WAY TO KNOW AND FORGET THYSELF

LESSON 2

D

epending on the context, we introduce ourselves in different ways. For instance, one might introduce himself as a father, husband, brother, or professional in different

situations. We all carry around a number of identity boxes, and we habitually define ourselves and others with the labels on these boxes. In fact, life in society requires that we do so.

this lesson digs deeper than the kind of self-introductions found on a business card, webpage, or resume. It introduces the path of Zen as a path that begins with the injunction to know oneself.

Know Thyself

• The 14th-century Japanese Zen master Daitō Kokushi called the practice of Zen an “investigation into the matter of the self.” such an investigation may at first seem unnecessary because we all tend to assume that we already know ourselves, and so we generally neglect to even ask the question, much less succeed in finding the answer.

• The injunction to know oneself can be found in many traditions, including the Western philosophical tradition that goes back to socrates. according to Zen, however, to truly discover what the

self is, we need a more direct path than

mere intellectual reasoning. The best not waste one’s time path to attain an intuitive knowledge on investigating

of ourselves is a holistic practice mythological stories

of meditation. of gods and other

unusual creatures. • Many Westerners are interested in Zen more out of a kind of curiosity about something that seems exotically foreign and mystical than out of a genuinely philosophical and spiritual quest for self-understanding. if such cultural curiosity were our sole motivation for learning about Zen, socrates would rightly scold us and tell us that we should first and foremost strive to know ourselves.

• another lesson from socrates also resonates deeply with Zen: socrates reminds us that a genuine quest for self-knowledge begins with the realization that we don’t already know who—or even what—we are. The journey to wisdom begins with an acute awareness of one’s ignorance.

• socrates’s teaching resonates around the globe with a line from the Daodejing: “To know that one does not know is best; not to know but to believe that one does is a disease.” another chapter of the Daodejing tells us, “Those who study [doctrines and rituals] increase day by day, while those who practice the Way, the Dao, decrease day by day.”

• instead of accumulating more and more information, Daoist sages practice letting go of unnecessary mental and emotional baggage, clearing their minds and hearts of all excess clutter, until they are able to wander freely in attunement with the natural way of the world. among the many teachings that Zen inherits from the Daoist tradition is this emphasis on a return to simplicity and naturalness.

Zen as a Path of Meditation

• Zen, in the end, is a path for all human beings who are sincerely interested in coming to know themselves. it is important to note, though, that despite some significant similarities, there are also some important differences between the path of Zen and that of other religions and philosophies. These are differences in methods and in results.

• Zen does not ask one to pray to or believe in an external god or Buddha. Like socrates, it stresses the importance of seeking knowledge rather than relying on blind faith. it especially stresses seeking knowledge of oneself.

• There are intriguing accounts of socrates standing motionless for hours, apparently absorbed in a meditative state. however, for the most part, socrates’s method was that of discursive rational inquiry, and he thought this was best done by disengaging the mind from the body. The Zen path is a more holistic one that engages the whole body, mind, heart, and spirit.

• Contrary to some popular opinions and partial teachings, Zen is not, in the end, opposed to rational thought. But it does teach that we need to dig down beneath the intellect by means of meditation, rooting intellectual knowledge in a deeper, more holistic wisdom.

• arguments must be based on insights. otherwise, they degenerate into self-serving sophistries or, at best, abstract theories with little impact on our lives. for the most enlightening, most life-changing insights, we need a method that engages the body, heart, and spirit as well as the mind. We need to root the intellect in an embodied-spiritual practice of meditation.

• as a school of Buddhism, Zen tradition traces itself back to shakyamuni Buddha, the man whose personal name was siddhartha gautama. he lived in india around 500 BCe. ever since shakyamuni Buddha attained enlightenment while meditating under the Bodhi Tree, meditation has played a vital role in all schools of Buddhism. it is especially

Buddhism’s Sutras and Zen Buddhism

• Buddhism has many traditions and schools, each of which is based on a particular sutra or set of sutras. all sutras claim to be the teachings of the Buddha, but they were all were written down much later. The earliest sutras, the ones that make up the Pali canon of the Theravada Buddhist tradition, were first written down four centuries after the Buddha died.

