ZAZEN - Sitting practise - Zen -> Dhyaan

Zen Buddhist Texts talks about the Sitting - Not the simply sitting but Zen meditative sitting.

Home Sitting -zazen- with our eyes focused on the hard wood floor, the polish reflects the falling snow outside the window. We watch our breath passing through our body. We are aware of the present moment. Sit on the forward third of a chair or cushion. Arrange your legs in a position you can maintain comfortably. In the half-lotus position, place your left leg on your right thigh (or vice versa). In the full-lotus position , put your feet on opposite thighs. In the Burmese position, tuck both your feet together near your crotch. You may also sit simply with your legs tucked in close to your body, but be sure that your weight is distributed evenly on three points: Both of your knees on the ground and your buttocks on the round cushion. On a chair, keep your knees apart about the width of your shoulders, feet firmly planted on the floor. Sit straight up but not rigid. Straighten and extend your spine, keeping it naturally upright, centering your balance in the lower abdomen. Chest back, stomach in. Imagine a straight vertical line through your nose to your navel Sway your body gently from left to right, until you naturally come to a point of stillness on your cushion. Tighten your "hara" the area about 2 inches below your navel. Look to the floor about 3 to 4 feet in front of your body,eyes neither fully opened nor closed. If the eyes are closed, you might start to daydream or visualize things. Place your hands on your lap with the one palm up and your other hand (palm up) resting on your lower hand, thumb-tips lightly touching, forming a horizontal oval. This is the mudra of zazen, in which all things are unified. Place the sides of the little fingers against your abdomen, a few inches below the navel, harmonizing your center of gravity with the mudra. Place your concentration there, or if you grow drowsy, concentrate your attention on your forehead between your eyes. Take three breaths, inhaling with the stomach going out instead of just expanding the chest, then exhale fully. Let your breath settle into its natural rhythm. With proper physical posture, your breathing will flow naturally into your lower abdomen. Sit still and begin to count your breathing, 1 on the inhale, 2 on the exhale, etc up to 10, then start over. Getting to 10 is not the point, if you can't keep track up to 10 (many beginners can't -- it's surprisingly difficult) count as high as you can, even if it is only 3 or 4, and start over. If you lose count or get to 10, start over. Keep counting. Be attentive to everything: your count, your breathing, the sounds and smells and feelings around you. At the end of your sitting period, gently sway your body from right to left. Stretch out your legs; be sure they have feeling before standing. Practice every day for at least ten to fifteen minutes (preferably 25).

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Courtsey Portland Zen community

Simply Sitting technique - Answering a query.

I wrote this as a reply to my friend's what if query.

Simply sitting ideology !

I must admit I coined the word - unwittingly. I don’t know if anybody has used that term as plain as that for meditation. No cult or group will ever choose it because they will not benefit in anyway. No body wants to learn such a thing like ‘simply sitting’ by paying money. If you call it ‘Zazen’ ( for Zen – sitting) may be people will pay.

Simply sitting is an Art. Most people think they know very well ‘ how to sit simply’. The truth is that very few know and very few can unless trained. You may wonder. A few days practice will definitely tell you that. I frankly think that - that is meditation. Just simply sit for half an hour. Not sleeping, Sit with full awareness and NOT THINKING OF ANYTHING. That is the catch. If you are able to sit idle without thinking anything for at least half a minute then that itself is a great achievement. More than minute you have good chance of becoming a Yogi. You don’t have to recite any mantra or say any prayer. You can keep all your pseudo secularist pretensions in tact. No worry of allegiance to any group. No need to wear any saffron cloth. Your prestige pressure cooker will not fall tumbling down. But even that won’t be possible for simple ordinary souls. People have lot of false notions. How they will answer to the question to “why are you sitting idle”? They may not be able answer properly. Without a cult? without joining any yoga class or without going to any satsang? Without changing one’s belief? They are not supposed to sit like that. If he is a family man, wife and children will suspect him. They will take him to doctor. If a child does, parents will get upset. Our duniya is like that. A worker ant is not supposed to stop. If it stops then there is trouble.

I firmly believe and practice daily this simple ‘simply sitting’ technique. You can also try it. If you know some meditation then it is icing on the cake. It is a great experience. It is not my invention. For hundreds of years learned men from the east and west practiced it. Rishi-Munis, Sufi saints, Zen Gurus, Assisi fathers and many more.. They did not name it as I did. Upanishads explained it at great length. They say Dhyanam Nirvishayo Mana: (Meditation is mind without any thought).

