Episode 42 - Zazen & just being here

In this episode I share some thoughts about what I have learnt from zazen practice and how it has come to be so central to my life. In my experience, zazen (Zen meditation) is a very creative, expansive and revitalising activity. The mind seems to open naturally to fresh understandings and shifts of perspective - as if windows and doors open, allowing the cool breeze of thoughts, feelings and sensations to flow unhindered.

Transcript

Zazen is a form of meditation that is open-ended, exploratory and fluid. While I probably began with an innocent and naïve ambition to strive for enlightenment, though I had no idea what that might be, I soon realised that there is no goal or destination beyond the daily discovery of fresh pastures as well as treading anew well-worn trails. While I once hoped for solutions, I have come to realise that seeing a problem clearly, inhabiting it, accepting it and seeing it in a balanced and caring way, is halfway to solving it. Realising that I do not have to identify with the problem, or the solution, leaves me free to experience it in less constricting or habitual ways. Solutions become openings and possibilities, rather than closings and endings.

So, what is zazen? It is a Japanese word combining, za ‘to sit,’ and zen meaning ‘meditation,’ in other words, ‘sitting meditation.’ But there are many forms of sitting meditation, so what does this meditation practice involve? I learnt my zazen practice from an essay titled, Fukanzazengi, by the Japanese Soto Zen teacher and reformer, Eihei Dogen, who lived from 1200 to 1253. In this essay, of which there are many different translations, Dogen gives a straightforward outline of how to do zazen – or more specifically a form of Zen meditation known as, shikantaza - usually translated as, ‘just sitting.’ Shikan, is a Japanese word meaning, ‘nothing but,’ ta means ‘just,’ and za means ‘sitting.’ Shikan also means ‘suchness’ or ‘as-it-is.’ This form of zazen is what I have done since 1965 and over the years I have participated in retreats, sat with many different Buddhist groups and studied writings by many Zen teachers and other contemplatives. 

It sounds easy, just to sit and to be here, but when we try to do it, we find it is anything but easy and straightforward. Quite quickly we realise how much of our time is spent being somewhere else in our minds – thinking about the past or the future, commenting on what is happening, making judgments about ourselves and others. Minutes, even hours, can go by, without us being aware of what we are doing at this moment. We are somehow on autopilot, moving from thought to thought, feeling to feeling, while not really being aware of what is going on. So, to stop and to sit and really be aware of what is happening can be quite a shock and requires concentration and patience. But, with practice, we can begin to ‘just sit and be aware’ - simply being here, being present – paying equal attention to the whole field of consciousness. No need to count breaths or focus on any particular object. Dogen describes it in this way: ‘resting in a state of brightly alert attention that is free of thoughts [meaning non-attached to thoughts], directed to no object, and attached to no particular content.’ (Scott 2021)

Another Zen teacher, Sekkei Harada, (1998: 45) refers to shikantaza as, ‘sitting in a single-minded way’ – that is, of one mind, unified, whole. Harada adds: shikantaza means ‘to sit in a dignified manner, without being moved by what is seen, heard, or thought.’ The mind isn’t jostled or disturbed by our experiences. When just sitting it is important not to dwell on thoughts, feelings or sensations. No need to add to, prolong or cling to them – instead practice ‘non-dwelling mind.’ In this way thoughts, feelings and perceptions do not stick to us. 

So, how do I practice zazen? Usually, I sit on a meditation bench with a cushion beneath to soften the pressure on my knees and ankles. My back is straight, eyes are open and my gaze is resting gently on the floor roughly 2-3 feet in front of me. When I have settled, and am fully present to my body, and my breathing is calm and relaxed, then I can just be aware, alert and clear-headed. In the Fukanzazengi, Dogen spends a lot of time writing about posture and breathing but very little time telling us what we should be doing mentally. All we have is the following enigmatic statement – a statement that many readers, and most translator’s struggle with – ‘neither think, nor not think.’ Some translate this as ‘non-thinking.’ It seems to me that Dogen is advising us to let any thoughts that arise to come and go as they will. Do not hang on to them or dwell on them. Treat emotions, itches and aches in a similar fashion. Just sit – neither shutting out thoughts nor encouraging them. We are not trying to eliminate, or repress, thoughts and feelings – nor are we encouraging them. If a thought arises, step back, take note of it, acknowledge it. It is just a thought. Do not interfere with it, or cling to it. No need to react or add comments or judgments – let it be, let it go. Do likewise with feelings and sensations and any other bodily or mental activity. 