• The sutras that form the scriptural basis of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition, which has thrived in central and eastern asia, were composed starting in the 1st century BCe, many being translated from sanskrit into Chinese by the end of the 2nd century Ce. When these scriptures were brought from india to China, the different schools of Chinese Buddhism distinguished themselves from one another by claiming that one sutra or another is the pinnacle of the Buddha’s teaching.

• The Zen school, however, is different. While Zen Buddhists do study and chant many sutras and other texts, the Zen school is unique in that it does not claim to be based on any written teachings but rather on the Buddha’s actual experience of enlightenment itself. This experience of enlightenment is said to be attainable by all human beings, insofar as the Buddha-nature or Buddha-mind is universal.

• in other words, all human beings have the same underlying nature and mind as the Buddha. yet this Buddha-nature or Buddhamind must be realized, awakened to, and actualized. The best method for doing so is the one that the Buddha himself used: meditation.

Fast the Mind, Forget the Self

• The legendary Daoist sage Zhuangzi, whose writings were particularly influential on Zen, spoke of a meditative practice of “sitting and forgetting.” he also referred to this as a practice of

“fasting the mind.”

• We need to unlearn our prejudices—our prejudgments about ourselves and others—so that we can open our minds to what is really there and therefore become at least a little more aware of the “spin” imposed on our experience of reality by our swirling thoughts, feelings, and desires.

• The problem isn’t that we don’t have a grip on reality. The real problem is that we generally have too much of a grip on reality, in the sense that we are willfully grasping the world and forcefully trying to reshape it to fit into the boxes we have fashioned. Meditation is a temporary relaxing of the attachment to our own edited version of reality.

Conclusion

• The self, Zen tells us, is empty. But emptiness here equals openness. To be open is to be responsive, and to be responsive is to be creative as well as compassionate. Creativity is not a forceful act of imposing one’s project on the world; it is rather a responsive participation in events of interactivity.

• great artists rarely claim sole authorship of their works. They speak of influence and inspiration, of losing themselves in the creative flow, of being spoken to by their materials and guided by their tools, and of gratitude to their supporters and their audience.

• only in the midst of all these interconnections can an artist do his or her part in producing good art. This is true of all of us in all that we do. in the end, we discover ourselves not by retreating from but rather by fully engaging in the interconnections that make up the world we live in.

SUGGESTED READING

Davis, “The Presencing of Truth.” Nishitani, “The standpoint of Zen.” okumura, Realizing Genjokoan.

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

1 how does Zen’s method of investigating the self compare with that of socrates?

2 What does the Zen master Dōgen mean when he says that “to study the self is to forget the self”?

ZEN MEDITATION:

CLEARING

THE HEART-MIND

LESSON 3

T

he practice of seated meditation is termed zazen in Japanese. In Zen temples and monasteries today, there are many activities, such as chanting and prostrations, that take

place. nevertheless, zazen is the core practice. It is also the focus of this lesson.

The Point of Zazen

• The point of practicing zazen is to awaken to one’s original heart-mind. The term heart-mind is hyphenated because in Chinese and Japanese, the word for heart and mind is written with the same sinograph, or Chinese character: 心. These languages and cultures don’t tend to separate the locus of thinking and the locus of feeling. for Zen, an open mind entails an open heart, and vice versa.

• another way to think about the point of zazen is to look at it as a way to realize—to discover and allow to function—the clarity and purity of the original heart-mind that is already there, buried beneath our karmic baggage of egoistic delusions and desires. Karmic baggage manifests as the distracting thoughts, emotions, and desires that will probably

assault you as soon as you try to

 settle into a practice of meditation. THE BUDDHA-MIND

• in the beginning, you will The term Buddha-mind

likely experience meditation as a struggle. it is a very odd struggle, since it is a struggle between the part of you that wants to meditate and the part of you that does not.

means a truly awakened mind. another way to

think of it is as the original mind that we are trying to wake up to. Meditation is

That is the first moment of self- the most direct means of discovery: the realization that the uncovering and activating self is complicated and often at this Buddha-mind. odds with itself.

