Zazen Puns

Just curious. By zazen I refer to the the act of seated meditation. I understand than there are various views on practice techniques in this subreddit, and I'm excited to learn more about them. Me personally, most of my experience practicing Zen has been through zazen and sesshin. Does anyone else here do zazen? In what context, and how frequently? I would also love to hear about others' experiences with sesshin, if possible.

What is the difference between vipassana and zazen? Does your practice embrace different forms of meditation?

I posted in r/zen but I’m new and read it can potentially be toxic so I’ve posted here as well.

A common frustration in my meditative experience is that because practice is intrinsically passive (internal), I sometimes find it is hard to imbue external situations with the same level of mindfulness.

Eckhart Tolle once referred mindfulness as being also like a sharp sword, piercing into any situation with awe-inspiring power. I always found this concept very alluring but is not dealt with at all in most of the zen literature I have read.

Does anyone know of any zen texts/sutras that deal with carrying zazen into external experience? (And yes, I know of non-dualism, I’m asking in a practical sense).

I am currently dealing with a rather frustrating situation concerning a friend. This friend claims to be spiritual, buddhist, enlightened, and performs zazen regularly. Maybe I'm the problem and don't know what effects this should have on him, but shouldn't someone who touts the virtues of such be able to control themselves? There are still tantrums, stomping around, slapping his phone, dramatic exhibitions, etc. What should he focus on to rid himself of such negatives?

a little bit of zazen, a little bit of Dogen never hurt nobody, am I right or what?

Closed eyed, sinking inward meditations can feel serene and wonderful, but with zazen…I feel like a cleaner version of myself when I’m done that I don’t feel with anything else. In body, mind and spirit. Any experience the same? Or different?

Hello, I am relatively new to Zen Buddhism and Buddhism as a whole, and for the life of me, I am unable to gain a grasp on how to do zazen meditation. I have a very active mind, so I feel that observing the thoughts should come naturally to me, but I don't really know how to do that. Am I supposed to have an internal dialogue with my thoughts, or just "watch" them. Is there anything authentic I should read or watch preemptively before attempting? I am afraid I'm going to pick up a western interpretation of zazen meditation. I would appreciate anything, truly.

Also, unrelated, what are some more things I should do or research in order to get a better grasp of being a Zen Buddhist? There is a zen monastery near me that is unfortunately closed because of the virus; I really want to go there when that is up again. Again, I would appreciate anything. I really want to learn, and I find Buddhism wonderful. Thanks :)

Hello!

Until recently I was more concerned with Theravada Buddhism for about 2 years, including a daily samatha and vipassana meditation practice.

Recently I have been drawn more and more to Zen Buddhism and I have now turned my daily formal practice into a Zazen practice.

For the future, I might also have the opportunity to practice Zazen in a group, namely in a Zen Center in the city in which I live.
On the website of the Zen Center I also found zazen instructions that sound similar to what I was able to "research" about zazen - only the point "keep the question" and the explanations there remind me more like approaches of an analytical meditation, which I did not expect in Zazen.

First of all, here is a link from the center with the instructions:

https://zen-center-regensburg.com/de/meditation/

And here is the passage that surprises me:

Keep the question

“Why was I born? Why must I die? Why is there suffering in the world? What is my life? What am I?” Human beings have a question about their existence. But most do not look into the question, and instead cover it up with distractions and an endless stream of mindless sensory diversions, which then become attachment: suffering.

Through Zen practice, we engage the naturally arising question of our existence, through the natural movement of breath: “What/who sits here? What/who sees my breath… happening? What/who sees these thoughts, appearing and disappearing? Where does this thinking arise from?” “What is the witness?”

We do not “ask” this conceptually, or with our thinking-mind: it is the natural questioning/watching that we have about life and death. “What am I?”

When we really look into this question, all thinking is naturally cut off: we return to our mind before thinking arises. Thinking cannot go there. There is only don’t knowwwwww…

How is it now with regard to Zazen? Is it common that complementary non-discursive "own" questions are to some extent part of Zazen or can be to some extent part of Zazen?

I am a little surprised because I have never read it anywhere, but the teacher in the center can already look back on a lot of experience. I would highly appreciate it when a few people might clarify this topic for me:)

Best wishes
Zrebna

I just tried my first Zazen and the position of my eyes was somehow troubling.

There was a wide space in front of me and I was looking at the floor, but my sight kept getting blurry and dark etc.

What to do in this situation? Do you just dont care or is there a recommended method for positioning you eyes that will make the sight more stable?

Any closed eyed variation of meditation does not make me feel as good when I’m done. Even though they can feel amazing and serene in the act.

Hi!

