Real Zen for Real Life Course [5][12-14]

 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
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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
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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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DYING TO LIVE: BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY

LESSON 12

This lesson looks at the relationship between Buddhism and christianity. over the past century, there have been many christians who have taken up the practice of Zen

meditation without leaving the church. In fact, there have been a number of catholic priests who have become Zen teachers. there have also been many Protestant clergy and laypeople who have claimed that their christian faith is compatible with and deepened by their practice of Zen Buddhism.

Early Encounters and Misunderstandings

• in Japan, there is a tradition of esoteric Buddhism called shingon, which was founded by Kūkai in the 9th century. for shingon Buddhists, the dharmakaya is the cosmic Buddha called Dainichi Nyorai—the great sun Buddha that is the source of all light and life in the world. indeed, all reality is thought to be the manifestation of Dainichi.

• When the first Christians arrived in Japan in the mid-16th century, the Jesuit missionaries led by francis Xavier were told by their Japanese translator that the word Dainichi is the best translation for the word God. These early Christian missionaries thought that the Japanese must have already received a partial or corrupted version of the gospel of Christianity. for their part, the Japanese thought that the missionaries had come from the western land of the Buddha, india, and brought with them new doctrines of Buddhism.

• This period of mutual appreciation based on mutual misunderstanding ended after the missionaries were confronted with Buddhist—and in particular Zen—doctrines of emptiness and nothingness. additionally, the pivotal Buddhist doctrine of no-self sounded like the antithesis of their core belief in an eternal soul.

• for centuries following this fateful first encounter in Japan, Buddhism—and specifically its doctrines of no-self and emptiness—became an object of both fascination and fearful condemnation for Western philosophers and theologians. only in the 20th century was the prejudiced misunderstanding of these teachings gradually reformed. however, no-self and emptiness remain the most intellectually and emotionally challenging doctrines of Buddhism for Westerners to wrap their heads and hearts around.

What is God?

• a relevant question for this lesson’s topic is: What does it mean to believe in god? When we ask questions like this, we assume a lot. To begin with, we assume that we understand what we are asking. in this case, we assume that we know what the word God means and what it would mean to believe in god. another question is whether god is male rather than female. additionally, how could we tell?

• Buddhists, even Pure Land Buddhists, do not believe in a transcendent being who exists independent of the being’s creation. Zen Buddhism is most compatible with panentheism. The term panentheism means “all is in god.”

• Many biblical passages lend themselves to a panentheistic interpretation, such as when god says, “Do i not fill heaven and earth?” and when Paul affirms the idea that “in him we live and move and have our being.” such a panentheistic conception of the biblical god does not, after all, sound so very different from many Zen pronouncements.

Experiencing the Unborn Buddha-Mind

• Buddhism teaches that everything that is born must die. This is the law of impermanence. everything that exists because of the conditions that allow it to exist will cease to exist when those conditions no longer hold.

• The good news—the gospel of Buddhism—is that there is something on the other side of the door: a doorway through which we can pass if only we can shed the bulky armor we’ve vainly attached to the fragile shells of our egos.

Buddhism calls this something that is no-thing the unborn, unmade, and unconditioned. in a famous passage from an early sutra, the Buddha teaches:

There is, monks, an unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned. if, monks, there were no unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned, no escape would be discerned from what is born, become, made, conditioned. But because there is an unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned, therefore an escape is discerned from what is born, become, made, conditioned.

• Because there is the unborn, there is nirvana. The attainment of nirvana is the realization of the unborn. There was a tendency in early Buddhism to understand nirvana as somewhere beyond samsara—as a transcendent abode beyond this world of space and time.

• The Mahayana tradition, and especially the Zen school, brought nirvana back down to earth. The great 2nd-century Mahayana philosopher Nagarjuna taught that nirvana is not a different place to be; it is a different way of being here. Life in this world for the unenlightened is samsara, but for the enlightened, life in this same world is nirvana.

• Zen masters call on us to realize the unborn here and now. and they tell us that we can fully do this only if we cease perceiving this world of ceaseless change as one of birth and death.

• rebirth, in Buddhism, is first and foremost moment-to-moment rebirth. each moment of change is, in a sense, the death of an old form and the birth of a new one. The boiling water disappears as water to become steam. a teenage adolescent has to die to be reborn as a young adult, and so on.

• Thich Nhat hanh points out that modern science agrees with

Buddhism in this regard. he quotes the french scientist antoine Lavoisier as saying, “Nothing is created, and nothing is destroyed.” and he remarks that this is just what the heart sutra tells us: “one form of energy can only become another form of energy.”