Dogen advises us to take, what he calls, ‘the backward step’ – in other words to take a small step back from our experience in order to be aware of a thought as it happens and to open up a tiny space between us and the thought. This space, small though it is, is enough to free us from the stickiness and power of the thought, or sensation, or feeling, enabling us to be calm and clear-sighted even when our minds are agitated or upset. This peaceful freedom also enables us to have a clearer grasp of what is going on around us and to be in a position to make wiser decisions and to act with understanding and compassion.

Thoughts, feelings and perceptions become like clouds moving across the sky – brief, ever-changing, without fixed substance or identity, always merging and becoming something new. In zazen we experience the ungraspable, indefinable, empty nature of just being here, being present. No picking or choosing – no naming or categorising. No extras. No clutter. Simply being here. Stepping back and letting go is a vital part of effective zazen. It is as if we are unburdening ourselves of all that is unnecessary to simply being present – this is the radical simplicity of shikantaza.

To practice shikantaza is to be aware of the activity of the mind, without getting caught up in the activity and being carried along by it – not being pulled this way and that by the seductive power of thinking, sensing, feeling. There is a big difference between identifying a thought or feeling and identifying with a thought or feeling – the former is liberating, the latter is confining.

To meditate is to learn and practice a skill or craft – like learning how to throw a pot on a potter’s wheel, or to ride a bike, or to swim or climb. It is an art, practiced for its own sake, rather than a task to be accomplished and put to one side. There is always the challenge and enjoyment of another pot to make, another ride to take, another stretch of water to swim in, another rockface to negotiate. Of course, sometimes we cycle just to get somewhere, but if we love cycling we enjoy the ride. Sometimes we have to fix a punctured tyre, but then we get back in the saddle and carry on our way. Sometimes we clean the bike and oil it. These are all aspects of the art of cycling, to be learnt and honed as we practice the art. So it is with zazen.

In the early years of doing zazen, despite what I had read about meditation being something that could be done anywhere, any time, I thought of it as a place of refuge, a quiet oasis in the turbulence of daily life. In one sense it still is that – an experience of homecoming and stability. But it has become much more. I find I can apply the mental and physical approach to zazen to many other activities and situations. When I am walking somewhere I try to focus on the walking – being mindful of my body and my surroundings. If I need to think about something, or think through a problem, I focus on that. I try to bring my whole awareness to the task in hand, as far as possible doing it for its own sake. When I am waiting, or queuing, I treat it as a period of zazen – being present to my breath, to bodily sensations and to the endless motion of the mind. I try to be at peace with whatever I am doing – maintaining focus and clarity of mind. In this way zazen practice is extended far beyond the formal sitting meditation and becomes a vital aspect of my everyday life. 

It is important to keep in mind that zazen, ‘sitting meditation,’ is complemented by what the Japanese Rinzai Zen teacher, Shinzan Miyamae, calls ‘do-zen’ meaning ‘meditation in activity’ – (what I think of as ‘doing-zen’) – this he contrasts with ‘zazen - which is ‘practice in stillness.’  (Skinner 2017: 131) Though the term, ‘do-zen,’ isn’t often mentioned in Zen teachings, it seems to me that it is a very useful reminder that the way of Zen is to be mindful in whatever we are doing.

Instead of just zazen, ‘sitting meditation,’ we can practise ‘washing dishes zen,’ ‘digging the garden zen,’ ‘sweeping the yard zen,’ ‘cooking a meal zen,’ and so on. This means all aspects of daily life can be considered as an opportunity for meditation, an opportunity to be mindful, alert, wholly present. I think of this as ‘daily life zen’ and it has helped sustain me for all of my adult life.

