Unravel the nuanced differences between Zazen and conventional meditation. Delve into the unique philosophy and practice of Zazen, a cornerstone of Zen Buddhism, and discover how it diverges from the meditation techniques commonly known and practiced in the Western world.
What is Zazen?
In the West, zazen is usually translated as “Zen meditation” or “sitting meditation.”
- Dogen Zenji, the founder of the Soto Zen tradition, meant it to be a form of holistic body posture, not a state of mind.
- Gotsu-za: “Sitting immovable like a bold mountain”
- Full-lotus position: “Sitting in kekka-fuza plus meditation”
- The objective is just to sit in the full-lusus position correctly, and there is nothing else to add to it.
When we use our sophisticated human capacities in our everyday lives we always use them for our deluded, self-centered purposes, our “bonpu” interests
All our actions are based on our desires, our likes and dislikes.
- If we do nothing about this habit, we will continue to use all our wonderful human powers ignorantly and selfishly, and bury ourselves deeper and deeper in delusion.- If on the other hand, we correcdy practice zazen, our human abilities will never be used for bonpu interests, and this tendency will be halted.
Meditation practices which emphasize something psychological-thoughts, perceptions, feelings, visualizations, intentions, etc.-all direct our attention to cortical-cerebral functions, which I will loosely refer to as “Head.”
While most meditation tends to focus on the Head, zazen focuses more on the living holistic body-mind framework, allowing the Head to exist without giving it any pre-eminence.
- All the issues associated with Head are something merely resulting from a lack of harmony among the internal organs, which are the real bases of our life.
In zazen, we move from the head to the heart and into our Buddha-nature
Zazen is to tune into the universe, connecting us to the whole universe
- Shigeo Michi, a well-known anatomist of the last century, puts it this way: “Zazen posture is the posture in which a human being does nothing for the sake of the human being, and thus becomes a Buddha”
- In other words, when we do not think about either good or evil, we give up our ability to conceptualize.
- While we sit, all of our human abilities, acquired through eons of evolution, are temporarily renounced or suspended, and we are free to set aside our highly developed intellectual faculties