Zen has this practice. They call it Zazen. But they concentrate on breathing. And count breathing. They do not close the eyes fully - fearing you may start visualizing something. But no doubt Zen gurus achieve ‘bliss’ early. After years of practicing I can not convincingly say that I have experienced it even for a fraction of second. But I can surely say that on freak occasions I have sensed a ‘happiness’ that is on the way. I would call it ‘satisfaction of existence’. Then fraction of a second is long time. If with years of accumulated ‘Karmadoshas’ I could achieve that then imagine what the pure souls could achieve.

Now if your mind is not calm and receptive skip the next paragraph.

Zen Gurus always practice silence and live in the present with full awareness. Now read next sentence very slowly. Keep your mind as soft as white cotton cloud. Leave enough time gaps after every word, every full stop…. Zen gurus lives very peacefully. They make beautiful clay pots. They cut wood. They water plants. They see leaf. Stones. Brown pebbles. Black seeds. White petals. The difference is that they SEE. We Look. ….If you have been truthful to yourself you would have seen how agitated your mind was.

It is very very difficult to make people understand subtle matters. Things can not be told like that. It is like explaining the unknown fragrances. There definitely has yet another dimension to the otherwise seen mundane world. Your ‘what if’ questions.. are all related to this chaotic – cacophonic - ( perhaps you may call realistic – I would think twice to call it realistic ) mundane world. Our spiritual leaders have always called this samsara chakram or samsara sagaram..(loukika Jeevitham) Knowing it very well and keeping aloof from it is the technique Geeta teaches. So many ‘what if s’ can be answered by just one ‘what if’ as you explained at the end. What if, if you and I were not born at all!

I would end this with a Zen guru joke:

Once a businessman got interested in Zen philosophy and he decided to become a monk. He joined a Zen ashram and lived there with Zen Gurus hoping to learn everything soon. They did not teach him anything. Six months passed .The businessman got frustrated. He slowly approached Guru. He told him plainly that he has not learned anything from them. Guru simply asked “Did you drink Kanji?” To this business man said “Yes”. Guru: “Did you wash your plates?” To this businessman said “Yes”. Guru: “Then go to sleep”.

I think the next day the businessman must have left the ashram. What do you think?
What is the underlying meaning or meaninglessness here?
How can this be explained to ordinary folks?

A 'What if' Question !

This is in reply to posting "Maharishi and Simply sitting ideology.." The comment is too large to be posted as comment. So I publish it. Besides I hope readers will get interested.

Read on...
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'What if ?'

Hi Valsan,

'Simply Sitting' Solutions!

Very interesting!

Whoever has coined this phrase has unwittingly made 'TM' and 'Meditation', the words that are associated with rich and lazy more socialistic!. Now ordinary people can afford to practice it ! They need not join any cult praticing 'sudharshan kriya' and pay for it proprtionate to the amount of air they breath in and breath out ...or get suffocated by the hugging amma..

Standing on my one leg,inside the 8.46 Borivali-Churchgate fast local, my head sandwiched between two tall guys, struggling to take the hot and foul air inside thru my nostrills, I was yearning to sit in a corner and see solutions for whatever I can ...

I was thinking ...What, if ...

I get up in the morning and simply sit in a corner.. No need to rush to kitchen to boil the milk, prepare tea or cut vegetables .. No need to rush to catch the bus whcih comes at 8.40 and hop from the bus to catch this local ... dodge the vehicles to get into my office bus ... No need to rush to my PC to open 'windows' using 'mouse' to get greeted by some new gene of virus.. Or, see unwanted emails and increase my BP after seeing the sensex graph falling... No need to worry about how to develop the algorithm that goes inside the front-end tools to trigger an event that activates the back-end processing..the output of which is taken as input by some remote server simply sitting in some corner of the world!

What if,

My wife gets up in the mornng and simply sit in a corner. She also has to enjoy this 'simply sitting'. She refuses to rush thru her brushing and rush to kitchen to see if I have started the ground work! No need to prepare tea ... no need to worry about steaming Idlis or pouring dough on pan to make dosas which refuses to go round and round and prefers to simply sit in one side of the pan... No need to worry about preparing 'sambar' and accompanying 'Uppery' and stuff it in lunch boxes ...the daily chorus she wants to escape from...