• Zen meditation is first of all about facing up to this complicated and self-contradictory nature of the self. Next, it is about digging down to the deepest and truest part of ourselves—our “original mind.”

Bodhidharma’s Definition of Zen

• a classic definition of Zen has been attributed to Bodhidharma, the semilegendary figure who reportedly brought Zen from india to China in the late 5th or early 6th century Ce. he is said to have characterized Zen with the following four phrases:

• Not relying on written words.

• a special transmission outside all doctrines.

• Pointing directly to the human heart-mind.

• seeing into one’s true nature and becoming a Buddha.

• Consider this as a takeaway message: The real point of Zen cannot ultimately be either expressed or grasped in the form of scriptures or in formulaic doctrines. Ultimately, the point of Zen can only be directly pointed to.

• it cannot be grasped through words and concepts, which are, at best, secondhand traces of someone else’s direct experience. it must be immediately experienced firsthand, and this is best done through the practice of meditation. real Zen must be realized through zazen. The point is not that texts and doctrines are untrue, but rather that, on their own, they cannot fully capture or embody the truth.

Three Levels of Wisdom

• one problem with relying on texts and teachings is that we mistake secondhand or thirdhand knowledge for firsthand experience and understanding. The Buddhist tradition has long recognized there to be three levels of wisdom: received wisdom, intellectual wisdom, and experiential wisdom.

received wisdom is acquired through reading traditional texts or listening to a trustworthy teacher and committing those doctrines to memory. attaining intellectual wisdom requires a more active and critical use of one’s intellect, such that one comes to a clear understanding of why a teaching makes sense.

• for instance, professors typically want students to start by carefully reading the assigned texts and attentively listening to lectures. But professors also want them to move from received to intellectual wisdom.

• even in the best-case scenario, however, much of the learning that happens in schools and universities stops at the level of intellectual wisdom. at best, this learning prepares students to go out into the “real world” and, through real-life experiences, to take the intellectual knowledge they attained in the classroom and turn it into the kind of experiential wisdom that changes their lives, allowing them to more positively affect the lives of those around them.

• The Buddhist tradition, at its best, promotes a holistic practice that includes, but is not limited to, intellectual thinking. it encourages practitioners to engage in embodied meditative practices and to let the teachings imbue their daily lives so that they reach the level of experiential wisdom. for it is only experiential wisdom that is truly liberating and life changing.

Zen Among Other Forms of Meditation

• The practice of meditation goes back more than 3,000 years in india, predating even the earliest scriptures of hinduism. The sixth chapter of the most famous hindu scripture, the Bhagavad gita, gives explicit instructions for practicing dhyana yoga, the spiritual discipline of meditation.

inspired by Zen and other asian traditions, some Christians have gone back to the Desert fathers to recover

• There are many different methods of meditation, and different methods naturally produce different experiences. There are also different motivations to meditate, including relaxation, improving concentration, and to focus one’s prayerful relation with god, among others. in Zen, one can meditate to live life more fully, with fewer attachments and with more freedom, flexibility, and concern for the wellbeing of all beings.

The Buddha taught two kinds of meditation: concentration and insight. Whereas some schools of Buddhism distinguish more sharply between the preparatory practice of concentration and the liberating practice of insight, Zen tends to view concentration and insight as two sides of the same coin: When the mind is cleared, settled, and focused, it naturally attains insight and manifests its innate wisdom.

• The Buddha taught the eightfold Path as the way to enlightenment. its eight limbs are grouped into three categories, which are broken down as follows.

The first category is wisdom, and it consists of:

1. right view.

2. right intention.

• The second category is morality, consisting of:

3. right speech.

4. right action.

5. right livelihood.

• Most relevant to this lesson is the third category, which is meditation. it consists of:

6. right effort.

7. right mindfulness.

8. right concentration.

• The term right effort here does not mean simply trying hard. it specifically indicates the meditative process of training the mind to let go of negative states of mind and cultivate positive ones.

Zen meditation aims to suddenly awaken us to our innate virtues of wisdom and compassion, from which we have become alienated through the “three poisons” of ignorance, avarice, and aversion—or, in stronger language, delusion, greed, and hate.