Even before I started Zen meditation, over sixty years ago, I used to find it interesting to just sit quietly and to observe the chattering mind, to be attentive to what was going on in my whole field of consciousness. It seemed to me that it was an activity similar to bird-watching – but being alert to thoughts, sensations and feelings rather than to birds. I noticed how I often became so absorbed in the chattering, the spinning thoughts, the endless, somewhat pointless ruminating, that I lost touch with the world around me. I was so caught up in my own mind-wanderings, and circular internal arguments, that I was unaware of my surroundings, or I was no longer listening to what someone was saying. I would watch my friend speaking but I was not listening to them, instead I was listening to the thoughts going round and round in my mind. Too often I identified with my chattering mind and took it for granted that this was ‘who I am.’ I too easily forgot that when I observed this chattering activity - when I was being mindful - I must have been observing from a position outside the chattering. I must have been observing from a perspective that lies in the space around the chattering – the seemingly boundless space of the mind itself. Surely, I began to realise, if I am to identify with anything, it is this generative space in which thoughts, sensations, images and feelings appear and disappear?

Another thing I noticed was that there seemed to be a close association between this chattering, endlessly ruminating aspect of the mind, and the need I kept feeling to acquire things. As I observed my thoughts, perceptions and feelings I noticed how I often wanted to hang on to them, or to possess them. The habitual chattering, commenting and evaluating seemed to generate needs for things, and by ‘things’ I mean feelings, ideas, opinions and imagined futures, as well as objects. Even as I read about the Buddha advising us to minimise suffering by not clinging too rigidly to ourselves, other people and beings, or to objects, ideas, beliefs and opinions – I nevertheless could see that this was what I was doing so much of the time. I began to understand that becoming aware of habits of desire, attachment and acquisitiveness, was the first step in learning how to cope with transience, dissatisfaction, pain and loss. 

I began to see in my own experience how insatiable desire fuels dissatisfaction, restlessness, disturbance and conflict - how easily I chased after things, ideas and sensations, in the hope that each new thing would satisfy me. I realised that this is the mindset of the acquisitive self – a dimension of my mind that was closely related to the chattering and ruminating that occupied so much of my time. Gradually, I came to understand that acquisitions – of whatever kind - new things, experiences and ideas - only reinforced my desire for more. And this process of craving and acquiring, of wanting more, only took me further and further away from peace, equanimity and wellbeing. 

I remember when I first experienced the realisation that I do not have to identify with, or be bound by, the chattering or acquisitive ego-self. It came as a revelation. Unbidden and unexpectedly a new perspective on who I am, and who I could be, opened up. It was like seeing myself and the world from a different place. As if I had been given a new pair of spectacles, enabling me to see everything more clearly and vividly. It was as if I could now see the chattering or linguistic self, as just one aspect of who I am – rather than as the main, or only, aspect of my identity.

This realisation of the ‘empty’ space within which thoughts, feelings and sensations arise and die away, came with a feeling of lightness, transparency and spaciousness – as if I no longer had a name and all the sensations were without labels or definite boundaries. Thoughts and feelings seemed less substantial, more transparent, with less power to overwhelm and bind me. Everything seemed crystal clear and distinct, yet unified and indissoluble. Somehow ineffable, yet tangible. Vivid, fluid, open and porous. I experienced a profound shift of perspective, from the tightly-bound self, to a feeling of boundlessness. From a sense of separation and division to a feeling of connection and unity. And I realised that we all share this open nameless dimension. We all have this deep, indefinable nature.

Peace of mind, for me, comes from not dwelling on the passing thoughts, sensation, feelings and cravings, that flow through my consciousness, but on a deep awareness of consciousness itself – the boundless space of the mind. Rather than identifying with the thoughts and feelings that arise in the embodied mind, we can identify with the embodied mind itself – the source - the open creative space out of which, or within which, all thoughts, feelings and sensations emerge. It is like attending to the river itself, rather than the fish, bubbles and silt that are carried along by the river - a realisation that I am the river within which thoughts and feelings are like fish or bubbles at play in the eddies and currents of the mind. For me this is a very liberating experience – a shift from seeing the world from the position of my ego-identity, acquisitive self or chattering mind, to seeing the world from the perspective of an open, spacious, creative mind.

When reading many Christian mystics, I am struck by phrases like, ‘ocean of indeterminacy,’ ‘the cloud of unknowing’ and ‘ground of being,’ for these seem to resonate with what I occasionally experience as the open space of the mind itself – an unnameable, vibrant unity. 

