Zazen
Is a practice of presence. Word for word it means “sitting concentration”. In zazen we present ourselves to what is. In doing so we do not seek some special states of mind. We just are with what is. Zazen is not a relaxation exercise, even though it may make us more relaxed. Zazen does not necessarily make us calmer and more balanced. We just become more sensitive to our own humanity.
ORDINARY MIND TEACHERS ON PRACTICE:
Intelligent Practice
Intelligent Practice always deals with just one thing: the fear at the base of human existence, the fear that I am not. And of course I am not, but the last thing I want to know is that. I am impermanence itself in a rapidly changing human form that appears solid. I fear to see what I am: an ever-changing energy field. I don’t want to be that. So good practice is about fear. Fear takes the form of constantly thinking, speculating, analyzing, fantasizing. With all that activity we create a cloud to keep ourselves safe in make-believe practice. True practice is not safe; it’s anything but safe. But we don’t like that, so we obsess with our feverish efforts to achieve our version of the personal dream. Such obsessive practice is itself just another cloud between ourselves and reality. The only thing that matters is seeing with an impersonal spotlight: seeing things as they really are. When the personal barrier drops away, why do we have to call it anything? We just live our lives. And when we die, we just die. No problem anywhere.
- Charlotte Beck
Everyday Zen: Love & Work
Joko Beck has written the following suggestions to help her students with their practice:
*Don't begin a sitting period without considering why you meditate. Know your intention. Know that there is "nowhere to go, nothing to achieve." Be aware of ambitious thoughts.
*Check your posture. No matter how you sit, the body should be erect (but not stiff), balanced, and at ease. The sitting place should be neat and pleasant. (But we can sit anywhere and in any position even lying down if ill or exhausted.)
*Sit every day. Try not to miss more than one day in a week. If resistance arises (it is a normal art of practice), be aware that it consists of thinking; like all thought, it need not dominate you. Just observe it. Feel it in the body. And do not bully yourself, ever.
*Once a week, sit 10-15 minutes longer than you want to sit.
*Don't become obsessed by sitting. In no case should one's work or family responsibilities be neglected in order to sit.
When upset, don't avoid sitting. Hard as it may be, it is crucial to sit when difficulties arise. Know that sitting is simply maintaining awareness of body and mind.
*Be aware of any desire to turn sitting into an escape from life by entering peaceful, trance-like states; such states can be seductive but they are of no use.
*Be aware that "achieving something" in sitting (such as special clarity, insight, calmness of mind) is not the point. These may occur but the point is your awareness of whatever is happening, including confusion, discouragement or anxiety.
*Keep your practice to yourself. Don't attempt to teach others; do not proselytize. Leave your friends and family alone. There is an old saying, "Let them ask three times". What you can give others is how you live.
Don't spend your sitting time in planning. Nothing is wrong with planning per se, but set up another time for it. If you hear planning thoughts when you sit, label them. In daily life, be acutely aware of the desire to gossip or complain, to judge others or yourself, to feel superior or inferior.
All practice can be summed up as:
(1) observation of the mental process, and
(2) the experiencing of present bodily sensations.
No more and no less.
And finally, remember that real practice is not about the techniques or koans or anything else as ends in themselves; but about the transformation of your life and ours. There are no quick fixes. Our practice is about our life, and we practice forever."
“Zen is Useless”
Sometimes… I’ll tell someone, don’t try so hard, or do less. And that’s because I see they don’t know how to leave themselves alone and just sit- they’re trying too hard to do it right or to get someplace. And so all their effort is going in the wrong direction. Instead of paying attention to the moment as it is, they’re trying to shape or control the moment, to get somewhere. In other words, they’re trying to use their practice as a technique in order to get into some special mental state or another. But really, there’s no place to get to, and nothing to accomplish. Please, let’s all just continue this practice of wasting our time together.