Subtraction Zen

•

Zen meditation is a matter of emptying or clearing the heartmind. it is a matter of subtraction rather than addition. real Zen is not about accumulating new tricks and trinkets, nor is it about putting on the robes and airs of a new persona; it is about shedding such acquisitive and self-aggrandizing desires and attachments.

• The other side of the coin of subtraction Zen is vow-vehicle

• at first, meditation can seem downright boring and unproductive.

after all, when one meditates, one is not really doing much of anything at all. indeed, the less the better. however, don’t flee from boredom. go all the way into it; go all the way through the bottom of boredom. The place of rest you seek lies beneath, not beyond, your restless mind.

• Zen meditation is a practice of pausing our busy lives so that we can clear out the busy mess of our minds. it is a practice of clearing, emptying, opening, cleaning, and purifying the heart-mind—or rather, it is a matter of waking up to its original openness and purity.

Beneficial By-Products

• While at its core Zen meditation is a method of subtraction, there is also a lot to be gained from the periphery of the practice. specifically, Zen meditation has the following wonderful side effects:

1. improvement in posture and psychophysical well-being.

2. increase in ability to concentrate.

3. Decrease in stress level.

4. increase in natural creativity and problem-solving ability.

5. recovery of sincerity and improvement in interpersonal relations.

• in taking time for meditation, one first of all learns to be kind to oneself. one calmly notices all the negative thoughts and feelings that have been tying one up in knots. No longer feeding them any more mental and emotional energy, one lets these negative thoughts and feelings drift off like storm clouds in the open expanse of a blue sky.

• Ultimately, the practice of Zen meditation awakens an inner confidence that is both firm and flexible. This confidence entails the kind of firmness that does not inhibit flexibility but rather makes it possible—like the axis pole supporting a seesaw or balancing a spinning top.

SUGGESTED READING

Cleary, Minding Mind.

omori sogen, An Introduction to Zen Training.

Uchiyama, Opening the Hand of Thought.

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

1 how does Zen meditation compare to other forms of meditation?

2 What is the ultimate aim and what are the proximate benefits of practicing Zen meditation?

Attending to the Place or Environment

• even for an experienced meditator, it often takes 10 or 15 minutes to really settle into a meditative state, so it is not surprising that the minimum length of time for a meditation period in temples and monasteries is usually 25 minutes. Meditation periods in monasteries can be as long as 50 minutes or more, but this is appropriate only if it does not cause too much discomfort and if one is able to maintain concentration for that long.

• as for when to meditate, traditionally favored times are dawn and dusk. There is indeed something special about these twilight hours that belong neither to the hectic daytime nor to the slumbering nighttime. The earth and sky seem to emit their most meditative atmosphere at dawn and at dusk.

however, it is of course possible to meditate at any time of the day or night, so just find a time that works best for you. Transition times in your daily routine are often a good place to wedge in a meditation period. This also allows you to begin your next activity with a refreshed mind and disposition.

• finding and cultivating the right space for meditation is very important. although it should not be too cold or too hot, it is best to have exposure to fresh air. Natural sounds or even the white noise of city streets will likely not disturb you, but loud sounds and especially voices will, so it is best to find as quiet a place as possible. Quality incense that does not produce too much smoke can be very conducive.

• it is important that your meditative space be clean and uncluttered. The mind tends to reflect its environment, which is why you probably find that cleaning your room feels like you are also cleaning your mind. you may wish to have an image in your meditation space, such as a figure of the Buddha or a bodhisattva.

• Last but certainly not least, preparing the environment entails getting your cushions, bench, or chair ready. Various sitting positions are possible. The most important part of the posture is from the waist up, which will be the same whether you are sitting in a cross-legged or kneeling position. it will also be the same whether you are on the floor or on a chair.

• if you are going to sit on a chair, it is best to have one that is not too high or too low and that has a flat seat with firm padding. if you are going to sit on the floor, it is best if you have a large flat square cushion called a zabuton and also a smaller round or rectangular cushion called a zafu. These can be easily ordered from online stores. it is also possible to fold a blanket or two into the shape of a zabuton and to fold a beach towel or two into a zafu.