If we identify with the stream of thoughts, feelings, sensations and cravings that appear in the mind, we can come to believe that this is all that we are. I have come to realise that this is a delusion, and it is very limiting and divisive. It tends to make us feel very confined within what we might call the chattering ego or self and leads us to feel separate from the rest of reality. To my mind these attributes of the ego - thoughts, feelings, sensations, memories and cravings – are only a few strands within the complex interwoven unity of who we are – one dimension of a much greater whole. If we shift our mode of attention, or widen our focus, to include the space within which thoughts, sensations and cravings occur, we catch a glimpse of a very different potential identity. When we identify with the spacious and boundless mind, we feel much freer, unburdened, open and creative, than when we identify with the chattering self. 

Unfortunately, not only do individuals identify with the limited and habit-driven chattering self, but also communities, societies, cultures and states collectively identify with the dogmatic ideas, preconceptions and beliefs that are so often the product of the chattering acquisitive self. This may be one of the reasons why there is so much conflict, anger and prejudice in the relationships between communities and states in different parts of the world. These conflicts are often rooted in extremes of identification with the chattering habit-driven acquisitive strands of our minds, rather than with the open and inclusive unified space of the mind itself.

Many of us feel, at times, trapped within the habit-driven confines of our chattering-mind or ego-self, but we can learn the art of zazen and experience a very different mode of becoming. To step aside from the ego-self, even for a short time, is very liberating – like a breath of fresh air when we have spent a long time in a tunnel or a room with no windows.

At the heart of zazen is the realisation that we have no name, no definition, no fixed essence. We are instead the open fluid unbounded mind – what is known as ‘mushin’ in Zen. Though it is often translated as, ‘no mind,’ the Japanese word, mushin, really denotes non-dwelling mind – that is, the mind when we are non-attached to mental activity, not dwelling on thoughts or sensations, and not adding a commentary, or judgments, or other habit-driven reactions. In this way we don’t identify with particular thoughts, or chains of thought or feeling – we remain free, one step back, letting go of what occurs from moment to moment. Some Zen teachers describe mushin as ‘beginner’s mind’ or ‘Buddha mind’ – the mind as being open, non-attached, fluid and responsive to the world. To undertake any activity with mushin, untethered to the ego-self, is liberating and enjoyable. Whether sitting, standing, walking, washing-up, cleaning, gardening, eating, listening or speaking, if done with mushin - rather than with the ‘galloping’ or chattering mind, when we are tied to the wild demanding horse of the ego-self - will feel more peaceful, vivid and satisfying.

Occasionally, in zazen, sometimes for moments, sometimes for hours, the last vestiges of the ego or acquisitive self are let go of and I become truly present, really here - awake to the vibrant presence of the world. Paradoxically, this seemingly personal experience is a ‘we’ experience, not a ‘my’ or ‘me’ experience. What I feel is of a sense of belonging, of deep connection to all beings, to a collective beingness that is vibrant, unitary and deeply peaceful. As if one is returning to a collective consciousness or ground of being, in which there are no boundaries or borders. There is just being here – all of us together, intensely alive and unique, yet undivided – flowing with interwoven sensations and experiences. A realisation of the unadorned suchness or isness of being. Maybe this is what awakening is – a process of really being present to everyone and everything in one’s everyday life. To practice ‘daily life zen’ is to realise that awakening is a life-long process of becoming – of opening oneself to the miracle of just being here.

I would like to end with my variation on a poem by the Soto Zen monk, Ryokan (1758-1831). It goes like this:

the past is already past

the future is not yet here

the present never abides

things are ever-changing

there’s nothing on which to depend

let go of names and words

let go of time-worn views

don’t chase after ideas

sit quiet and reflect on how things are

let the world and its beauty

flow on

Thank you for listening and bye for now.

REFERENCES

Harada, Sekkei. 1998. The Essence of Zen: Dharma Talks Given in Europe and America. Tokyo: Kodansha International.

Loori, John Daido. 2002. The Art of Just Sitting: Essential Writings on the Zen practice of Shikantaza. Boston: Wisdom. 

Scott, David Keizan. 2021. Shikantaza. Stonewater Zen website. Online at: https://www.stonewaterzen.org/shikantaza/ - accessed 19 April 2024.

Skinner, Julian Daizan. 2017. Practical Zen: Meditation and Beyond. London: Singing Dragon.