I am fairly new to Soto-Zen and thus I am wondering what is the stance in Soto-Zen on having caffeine i.e. having a cup of coffee shortly before doing Zazen-Practice?

Other than this, I know that in Zazen-Practice the posture is of pretty high importance and should be usually not abondened if possible. But are there any strategies or antidotes that a practitioner might use during zazen when experiencing sleepiness and dullness to get more awake? Sure I would start with potentially correcting/straightening my posture, but what else one could do?

Is it ok to temporarily look straight at the wall with the head being straight, instead of gazing on the wall or on the floor with a sunken gaze and the head being slight down?

Also maybe splashing water on the face using a nearby vessel (no need to stand up) might be a help?

How do you deal with sleepiness and dullness during your Zazen-Practice?

Any input is appreciated:)

Best wishes

Zrebna :)

I see that the topic is still itching you ewksters, and can't just ignore it and move on. It's frankly baffling how ewksterism still fails to get it.

Linji doesn't bash sitting meditation, he bashes trying to stop the thoughts while doing sitting meditation. The text is quite clear. And Shen-Hui's reasoning isn't that meditation is pointless, but that intentionality of any kind, while meditating, creates karma. It's wrong because it's a form of meditation of "you doing something." It's wrong because it's merely a continuation of delusion, by being the practice of having a "self."

Having a goal, and having a self, and creating karma, and continuing delusion are exactly equivalent.

This is exactly why zazen is put outside the category of meditation, and why it is said to be goal-less, as it is something different than all types of meditation. It's not emptying the mind, it's not concentrating on some object, it's not directing or controlling the mind in any way. It's not the practice of "you doing something." It eschews all that.

It's not zazen that the old masters are denying, but meditation-with-intentionality, meditation-with-a-goal, because that is self-practice.

And this is exactly why Dogen calls zazen the practice of enlightenment, as it's the practice of "no-self." It is exactly embodying "Mu." Get it?

But sure, you ewksters keep on, flinging self-assuring shit at things you don't understand. Keep pondering how zazen has a goal without having a goal. I'll go grab some popcorn. Looks like I'll need a jumbo-sized bag.

In Blofeld's translation of Huang-po, he sometimes provides what I guess are alternative translations in the footnotes. Probably the most common one is "Buddha," a word which at certain places in the text is given a footnote simply saying "Absolute."

Toward the end of the text, the following passage appears:

>When you practise mind-control, sit in the proper position, stay perfectly tranquil, and do not permit the least movement of your minds to disturb you. This alone is what is called liberation.

This, I think, is the only place in the text that says anything resembling traditional meditation instructions. Blofeld's footnotes provide alternative translations for the bolded word above: "Zazen or dhyana." I have a few questions about this.

1. How do I go about finding out what the original Chinese character was, here?
2. How do I go about finding out if the above passage is authentic (i.e., not added later by someone)?
3. How does translation between Chinese and Sanskrit ("dhyana") work? For Sanskrit to Chinese, is it a brand new character invented for the purpose? Does it draw on a pre-existing Chinese term? For example, does Huang-po or his questioners say "Absolute" and that is interpreted as "Buddha"?
4. Why Sanskrit instead of Pali ("jhana")?
5. I don't know much about Dogen, but I thought "zazen" was a Dogen term, denoting a specific type of seated meditation. Does it have a wider, more general use?

>When anger arises in your mind, you change the marvelous wisdom of your Buddha-mind into the way of the hungry ghosts or fighting spirits. Anger and happiness both exist only because of your partiality to yourself. This partiality makes you lose the Buddha-mind's marvelous wisdom and sends you into the endless illusion of the wheel of existence. If it disappears, however, your mind becomes the mind of the Unborn, and you do not transmigrate.

>That's why it's so important for you to understand about your Buddha-mind. Once you have, even without performing a lot of religious disciplines, you're Unborn that very day. If the Buddha-mind is clearly realized, that's enough. You need not do nothing else - no practice, no precepts, no zazen or koan study. Nothing like that. You'll be free from care, everything will be taken care of, just by being as you are.

~ Bankei

Understanding Zen is often set up as this mountainous task, but is it really? Find me a man that is willing to give up his self-partiality, who is willing to be beyond both anger and happiness, and it'll be no task at all.

The great way is beyond preferences, it's no more than that.

Are you ready to give up your preferences? Why not?

r/zen is getting content brigaded and vote brigaded More than usual right now, and it prompted me to think about it this question:

Can you imagine if I said these things about Zazen and Dogen and there wasn't overwhelming evidence of:

• Dogen being a fraud,
• Dogen inventing Zazen,
• "Enlightened" Zazen teachers in the last century being sex predators?