What if,

My daughters get up in the morning and simply sit in a corner ... No need to visit the kitchen before turning the morning pages of daily ...and the colourfull supplements full of 'Bollywood' crab ... No need to get up and open the door when the door bell rings by the newspaper boy or the milk man or the garbage collector...

What if,

The sweeper, the bus driver, the motor man, the rikshawala,the traffic constable, the vegetable vendor, the postman,the pilot,the police .... and all those who make this city move decide to sit in a corner ...and continue to be in that posture.. till they get solutions for whatever the problems ....

Globally thinking...

What if,

Mr.Bush had been given lesson on 'simply sitting' solutions prior to his sending men to make Mr.Osama run, who was till then 'simply sitting' in a corner of some cave in Afganisthan without bothering anybody...

What if,

Mr.Osama had been given lesson on the benefit of 'simply sitting' solutions prior to his activating 'sleeping cells' to take the civilian aircraft and simply hit the twin towers...

What if,

Mr.Bush and Blair had been given lesson on the benefit of 'simply sitting' to find solutions before they decided to jointly undertake annihilation of Iraq looking for that ever elusive weapons of mass distruction...

What if,

Mr. Musharaf had been aware of this 'simply sitting solutions' before he ordered his men to climb up Kargil and 'simply sit' there till our men in uniform reach there to wake them up ...

What if .... I hadn't seen your blog praising the benefit of 'simply sitting solutions'....!

Regards,

SOman

What if .......................................................................................................................?

Maharishi and Simply sitting ideology.

Poojya Maharishi Mahesh yogi attained Samadhi. The media was agog with news of his Samadhi and his western disciples Beatles, George Harrison etc. etc.Two of his famous Indian disciples Deepak Chopra & Sri Sri Ravisankar wrote touching articles.

I am one of his unknown, distant disciples. I got initiated in late 70s when my mind was filled with revolutionary ideas. As a student, I have been indoctrinated with communist ideology in Kerala. In those days all reading, thinking students were automatically left leaning and all ‘left’ thinking students were considered as ‘right’ thinking boys.

So initially I could not accept this ‘simply-sitting-in-a-corner’ ideology. Moreover like any Keralite I thought it is an American sponsored agenda to destroy the communism in Kerala.

It was Uncle Phathak, a Gujarati gentleman, who brought this TM stuff (Transcendental Meditation ( Atheendriya Dhyanam) to our midst. I was staying with my uncle in Mumbai and Mr.Phathak was one of uncle’s friends. Unlike normal Gujjus Mr. Phatak spoke good English and he was a singer of western music. He sang in good places like Taj Hotel in Mumbai. Probably he was a fan of Beatles.

Any way I did not understand most of what he said about TM and I often argued with him in my broken English. My uncle had made up his mind to accept TM. He also persuaded me to accept it so that the whole house will come under the 'aura' generated by meditation. I agreed on one condition that provided my Dakshina (Fee) is paid by uncle. He agreed and Mr. Phatak became ‘our’ Guru. One day was fixed for initiation and a Mantra was given to me. It is a seed left in me forever. If I water and nurture it may grow. Over the years I seldom watered it. But I practiced meditation and my situation surely improved. Is it because of TM? I really don’t know.

Meanwhile we got opportunity to participate in a meeting attended by Maharishi in Mumbai’s Bharateeya Vidyabhavan hall in Chaupati. Since Maharishi had a MSc in Chemistry many people asked Chemical questions which puzzled the Guru. In those days my Indriya faculty had a upper hand in ruling me and I did not understand a bit of the Vedanta philosophy of Maharishi.

My Meditation practices changed from TM to various other ways. I read Osho. I read Deepak Chopra who had by the time gone away from Maharishi and had become a great spiritualist. I also practiced Sudarshankriya of Sri Sri. AOL, Art of Living, Sri Sri’s foundation, had become a great organization. I also practiced Reiki Meditation. Whatever I did I developed a habit of ‘simply-sitting’ in the mornings.

To this day I could not leave the ‘Simply-stting-in-a corner’ ideology and I am extremely grateful to Maharishi and TM for it.