• yet we constantly suffer from worrying about death while we are alive. We do not simply live here and now, but, haunted by thoughts of our mortality, we run ahead in anticipation of death. The german philosopher Martin heidegger even claims that this anxious anticipation of death is the defining trait of being human.

• But what do religions like Christianity really teach about life and death? Does Christianity simply promise our anxious egos that they can live forever? or, rather, does not its core teaching say that we must die to our egos to be reborn in the eternal life of Christ?

Views on Death and Rebirth

• The idea of an existential or spiritual death and rebirth is not at all foreign to religions such as Christianity. indeed, it is at the very heart of Jesus’s teaching. in the gospel of Matthew, we read: “Whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me.

Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” This teaching—that each of us must die to the old adam to be reborn in the true life of Christ—is repeated throughout all four gospels.

• Baptism is, as it were, a ritual drowning of the ego and resurrection of the true self. Perhaps one can even say that in the Christian tradition, Christ, as the incarnation of divine love, is the true self. This seems to be implied when st. Paul famously says, “i have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer i who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.”

• This core Christian teaching does not seem to be very far from the Zen master Dōgen’s teachings about life, death, and about enlightenment as a matter of “dropping off the body-mind.” Dōgen writes:

When you let go of both your body and your mind, forget them both, and throw yourself into the house of Buddha, and when functioning begins from the side of the Buddha drawing you in to accord with it, then, with no need for any expenditure of either physical or mental effort, you are freed from birth-and-death and become Buddha.

• it has been said that this particular text, and especially this passage, may have been composed by Dōgen for a Pure Land Buddhist rather than a Zen Buddhist audience because its language of letting actions come “from the side of the Buddha” rather than from one’s own efforts resonates with the Pure Land teaching of other-power more than it does with the Zen teaching of self-power. Be that as it may, Zen and Pure Land Buddhism are not as far apart as they are sometimes made out to be.

Conclusion

• The Dominican and german theologian Meister eckhart says that obedience is an imperfect releasement unto god’s will. as long as there is a duality between god and servant, there remains a trace of self-will that resists the one divine will. “Where there are two,” he says, “there is defection.” The purely good man is said to be “so much of one will with god that he wills what god wills and in the way that god wills it.” furthermore, in the final “breakthrough,” according to eckhart, “i stand free of my own will and of the will of god.”

• Ultimately, for eckhart, the complete abandonment of self-will also entails letting go of god’s will. one is then released into the “pure activity” of living “empty and free” and “without why.” in his most radical (and perhaps heretical) teachings, eckhart may be closer to Zen Buddhism than he is to either the orthodox teachings of Christianity or those of Pure Land Buddhism, which both preserve a distinction between the self and the higher or other power that it is called on to serve and be saved by.

SUGGESTED READING

Davis, “Naturalness in Zen and shin Buddhism.” habito, Living Zen, Loving God

Kennedy, Zen Spirit, Christian Spirit.

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

1 What does Zen mean by the great Death, and why it is necessary to pass through this experience to truly live?

2 how is the idea of a spiritual death and rebirth in Zen comparable to similar ideas in Pure Land Buddhism and Christianity?

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ZEN BEYOND MYSTICISM: EVERYDAY EVEN MIND

LESSON 13

The 14th-century christian mystic Meister eckhart once said, “I pray to god that he may make me free of god.” he also said: “the highest and final letting go, of which humans are

capable, is letting go of god for the sake of god.” Much like Zen kōans, these statements boggle the mind—yet also, for many, inspire the spirit.

Bowing to the Buddha

• The 9th-century Chinese Zen master huangbo taught that “if you would only rid yourselves of the concepts of ordinary and enlightened, you would find that there is no other Buddha than the Buddha in your own Mind.” huangbo is thus a strong advocate of what his successor Linji calls “killing the Buddha”—that is, smashing all idols and casting away all objectifications of the Buddha as someone or something other than one’s true self.

• yet at the same time, huangbo was known for having a protruding lump on his forehead from touching his head to the floor so often in his lifelong practice of making prostrations to the Buddha. Before one is enlightened, one bows down to the Buddha because one has not yet realized that one is the Buddha.

• after enlightenment, one bows down to the Buddha because that is still the appropriate thing to do. Not only is it an ongoing reminder to oneself of what one truly is—a Buddha who compassionately bows down in service to everything and everyone—it is also a teaching to those around one of how they too can realize and remember this.