Can you imagine what it would be like if I call Dogen a fraud and didn't endlessly quote Buddhism scholars, Zen Masters, journalists, scientists?

.

Flip it around now, and ask whether these people would be brigading if their religious leadership had the integrity to stand up and acknowledge the historical facts, the Zen historical records, and the church's inability to claim dharma transmissions?

.

I've said it before, lots of people have said it before, but the fish rots from the head.

The brigading we see now is just the natural consequence of a religious cult having no integrity, and no sincere concern for the spiritual well-being of people who practice Zazen.

Title says it all. Sitting on a zafu and zabuton, simply cross legged with my feet in front of me. After about 20 minutes, it becomes extremely uncomfortable and distracting. Everything I read/see online says to form three points of contact with the cushion, both knees and tailbone. However, I can't seem to make that work, and the pressure ends up getting put on my feet and ankles rather than my knees. Any tips on how to overcome this? I know that there are alternative postures, utilizing benches and chairs, but I'd like to try to make sitting on the cushion work because I feel like I'm simply not doing it correctly.

> Before he was enlightened, Yunmen went to call on Muzhou. > > When Muzhou heard Yunmen coming he closed the door to his room. Yunmen knocked on the door. > > Muzhou said, “Who is it?” > > Yunmen said, “It’s me.” > > Muzhou said, “What do you want?” > > Yunmen said, “I’m not clear about my life. I’d like the master to give me some instruction.” > > Muzhou then opened the door and, taking a look at Yunmen, closed it again. > > Yunmen knocked on the door in this manner three days in a row. On the third day when Muzhou opened the door, Yunmen stuck his foot in the doorway. > > Muzhou grabbed Yunmen and yelled, “Speak! Speak!” > > When Yunmen began to speak, Muzhou gave him a shove and said, “Too late!” > > Muzhou then slammed the door, catching and breaking Yunmen’s foot. At that moment, Yunmen experienced enlightenment.

.

Welcome! ewk comment: Cults welcome people in and teach them cult practice. We had some Zazen people here over the weekend with their usual anti-historical claims, fury at Zazen being treated as a religious meditation, and general lack of manners.

In contrast to Zazen telling people how to sit and what to think, what was Muzhou doing?

Moreover, is this.... whatever-Muzhou-was-doing a theme in Zen? Are there other examples of Zen Masters "teaching" in this same way?

Finally, can we blame Muzhou for Yunmen's insight?

When people who claim to practice Zazen come in here and make fools of themselves with crap scholarship and hate speech and antihistorical illiterate claims, we say "those people don't practice Zazen, they don't belong to a church". But is that true?

What if they do practice a little? What if they do go to retreats now and then?

> FOYAN: Where is the problem? The problem lies in the fact that you are always coming from the midst of conceptual comparisons, and do not personally attain experience. All of you go sit on benches, close your eyes, and demolish your thinking all the way from the Milky Way above to Hades below before you can make a statement or two. But when you get to a quiet place, you still don't get the ultimate point. Before your eyes is nothing but things that obstruct people. Lightly questioned, you cannot reach the aim.

It isn't just the r/zen trolls who can't survive "light questioning". The books they read can't either. Dogenism throughout the West can't survive light questioning.

It isn't just trolls who run away from this forum, it's religious people too. It wasn't just the Zazen sex predators who lied, all the followers who didn't quit the cult were liars too. And they all practiced Zazen for hours.

It isn't just the losers who are dishonest about Dogen, it's everybody that doesn't object to the losers. It isn't only those who don't object, it's those who join a group of won't-objectors. And they all practice Zazen all the time. Why isn't it helping them be honest?

> FOYAN: Also, Yantou said, "These who cultivate purification must let it come forth from their own hearts in each individual situation, covering the entire universe. "How can this be quiet sitting and meditating?

Where are the people who cultivate purification, the purification that must come forth from their own hearts? Is it "pure" to lie about history, or high school book reports? Is it "pure" to hide behind youtube videos and church gates? To hide from public controversy and debate?

What if the reason that purification doesn't shine forth from these people's hearts is that they practice Zazen?

> FOYAN: My teacher said, "Suppose a bit of filth is stuck on the tip of the nose of a sleeping man, totally unknown to him. When he wakes up, he notices a foul smell; sniffing his shirt, he thinks his shirt stinks, and so he takes it off. But then whatever he picks up stinks; he doesn't realize the odor is on hi

Here are a few steps to making this meditation work for you, it was briefly mentioned at the beginning of the first book. Take a few deep breaths. Sense the infinite of time and the small void move into your lungs, sense the infinite void infinitely entering our entire body from everywhere. Sense as your energy is entering into the infinite void, the space of pure consciousness and power. Let yourself be cast into this darkness where we all come from and all goes back into.