Attending to the Body

• Now that you’ve attended to your environment, it’s time to turn your attention to your bodily position. Be sure to wear loose and comfortable clothing. if you are going to sit on a chair, perch yourself on the front of the chair without leaning against the back, with your knees at a 90° angle and with your legs perpendicular to the ground. if this is difficult for you, then you can sit all the way toward the rear of the chair so that your back is supported in an upright posture.

• a normal cross-legged position is not good for meditation.

This is for two reasons. one is that it doesn’t provide a stable base. The other is that it does not support a naturally straight back, so it cramps the deep-breathing space of your lower abdomen.

• all of the recommended cross-legged positions require some flexibility. however, bear in mind that you should be careful to avoid any intense joint pain or excessive discomfort. your body position should not distract you more than it helps you to get into a state of ultimately peaceful concentration. for details on several types of cross-legged positions—including the Burmese, half lotus, and full lotus positions—refer to the audio or video lesson.

for many people, cross-legged postures are not viable options. you may want to try a kneeling position. in Japan, sitting on your heels with your legs folded under you is called seiza, which means “correct sitting.” This is how one sits on formal occasions.

• The drawback to seiza is that your legs will probably quickly fall asleep. in this case, there are two ways you can take the pressure off of your legs in a kneeling position. you can take the zafu, turn it vertically, and slide it between your legs. alternatively, you can acquire a wooden kneeling bench, which is placed over your calves. Many meditators find these supports to work very well.

• in all of these positions, you should establish a naturally straight back. To begin with, use your back muscles and straighten your back. you can likely hold this artificially straight position for a few minutes, but eventually, your back muscles will start aching. Therefore, you need to find a way to let your spine, not your muscles, do the work.

• This course recommends that you leave the back straight and bend forward from the hips until your buttocks starts to lift off the zafu, bench, or chair. Then, rock back slowly onto the zafu, bench, or chair, releasing all of the tension in your back as you return to an upright position. Try this technique a few times, and you should find that it allows your back to remain straight with a slight arch in your lower back, while also allowing you to relax your back muscles. relax all of the muscles in your shoulders and back and let your spine do the work of holding you upright.

• hold your left thumb with your right hand. Then, clasp your right hand gently with the fingers of your left hand. rest your clasped hands in your lap, snuggly tucked up against your lower belly.

The next thing to attend to is the head. it is best to slightly tuck your chin in when you meditate. alternatively, pull a tuft of hair on the crown of your head upward toward the ceiling. This sets the head in proper alignment with the spine. Make sure the head is not tilted either to the left or to the right and that it’s not bending forward or back. your ears should be over your shoulders, and the tip of your nose should be over your belly button.

• in Zen meditation, one leaves the eyes open, though you can lower the eyelids halfway. if you are sitting on the floor, let your vision naturally settle on a spot on the floor about four or five feet in front of you. Let your vision settle six or seven feet in front of you if you are sitting on a chair. Be sure that the spot is right in the middle; otherwise, over time, it will cause your body to lean left or right.

Attending to the Breath

• The breath is the great mediator of the mental and material aspects of the psychosomatic self and of the inner and outer dimensions of self and world. By meditating on the breath, you will discover that it conjoins and pervades the physical, emotional, and cognitive aspects of yourself. Deep breathing with the lower abdomen calms the emotions and clarifies the mind.

By meditating on the breath, you will discover that it is a respirational exchange of inside and outside. if you attend to the breath, it will be a constant reminder that you are not an isolated individual but are intimately connected with the world around you. Breathing in, you inhale the world; breathing out, you exhale the self.

Attending to the Mind

• as a beginner in meditation, you should simply focus your mind on the breath. a relevant technique here is counting the breaths. Called sūsokkan in Japanese, the method of counting the breaths has for centuries been a basic practice of Zen meditation, and it is the practice this course recommends you start with. it is also a practice you can always return to. here’s how you do it:

1. after you are physically situated, take a deep breath and then forcefully exhale all of the stale air out of every crevice inside you. you can repeat this preparatory step two or three times if you wish.