The Disappearing and Reappearing Buddha

• The practice of prostrations was explained by the 14th-century Japanese Zen master Bassui in this manner: “as for the practice of bowing down before the Buddhas, this is merely a way of horizontalizing the mast of ego to realize the Buddhanature.” Bassui implies that once the “mast of ego” has been brought down, the currents of the vast sea of the Buddha-nature, our true self, will naturally take us where we need to go.

• once the mast of ego has been leveled, we no longer see the Buddha as outside us but rather as our true self.

our interconnected individual lives are waves on the great ocean of the Buddha-nature.

• Zen is not atheistic any more than it is theistic. it rejects religious ideas and images no more than it clings to them. We can, after all, become attached to the idea of having no attachments.

• a monk once asked huangbo’s contemporary Zhaozhou: “how about when one arrives carrying not a single thing?” in other words, he was asking: What more is there to do once one has let go of all attachments? Zhaozhou responded: “Cast that down!” he meant to let go of your attachment to the idea of having let go of all attachments.

Everyday Even Mind Is the Way

• When he was a student, Zhaozhou once asked his teacher, Nanquan, about what the way—the dao—is. Nanquan answered that the way is “everyday even mind.”

• The Buddha-mind that is attuned to the way of the world should not be understood as some special state of consciousness, though altered states of consciousness can and do often arise in intense periods of Zen meditation. They can be euphoric, alarming, merely odd, or completely overwhelming.

• even advanced practitioners can mistake them for genuine breakthrough experiences. They are not. They might be caused simply by prolonged sensory or sleep deprivation. or they may be caused by the sudden resurfacing of repressed memories or other unresolved psychological issues. one may need to deal with such psychological issues through therapy rather than meditation, and, if so, this course advises that one do that especially before engaging in the rigors of kōan practice.

• altered states of consciousness and mystical experiences are referred to by the term makyō in Zen, a term that translates as “devilish states.” They can be a good sign that one has attained a certain intensity of concentration, but they are bad insofar as they distract one or fool one into thinking that they are the aim of Zen meditation. They are neither good nor bad. They just happen. While you are meditating, just let them come and let them go.

• The teacher Tanaka hōjū rōshi has said that the Zen expression “everyday even mind” refers to a mind that is placid like a waveless surface of water—a mind that is bright like a spotless mirror.

This mind is able to reflect and respond to the vicissitudes of everyday life with spontaneity, sincerity, and compassion because it is not obsessed with its own agendas.

• in short, by everyday even mind is meant both the equanimity that does not get egoistically attached to or fixated on anything, and the engaged everyday mind that is thereby able to fully and fluidly attend to the infinitely complex and ceaselessly shifting way of the world.

• however, if we try to grasp the everyday even mind, the grasping mind turns it into an object of knowledge. But if we don’t somehow come to know it, then we simply remain mired in mindless ignorance. once again, enlightenment involves a kind of intuitive wisdom rather than an objectifying knowledge.

Everyday Chores are the Way

• Zhaozhou went on to become a famous Zen master, and he sought to return his students again and again to the everyday even mind. in a story that has become a famous kōan, a monk, having just entered Zhaozhou’s monastery, requests instruction.

• in going straight to the master rather than just a senior monk, he is no doubt asking for the highest teaching and probably also wanting to test the master to see if staying in this monastery would be worth his while.

Zhaozhou asks the monk whether he had already eaten breakfast. The monk replies, “yes.” Zhaozhou’s reply was: “Then wash your bowls.”

• on one level, speaking metaphorically as Zen masters often do, Zhaozhou may have been asking whether the monk had already had an initial experience of awakening—he is asking whether he already had his breakthrough breakfast, so to speak.

• if so, then he needs to “wash his bowls”—that is, he needs to wipe his mind clean of the pride of having attained something. at the same time, in a more direct and literal sense, Zhaozhou’s instruction to “wash your bowls” indicates that enlightenment is ultimately to be found right in the midst of the chores of everyday life.

Zen as a Path of Trans-Mysticism

• Zen is not ultimately a matter of mysticism in the sense of a transcendent or otherworldly experience that transports one beyond the humdrum of the mundane world. The path of Zen leads rather to a wholehearted and fully mindful engagement in the extraordinarily ordinary activities of everyday life.

• accordingly, the modern Japanese philosopher and lay Zen master Ueda shizuteru interprets Zen as a path of what he calls non-mysticism. Ueda was also a foremost scholar of Meister eckhart. in fact, he first coined his term non-mysticism while writing on eckhart before he applied it to Zen. although he was initially struck by the profound parallels between the two, in the end, Ueda suggested that Zen goes even further than eckhart does in shedding the residues of an otherworldly mysticism.