- Barry Magid
Ordinary Mind Zendo of New York City
What Practice Is
Practice is about experiencing the truth of who we really are.
Practice is about being with our life as it is, not as we would like it to be.
Practice is about the clash between what we want and what is.
Practice is about the transformation of our unnecessary suffering.
Practice is about attending to, experiencing, wherever we are stuck, wherever we’re holding, whatever blocks us from our true nature.
Practice is about turning away from constantly seeking comfort and from trying to avoid pain.
Practice ultimately deals with just one thing: the fear at the base of human existence—the fear that I am not.
Practice is about willingly residing in whatever life presents to us.
Practice is about seeing through our belief systems; so even if they remain, they no longer run us.
Practice is about turning from a self-centered view to a life-centered view.
Practice is about learning to be no one; not giving solidity to any belief system—just being.
Practice is about learning to be happy; but we will never be happy until we truly experience our unhappiness.
Practice is about slowly increasing our awareness of who we are and how we relate to life.
Practice is about moving from a life of drama to a life of no drama.
Practice is always about returning to the true self.
Practice is about finally understanding the paradox that although everything is a mess, all is well.
Practice is about learning to say “Yes” to everything, even when we hate it.
Practice always comes back to just the willingness to be.
- Ezra Bayda
Zen Center of San Diego
About our Practice
When we sit down on a cushion in silence with ourselves we sit in the ebb and flow of self wholeheartedly with whatever the kaleidoscope of reality presents: the sound of a bird, the squad car’s siren; feelings of shame and pride; chaotic mind, peaceful mind.
Though some of these things may be harder for us to acknowledge and stay with than others, actually each is just what it is arising and falling away moment to moment, breath by breath. We do not attempt to get rid of any of these experiences or to create special states of mind. Just to be with what is, is our practice.
Through the process of letting it all in, of accepting the things we judge as good or bad, the simple and profound practice of zazen becomes the heart of our practice, the heart of how we open in compassion to our experience and to others.
- Pat George
Zen Center of Philidelphia
Practice Is…
Life living life
Juicy, messy
Complete.
- Karen Terzano
Tavallinen Mieli Zendo of Tampere Finland
ORDINARY MIND TEACHERS ON PRACTICE:
Intelligent Practice
Intelligent Practice always deals with just one thing: the fear at the base of human existence, the fear that I am not. And of course I am not, but the last thing I want to know is that. I am impermanence itself in a rapidly changing human form that appears solid. I fear to see what I am: an ever-changing energy field. I don’t want to be that. So good practice is about fear. Fear takes the form of constantly thinking, speculating, analyzing, fantasizing. With all that activity we create a cloud to keep ourselves safe in make-believe practice. True practice is not safe; it’s anything but safe. But we don’t like that, so we obsess with our feverish efforts to achieve our version of the personal dream. Such obsessive practice is itself just another cloud between ourselves and reality. The only thing that matters is seeing with an impersonal spotlight: seeing things as they really are. When the personal barrier drops away, why do we have to call it anything? We just live our lives. And when we die, we just die. No problem anywhere.
- Charlotte Beck
Everyday Zen: Love & Work
Joko Beck has written the following suggestions to help her students with their practice:
*Don't begin a sitting period without considering why you meditate. Know your intention. Know that there is "nowhere to go, nothing to achieve." Be aware of ambitious thoughts.
*Check your posture. No matter how you sit, the body should be erect (but not stiff), balanced, and at ease. The sitting place should be neat and pleasant. (But we can sit anywhere and in any position even lying down if ill or exhausted.)
*Sit every day. Try not to miss more than one day in a week. If resistance arises (it is a normal art of practice), be aware that it consists of thinking; like all thought, it need not dominate you. Just observe it. Feel it in the body. And do not bully yourself, ever.
*Once a week, sit 10-15 minutes longer than you want to sit.
*Don't become obsessed by sitting. In no case should one's work or family responsibilities be neglected in order to sit.