2. Then, with your mouth closed and your tongue pressed gently against the back of your upper front teeth, relax all of the muscles of your lower abdomen and let yourself naturally breathe in deeply.

3. Next, breathe out more slowly through the nostrils until you have exhausted all the air.

4. Then, let your body naturally turn from exhalation back to inhalation. it is important to breathe naturally. as you relax your lower abdomen and mindfully attend to the breath, it will naturally deepen of its own accord. eventually, the breath may become at times very subtle and even shallow. Let it do what feels natural.

5. When you’re ready, begin counting one number per breath. While exhaling, silently count one number for the duration of the outbreath. Keep this up until you have counted to 10 with 10 breaths. Then, simply begin again with one. When your mind wanders and you lose track of which number you are on, gently yet firmly bring yourself back to the practice and begin again at one.

SUGGESTED READING

Buksbazen, Zen Meditation in Plain English.

Loori, Finding the Still Point.

Maezumi and glassman, On Zen Practice.

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

1 how should the body be positioned when meditating?

2 What should one do with the mind when meditating?

THE MIDDLE WAY OFKNOWING

WHAT SUFFICES

LESSON 5

I

t is impossible to understand Zen Buddhism without learning something about the teachings of the Buddha. the Buddha always geared his teachings to whomever he was addressing at

the time. Following his example, this lesson provides explanations of basic Buddhist teachings geared toward an audience of 21stcentury Westerners interested in learning about Zen Buddhism and possibly in applying its teachings and practices to their lives.

The Middle Way

• The very first lesson the Buddha taught was the Middle Way between indulging and repressing sense desires. To understand the Middle Way, it is necessary to understand how the Buddha arrived at this insight through many years of his own experiences and experiments with both extremes of hedonism and asceticism.

• The person who became the historical Buddha was siddhartha gautama, who was born in the 6th century BCe around today’s border between india and Nepal. Commonly accepted dates for his life are 563–483 BCe.

• his father was the ruler of a small kingdom, and he wanted to make sure that his son took the political rather than the spiritual path. for that reason, he kept him sheltered and shielded from all the miseries of life.

• Up until the age of 29, siddhartha lived a life of extreme privilege and luxury. he was not exposed to any of the suffering caused by even such unavoidable matters as old age, sickness, and death.

• however, on three unannounced excursions, siddhartha witnessed three sights. on the first excursion, he saw a very old man, hunched over and barely able to walk. on the second excursion, he saw a very sick person whose flesh was covered with open sores. and on the third excursion, he saw a corpse being carried on a berth in a funeral procession.

• siddhartha was profoundly disturbed by the sights of old age, illness, and death that he witnessed on his excursions outside his pleasure palace. in each case, he asked his attendant if these things would happen to him. in each case the answer was: yes, they will eventually happen to you.

wandering mendicant. This was a spiritual

seeker who, from the peaceful smile on his face, seemed to have already found something. This fourth sight inspired siddhartha to leave home in search of a way beyond suffering—not just for himself, but for everyone.

•

Leaving home required some great sacrifices. Prince siddhartha gave up his social standing and all his possessions; he left the pleasures and protections he enjoyed behind his palace walls. in an even more demanding sacrifice, he left his family, including his wife, his son, and his aunt, who raised him. eventually, he did come back for them, and they joined his sangha, his community of practitioners. in the meantime, it must have been very hard on all of them.

Liberating All Sentient Beings from Suffering

• siddhartha wanted to find a path beyond suffering so that he could show it to others. he wanted to wake up, to become a Buddha, so that he could wake others up. even before leaving home, siddhartha became keenly aware of the suffering of his fathers’ servants, who toiled under harsh conditions in the fields. he freed them at once. he also released the oxen from their harnesses.

• incidentally, Buddhists are concerned with the liberation from suffering of all sentient beings—that is, all beings who can feel, not just humans. although the Buddha did not teach absolute vegetarianism, he did prohibit his followers from killing animals.