• Meanwhile, the term trans-mysticism can be used to explain his illuminating account of the circuitous path of Zen, a path which, in the end, brings us back to everyday life. The path of trans-mysticism entails a double negation—that is, a twofold process of letting go.

• To begin with, one must let go of one’s habitual identification with the self-encapsulated ego. in the end, one must let go of even the mystical experience of union with the divine. it can be helpful to think of this process as taking park in four steps:

1. The first step is the transcendence of the ego, which is common to all forms of religious experience.

2. The second step is the experience of union with the divine. This is often considered to be the hallmark of mystical experience.

3. The third step, the breakthrough beyond mystical union to an absolute nothingness, can be understood as a self-overcoming of mysticism.

4. and the fourth step, the return to egoless activity in midst of the everyday world, completes this self-overcoming process of trans-mysticism.

• The experience of union with the divine is the peak of mysticism, according to Ueda. yet both Meister eckhart and Zen take the ecstatic momentum still further, such that eckhart talks about “breaking through” the persona of god to what he calls the “silent desert of the godhead,” the ineffable origin and ground of reality that lies beyond all distinctions.

• it lies beyond the Trinity and even beyond the distinction between creator and created. since it is utterly beyond or beneath anything that can be defined or described, eckhart sometimes calls this abyssal ground of the godhead nothingness rather than being.

• Zen also prefers to speak of the ultimate ground or nature of reality in terms of nothingness rather than being. Ueda follows other modern Japanese Zen philosophers in speaking of an absolute nothingness that underlies or envelops even the distinction between being and relative nothingness.

• eckhart teaches us to see all things in god or in the light of god. however, Zen ultimately teaches us to drop all references to the Buddha as anything outside of the everyday. indeed, Zen urges us to return from an experience of mystical or meditative oneness with the one to an undistracted mindfulness of the many.

SUGGESTED READING

Davis, “Letting go of god for Nothing.”

Ueda, “‘Nothingness’ in Meister eckhart and Zen Buddhism.”

———, “The Zen experience of the Truly Beautiful.”

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

1 What is meant by the Zen teaching that everyday even mind is the way?

2 Why is it better to speak of Zen as a path of trans-mysticism than as a school of mysticism?

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Engaged Zen: from inner to outer Peace

L14

Zen is not about acquiring supernatural or supernormal 

powers. The way of Zen is instead a matter of putting our 

feet on the ground and awakening, step by step, to the 

present moment—to the wondrousness of mundane matters and 

the weightiness of everyday errands

The Mahayana Affirmation of Lay Life

• one of the distinguishing characteristics of Mahayana Buddhism is that it breaks down the dichotomy between priesthood and laity. an affirmation of the spiritual depth of everyday lay life is exemplified in the legends and sayings of Layman Pang.

• in the early centuries of Buddhism and in so-called hinayana schools such as Theravada, up until very recently, meditation was for the most part practiced exclusively by monks and nuns. Laypeople would practice things like charity, especially in support of monks (and sometimes nuns), as well as morality: right speech, action, and livelihood.

• By doing these supposedly preparatory practices, lay people were thought to accumulate karmic merit, such that they would eventually be reborn as someone ready to leave home and devote themselves to the ultimately liberating practice of meditation. only if one was free from the chores of everyday lay life, it was thought, could one become a serious spiritual practitioner.

• The Mahayana reform movement called this way of thinking into question. The Vimalakirti sutra—a sutra composed around 100 Ce that became one of the most important for the Zen tradition— turns the privileging of priesthood on its head by having a layman be the teacher of monks.

• in the story of this sutra, the layman Vimalakirti has fallen ill, and the Buddha sends his attendant monks to pay their respects and to learn from him. The figure of the layman teacher Vimalakirti epitomizes the idea of the bodhisattva as an enlightened and enlightening being who, out of boundless compassion, remains in the world to work toward liberating all sentient beings from suffering.

• The Buddha sends both his hinayana disciples and his Mahayana bodhisattvas to Vimalakirti to inquire about his illness. Vimalakirti teaches them to free themselves from otherworldly aspirations and to find true spirituality in bodily existence and in the midst of the mundane activities of everyday life.

• a goddess appears in Vimalakirti’s room and teaches shariputra, one of the hinayana disciples, not to denigrate women’s bodies in particular. More than 1,000 years later, Dōgen tells his Zen community that they should “not discriminate between men and women” and that women are just as capable as men of attaining the highest enlightenment and becoming strong guiding teachers.

eight centuries after Dōgen, female Zen masters are finally being recognized, including Westerners such as Charlotte Joko Beck.