When upset, don't avoid sitting. Hard as it may be, it is crucial to sit when difficulties arise. Know that sitting is simply maintaining awareness of body and mind.
*Be aware of any desire to turn sitting into an escape from life by entering peaceful, trance-like states; such states can be seductive but they are of no use.
*Be aware that "achieving something" in sitting (such as special clarity, insight, calmness of mind) is not the point. These may occur but the point is your awareness of whatever is happening, including confusion, discouragement or anxiety.
*Keep your practice to yourself. Don't attempt to teach others; do not proselytize. Leave your friends and family alone. There is an old saying, "Let them ask three times". What you can give others is how you live.
Don't spend your sitting time in planning. Nothing is wrong with planning per se, but set up another time for it. If you hear planning thoughts when you sit, label them. In daily life, be acutely aware of the desire to gossip or complain, to judge others or yourself, to feel superior or inferior.
All practice can be summed up as:
(1) observation of the mental process, and
(2) the experiencing of present bodily sensations.
No more and no less.
And finally, remember that real practice is not about the techniques or koans or anything else as ends in themselves; but about the transformation of your life and ours. There are no quick fixes. Our practice is about our life, and we practice forever."
“Zen is Useless”
Sometimes… I’ll tell someone, don’t try so hard, or do less. And that’s because I see they don’t know how to leave themselves alone and just sit- they’re trying too hard to do it right or to get someplace. And so all their effort is going in the wrong direction. Instead of paying attention to the moment as it is, they’re trying to shape or control the moment, to get somewhere. In other words, they’re trying to use their practice as a technique in order to get into some special mental state or another. But really, there’s no place to get to, and nothing to accomplish. Please, let’s all just continue this practice of wasting our time together.
- Barry Magid
Ordinary Mind Zendo of New York City
What Practice Is
Practice is about experiencing the truth of who we really are.
Practice is about being with our life as it is, not as we would like it to be.
Practice is about the clash between what we want and what is.
Practice is about the transformation of our unnecessary suffering.
Practice is about attending to, experiencing, wherever we are stuck, wherever we’re holding, whatever blocks us from our true nature.
Practice is about turning away from constantly seeking comfort and from trying to avoid pain.
Practice ultimately deals with just one thing: the fear at the base of human existence—the fear that I am not.
Practice is about willingly residing in whatever life presents to us.
Practice is about seeing through our belief systems; so even if they remain, they no longer run us.
Practice is about turning from a self-centered view to a life-centered view.
Practice is about learning to be no one; not giving solidity to any belief system—just being.
Practice is about learning to be happy; but we will never be happy until we truly experience our unhappiness.
Practice is about slowly increasing our awareness of who we are and how we relate to life.
Practice is about moving from a life of drama to a life of no drama.
Practice is always about returning to the true self.
Practice is about finally understanding the paradox that although everything is a mess, all is well.
Practice is about learning to say “Yes” to everything, even when we hate it.
Practice always comes back to just the willingness to be.
- Ezra Bayda
Zen Center of San Diego
About our Practice
When we sit down on a cushion in silence with ourselves we sit in the ebb and flow of self wholeheartedly with whatever the kaleidoscope of reality presents: the sound of a bird, the squad car’s siren; feelings of shame and pride; chaotic mind, peaceful mind.
Though some of these things may be harder for us to acknowledge and stay with than others, actually each is just what it is arising and falling away moment to moment, breath by breath. We do not attempt to get rid of any of these experiences or to create special states of mind. Just to be with what is, is our practice.
Through the process of letting it all in, of accepting the things we judge as good or bad, the simple and profound practice of zazen becomes the heart of our practice, the heart of how we open in compassion to our experience and to others.
- Pat George
Zen Center of Philidelphia
Practice Is…
Life living life
Juicy, messy
Complete.
- Karen Terzano
Tavallinen Mieli Zendo of Tampere Finland