• Physical freedom from external constraints is by no means a guarantee of spiritual freedom from internal bondage. in fact, people who are free to do whatever they want can end up just becoming a slave to their wants. We must attain internal as well as external freedom, and that requires spiritual discipline.

Different Desires

• Most of our activities are motivated by the pursuit of one or the other of pleasure, profit, power, and prestige. We all want these, and in fact, we all need a certain amount of all four to be happy. But this raises some questions: are they all we need? Do they deserve all of our attention and energies?

• in hinduism, four legitimate aims of life are recognized. The first two are pleasure and wealth. The third is moral duty. yet pleasure, wealth, and duty are not enough. especially in our evening years, says the hindu tradition, we should increasingly turn our attention to the ultimate aim of life: spiritual liberation. This is called moksha in hinduism. Buddhism sometimes uses that term, but in general calls it nirvana.

• The hindu doctrine of the four life aims is helpful insofar as it recognizes that we have different kinds of desires and that they are all natural and legitimate—as long as they are kept within their proper bounds and measure. There is nothing wrong with a moderate pursuit of pleasure and wealth as long as this pursuit does not overshadow and override the higher aims of morality and spirituality.

• The Buddha spoke of the four immeasurables, or boundless attitudes, of loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. These are called immeasurables because we can never have an excess of them. on the other hand, there are some unwholesome desires that should be utterly abandoned. hatred, jealousy, the desire to hurt others, and so forth, fall into this category.

• Many desires, however, belong to a third category: those that we should learn to have the right amount of. These include, for example, desires for food, sleep, and sex. There is nothing wrong with the desire for food when the body needs nutrients.

But an excessive desire for food is unhealthy.

• an excessive, inordinate desire is called a craving. and it is craving, not desire as such, that the Buddha says is the cause of suffering. altruistic desires are to be engendered, and egoistic cravings are to be eliminated. But the third category of desires, desires that are proper in the right amount, is the trickiest. This is where the Buddha’s first teaching of the Middle Way comes into play.

Experimenting with Extremes

• on his way to becoming the Buddha, siddhartha personally experimented with both extremes of indulging and quashing desires. growing up in an overprotective pleasure palace, siddhartha lived the life of hedonism. Later, during his preenlightenment period of extreme asceticism, siddhartha nearly starved himself to death.

• images of siddhartha after he became the

Buddha generally depict him with a healthy body mass index. images of the Chinese Zen figure Budai, the so-called happy Buddha or laughing Buddha, seem to go too far in the opposite direction. The symbolic point of this plump figure is to counteract images of Buddhism as world-negating and aloof from society.

• in certain matters, it can be difficult to know when to stop—to know when one has had enough. extremes are easier to pursue: either more is better, or less is more. examples include strict abstinence versus sex addiction or being a workaholic versus living a life of leisure. The world seems to be constantly offering us such binary choices between extremes. The Buddha says that we need to learn to say no to both extremes and to find the right balance between them.

The Middle Way Pendulum between Extremes

• The Buddha is not alone in advocating a Middle Way. in ancient greece and medieval Christianity, one of the cardinal virtues was moderation.

• The tendency to excess, including the spiritual arrogance that the greeks called hubris, is related to a lack of self-knowledge. only if one knows one’s limits can one know how much is enough and how much is excessive.

• We seem to have lost a sense of this virtue of moderation. admittedly, teaching temperance won’t be the best stimulus for a capitalist economy—an economy which thrives not just on satisfying desires but moreover on creating cravings. But reviving this teaching of temperance is nevertheless necessary for us to cultivate a more balanced lifestyle.

• it is not by deleting all desires any more than it is by multiplying them that we can find balance in our lives. Kobayashi rōshi—who, as of this course’s taping, is the abbot of shōkokuji monastery in Kyoto—has compared the Middle Way to riding a bicycle. it is only by pushing down just the right amount and with just the right rhythmic timing on the left and right pedals that we can maintain our balance and move forward down the road.

• it can be helpful to think of the Middle Way as a passageway— an opening that leads beyond our life of swinging between extremes on the hedonism-asceticism pendulum. only if we find this passageway, the Buddha taught, can we pass from samsara, the state of suffering, to nirvana, the state of peace and true happiness. if we try to get there by steering too far in the direction of either hedonism or asceticism, we will hit a wall and won’t be able to pass through this opening in the middle.

