Sitting 101: What to "do" to do Zen (jhana)

Wisdom Quarterly (edit) Zendayton

1. What do I “do” to do sitting Zen meditation (zazen)? Hamilton explains:

When we sit, we follow our breath. Beginning meditators are often asked to count their breath -- on the exhale -- up to ten then back to one. Lose track? Simply go back to one.

The breath is what it is, whatever it is. It eventually becomes slow and regular, never forced or artificially controlled. It is something to dispassionately and keenly observe. Breathe naturally and count. Distractions are inevitable. The sounds are nothing compared to the multimedia show within -- thoughts, memories, emotions, lights, dreams, sexual or violent fantasies, fears, cravings...



The way to handle them is to acknowledge them without identifying with them or becoming attached or straining to reject them. Just watch. Just let them be.

Accept them and watch them dissipate. In this way one does not get involved with them. Let it be, let it go, focus again on the breath.

Later, the same bare attention (free of judgment an attachment) used for distracting sounds and thoughts will work with physical discomforts as well.

2. The second explanation is what the historical Buddha (Siddhārtha Gautama, Śhākyamuni, "the Sage of the Shakya Clan") is recorded as having said in Theravada scriptures from 2,600-year-old meditation instructions (Mindfulness of Breathing Sutra).

• “A practitioner, having gone into seclusion in the wilderness, under the shade of a tree or the still of an empty building, sits down folding legs crosswise, holding body erect, and setting up mindfulness in the fore. Mindful one breathes in, mindful one breathes out."

Peter Coyote reads Suzuki Roshi audio book

3. Soto Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki Roshi had this to say:

When we practice zazen, our mind always follows our breathing. When we inhale, the air comes into the inner world. When we exhale, the air goes to the outer world.

The inner world is limitless, and the outer world is also limitless. We say “inner world” or “outer world,” but actually there is just one whole world.

In this limitless world, our throat is like a swinging door. The air comes in and goes out like someone passing through a swinging door. If you think, “I breathe,” the “I” is extra. There is no you to say “I.”

Buddhist monks in zazen, Elheiji Zen Monastery, Japan (Art.com/Ursula Gahwiler)

What we call “I” is just a swinging door which moves when we inhale and when we exhale. It just moves; that is all.

When your mind is pure and calm enough to follow this movement, there is nothing: no “I,” no world, no mind nor body; just a swinging door. –Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind

If simply sitting is too hard, play in a sandbox.

• WTF? How to do Zen (smallcricket.com)
• PDF: Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind (esotericonline.net)
• VDO: Suzuki Roshi Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind interview
  

"Rapture" in Buddhism

Wisdom Quarterly

The "Christ in a the clouds UFO-invasion" theory promulgated by fundamentalist Christians may be a too literal interpretation of an internal experience.

There is a lifting up, an effervescence, a pleasurable floating sensation -- called piti in Buddhism -- as if one were held in soft, nurturing hands. Five things oppose it, and five things enable it. It all occurs on a seat, a cushion, or the root of a tree, fully clothed.

Rapture (Pali, pīti, pronounced "pee-tee," Sanskrit prīti) is variously translated as joy, bliss, supersensual happiness, enthusiasm, or keen or joyful interest in an object of Buddhist meditation. It is certainly not limited to Buddhist experience; it is, rather, a universally accessible and naturally occurring process of the cultivated mind.

It is a serene quality of absorption (intense collectedness or concentration into a single object, Pali, jhana, Sanskrit, dhyana). While rapture is uplifting, it eventually wears thin as the mind longs for greater peace. This happiness is happiness-in-the-body, but it is not a physical sensation. Rapture is precariously close to Earth and one senses it would not take much to draw one back to erratic and distressing worldly affairs.

Eventually, as the absorptions deepen (there are eight progressively subtle and pleasurable states, four material and four immaterial), gross happiness becomes equanimous. Excited bliss becomes calm impartiality. Buoyancy goes from a healthy, happy body to a tranquil, contented mind (sukha or "gladness").

What opposes entrance into this natural state? The Five Hindrances:

1. Sensual desire: craving for sense pleasures.
2. Ill-will, anger, or wrath: malice directed at others.
3. Sloth-torpor: boredom or lassitude of body and mind.
4. Restlessness-worry: worry, regret, scattered energy.
5. Doubt: lack of confidence, conviction, faith, or trust.

What enables entrance? The Five Factors of Absorption:

1. Moving the mind onto the object (applied attention)
2. Retaining the mind on the object (sustained attention)
3. Rapture (joyful interest in the object)
4. Happiness (the opposite of suffering or distress)
5. Equanimity (impartiality, serenity, tranquility)

All of these states are accompanied, to a lesser or greater degree, by one-pointedness of mind, something we often lack in our attention-deficit-disordered daily lives. When does serenity ever occur? Now. Only now.