Feel your mind opening up, drawing you into a space of silence and expansion. Opening up the place of pure potential. You may notice your thoughts coming into your mind during some sessions, this is normally, just continue on. Sense the infinite void in every atom of your physical body in the present. Now immerse yourself entirely in the void, sensing that everything is one. Sense that time and space no longer have any meaning in the infinite void. You are entering the infinite void of your mind. A place of pure potential and creation. This space has no limits. This space is connected to everything, its the best source of dark force energy, its a place of complete and utter darkness. Dwell in the void for as long as you feel necessary. Recognize this void as creation & return to the Void in the present.

This process gives us a good start on every day filled with clarity and purpose, it makes our minds more disciplined so that we are able to devote ourselves to tasks and complete them, following through is more than grit or gumption or having "guts", it allows us to pursue our objectives better. Its the process of building a mental temple, a mental fortress that is impenetrable and indestructible or impervious to the elements of the natural clash and impediments of nature. Its about keeping your eyes closed and feeling yourself turn light and become one with the void, which awakens you at the deepest level of your being.

This might be a silly question but I’m very new to all of this. At first I heard that Zen Buddhism was just the practice of Zazen and that there was little to do with actual Buddhism. But after going through this sub there seems to be a lot more to everything than just the practice of Zazen. Any response is appreciated

In Bendōwa (tr. Okamura, Leighton), Dōgen Zenji states:

“Great Teacher Shakyamuni correctly transmitted the wondrous method for attaining the Way, and the tathagatas of the three times also all attain the Way through zazen. For this reason, [zazen] has been conveyed from one person to another as the true gate. Not only that, but the ancestors of India and China attained the Way through zazen. Therefore I am now showing the true gate to human and celestial beings.”

I’m generally aware that other Buddhist traditions contain some practice of non-dual meditation akin to zazen, such as dzogchen. However I’m not sure Dōgen would have known of this unless he had contact with Tibet. What evidence is there that Buddha Shakyamuni realized his awakening through zazen-like practice? Is this in the Pāli Canon? What testimonials do we have of other persons conveying non-dual contemplative practices as an expression of awakening — other than Bodhidarma and The Flower Sutra of which Dōgen was likely very familiar.

Do we see these practices in Theravada? In other Tibetan traditions? I’m aware that Hinduist Traditions don’t subscribe to shunyata, but do we see zazen-like practices there?

Thank you for encouraging my curiosity!

A common frustration in my meditative experience is that because practice is intrinsically passive (internal), I sometimes find it is hard to imbue external situations with the same level of mindfulness.

Eckhart Tolle once referred mindfulness as being also like a sharp sword, piercing into any situation with awe-inspiring power. I always found this concept very alluring but is not dealt with at all in most of the zen literature I have read.

Does anyone know of any zen texts/sutras that deal with carrying zazen into external experience? (And yes, I know of non-dualism, I’m asking in a practical sense).

Hello!

Until recently I was more concerned with Theravada Buddhism for about 2 years, including a daily samatha and vipassana meditation practice.

Recently I have been drawn more and more to Zen Buddhism and I have now turned my daily formal practice into a Zazen practice.

For the future, I might also have the opportunity to practice Zazen in a group, namely in a Zen Center in the city in which I live.
On the website of the Zen Center I also found zazen instructions that sound similar to what I was able to "research" about zazen - only the point "keep the question" and the explanations there remind me more like approaches of an analytical meditation, which I did not expect in Zazen.

First of all, here is a link from the center with the instructions:

https://zen-center-regensburg.com/de/meditation/

And here is the passage that surprises me:

Keep the question

“Why was I born? Why must I die? Why is there suffering in the world? What is my life? What am I?” Human beings have a question about their existence. But most do not look into the question, and instead cover it up with distractions and an endless stream of mindless sensory diversions, which then become attachment: suffering.

Through Zen practice, we engage the naturally arising question of our existence, through the natural movement of breath: “What/who sits here? What/who sees my breath… happening? What/who sees these thoughts, appearing and disappearing? Where does this thinking arise from?” “What is the witness?”

We do not “ask” this conceptually, or with our thinking-mind: it is the natural questioning/watching that we have about life and death. “What am I?”

When we really look into this question, all thinking is naturally cut off: we return to our mind before thinking arises. Thinking cannot go there. There is only don’t knowwwwww…

How is it now with regard to Zazen? Is it common that complementary non-discursive "own" questions are to some extent part of Zazen or can be to some extent part of Zazen?

I am a little surprised because I have never read it anywhere, but the teacher in the center can already look back on a lot of experience. I would highly appreciate it when a few people might clarify this topic for me:)

Best wishes
Zrebna