SUGGESTED READING

heisig, “sufficiency and satisfaction in Zen Buddhism.” Loy, The Great Awakening, chapters 2–4.

Kohn, “The Life of the Buddha.”

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

1 Why did the Buddha reject both extreme hedonism and extreme asceticism?

2 how does the Buddha’s Middle Way teach us to be satisfied with what suffices?

Meditation Checkup:

The Middle Way of Meditation

the conclusion of Lesson 5 is a meditation checkup focused on the Middle Way. to experience it in full, refer to the audio or video lesson. the following tips serve as a summary of the checkup.

Bodily Posture

• Meditation involves finding a physically balanced posture. after you get situated on your cushion or chair, you can fine-tune your posture by letting gravity help center you, such that you are sitting perfectly perpendicular to the floor.

• To do this, while leaving your back straight, very gently initiate a rocking movement forward and backward. as soon as you have initiated the movement, let go, release control, and witness how gravity and your body harmoniously work together as the rocking movement decreases little by little, coming to rest at a perfectly balanced point. Next, repeat this process by initiating a side-to-side rocking movement.

• once you come to a balanced still point, notice how this subtle fine-tuning of your bodily posture affects your mental poise. you might even feel as if all the forces in the universe are cooperating to allow you to sit in this relaxed yet upright posture, as if everything is literally conspiring with you as you begin your meditation on the breath.

The Cosmic Mudra

• an excellent way to stay attuned to the balance of the Middle Way during meditation is to hold your hands in a special position called the cosmic mudra. Place your right hand on your lap, palm facing upward. Then, place your left hand on your right hand, also with the palm facing upward. finally, touch your two thumbs together so that your hands form a circle.

• While you meditate with your hands in this position, you’ll find that when you are tense, your thumbs press together and point upward. When you are distracted, your thumbs drift apart. and when you are drowsy, your thumbs droop downward. however, when you manage to maintain a relaxed alertness, a concentrated mindfulness, your thumbs remain gently touching, effortlessly keeping the form of the cosmic mudra.

Dealing with Agitation and Lethargy

• as your meditation practice progresses, you’ll find that your mind is tranquil but alert—zoned in rather than zoned out. if your mind is agitated or if you are sleepy, it is difficult to meditate. sometimes, you may just need to lay down and take a nap. other times, you may need to get up and deal with a problem that is bothering you. Then, sit down to meditate when you are, relatively speaking, less drowsy or preoccupied.

• inevitably, however, at least mild forms of agitation and lethargy will beset you at times while you are meditating. Don’t get frustrated. rather, take these problems as reminders of why you need to meditate; take them as encouragements to devote yourself to a more regular practice of meditation. Most of all, bear in mind that dealing with a racing mind or drooping eyelids is not just preparation for meditation; it is part and parcel of the practice itself.

• in practicing meditation, you are negotiating the Middle Way. sometimes, you will feel like you can’t sit still; other times, you will feel like you can’t stay awake. yet you will find that the more you sit, the sitting corrects these tendencies and naturally brings you back onto the Middle Way.

• it is helpful to focus on and count your breaths. if you are sleepy, you can experience the in-breath as enlivening—filling you with all the energy of the universe. on the out-breath, you can muster your spiritual energy and silently bellow out each number, as if you were refilling the whole world with the vitality of that breath.

• on the other hand, if you are agitated, you can experience the breath as mentally calming and emotionally soothing. relax into each out-breath, extending the number with an attitude of infinite patience, letting go of all the tension in your face, jaw, neck, shoulders, and back. Let the in-breath happen without any effort; just relax the muscles in your lower abdomen and let the smooth air fill you with calm.

• in these ways, you can counterbalance whichever extreme you are tilting toward by concentrating on the breath. While meditating, let the breath lead you down the path of the Middle Way. you’ll also find that, at other times—since whatever else you are doing, you must also be breathing—the breath will be there to help keep you balanced.

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