Meditation Retreats Are Not Escapes

• Vimalakirti teaches bodhisattvas that they must not think of remaining in the world to liberate others as a sacrifice of their own liberation, since such work in the world is in fact the highest form of liberation. Meditation should not be understood or experienced as an escape from the world. We need to be liberated not from the world of everyday life but rather from the desire to escape it.

• We do need to occasionally retreat from our busy routines and clear our hearts and minds. Meditation retreats are an exceptional way to do this. But we must be careful not to fall into the trap of escapism, especially as one gets past the initial physical and mental difficulties of meditation and begins to experience the deep peace and joy that it brings.

• Vimalakirti takes a step in breaking down the supposed dichotomy between meditation and everyday living when he reprimands shariputra for sitting in quiet meditation under a tree in the forest. “shariputra,” he says, “you should not assume that this sort of sitting is true quiet sitting!” rather, he goes on, “Not rising out of your meditative state of stillness and peace and yet showing yourself in the ceremonies of daily life—that is [true] quiet sitting.”

Being at Peace

• Vimalakirti’s criticism of shariputra’s attachment to practicing quiet and restful meditation in the forest is an important corrective to a tendency to view meditation merely as a means of escaping the noisiness and unrest of city life. Nevertheless, the contemporary Vietnamese Zen master and founder of engaged Buddhism, Thich Nhat hanh, recognizes that to truly bring peace to the world, we need to be at peace ourselves.

• for this, most of us need to at least occasionally retreat from the street to the cushion and cloister. in between such retreats, however, to the street we must return, now with more to offer. it is interesting to note that Vimalakirti is presented not just as a layman, but as a rich layman. it is said that he uses his immeasurable riches to bring relief to the poor. on a metaphorical level, it is said that the great wealth possessed by bodhisattvas is the holy Dharma, the teachings that they unstintingly give to others.

Peace and Justice: Which Is Primary?

• The idea that we need to “be peace to bring peace” may cut against the grain of our inclination to not waste time by sitting around and navelgazing but rather to get out there and change the world for the better. of course, it is important to fight for equal rights and justice and to upset the stability of the status quo when the status quo leads to peace for some at the expense of others. The fight for justice, after all, has the aim of eventually establishing a truer and more universal peace.

• yet sometimes we lose sight of that ultimate purpose of our fight, and we end up

COMPLEMENTARY

TEACHINGS

Thich Nhat hanh is among the Zen masters who view the core teachings of Christianity and Buddhism as complementary as long as we look deeply into them and, more importantly, sincerely put them into practice. as the subtitle of one of his books suggests, Jesus and Buddha  wanting retributive justice more than, or even instead of, peaceful coexistence. We want to right the wrongs that have been done to us and to others even more than we want to heal the wounds of the world.

• Bernie glassman is an american Zen master who for decades has pioneered the combination of Zen practice with social activism. on a retreat with glassman, the comparative theologian Paul Knitter confessed to being torn between feeling like he needed to sit in meditation and wanting to get up and go to el salvador to try and help stop the death squads.

• glassman responded, “They are both absolutely necessary.” and then he left Knitter with a kōan-like admonishment: “But you won’t be able to stop the death squads until you realize your oneness with them.” in effect, glassman was echoing Jesus’s core teaching: if we don’t learn to love not just our neighbors and our countrymen but also even our enemies as ourselves, we cannot truly bring peace to the world.

SUGGESTED READING

King, Socially Engaged Buddhism.

Knitter, Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian, chapter 7.

Parallax Press, ed., True Peace Work.

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

1 how does Mahayana Buddhism break down the barrier between retreating to the monastery and engaging in lay life?

2 What does it mean to say that we need to be peace to bring peace?

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Meditation Checkup: Dealing with Distractions

the conclusion of Lesson 14 is a meditation checkup focused on dealing with distractions. to experience it in full, refer to the audio or video lesson. the following tips serve as a summary of the checkup.

Discipling the Mind

• Dealing with distracting thoughts, like dealing with physical discomforts, is an important part of the practice of meditation. These are not prerequisites; they are part and parcel of the practice itself.

• The modern sōtō Zen master shunryu suzuki gives some very helpful advice: every time you catch your mind wandering and bring it back to the practice, this is nourishing your practice. returning again and again from mental tangents is what keeps the wheel of meditation in motion.

• another teaching suzuki rōshi gives in this regard is even deeper and broader. he says that if you want to control your mischievous mind, don’t try to control it. Do the opposite: give it a wide-open space in which to roam.

CHASING DISTRACTIONS

if you chase after distractions or try to chase them off, you will end up just feeding them more energy.

MedItatIon checKuP: deaLIng WIth dIstRactIons