Flow Into Friday ~ Zen Buddhism Basics with Dr. Pete

Welcome back to On Air With Dr. Pete! Today's episode will introduce you to "Flow Into Friday's - Tune in every Friday for ZEN BASICS- learning how to roll with the flow and recharge every week with Dr. Pete.

Learn more about Dr. Pete and his brand new Cornerstone Meditation Center Here: 

https://cornerstonemeditationcenter.com/

Transcript

Zen As Philosophy Not Religion

Finding Zen Through Anxiety

Where Zen Comes From

True Nature And Buddha Nature

Direct Experience And The Altar

Zazen Kinhin And Retreat Rhythm

Perfectionism Meets Zen Practice

Koans And The Middle Path

Why These Zen Fridays Exist

How To Follow And Send Topics

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Hello and welcome back to On Air with Dr. Pete. I'm your host, Dr. Pete Economo, and this is your Flow into Friday, which is Zen Buddhism. And here's what here's how this comes to you. So I have been studying Zen. So today's episode is going to introduce you to what we're going to do on these Flow into Friday episodes. Zen Buddhism is a philosophy. It's not a religion. And yet it is recognized as one of the top three religions in the world because that's just what humans do. The reason, you know, it's semantics, but the reason is it's not technically a religion is because there's no deity. And so as I come to you, if you're watching on YouTube, the video is terrible because my uh battery died on my other real camera. But that's Zen. Zen is about flexibility, rolling with the flow. And uh as we do these flow into Fridays, uh, this today I want to just talk to you about like what Zen Buddhism is and why I'm sitting here talking to you as a person who's from the East. So when I was in grad school, I was living in Jersey City, and I you know yearned, you know, I was learning some of this like third wave cognitive and behavioral therapy-ish, you know, not in like a real way, because it wasn't, it was just starting to come out. So this thing called mindfulness that you've heard a lot about on this episode. And it was just starting to like hit a little bit more, you know, here in the West and in graduate training. And so all of a sudden I was like, I want to dive a little bit deeper, you know. Plus, I had all my own like anxiety and stuff that was going on, and I thought, like, you know, reading about meditation and how it helps with healing and all this stuff, I thought, let me just how how do I dive deep? And so that was where I found Morningstar Zendo in Jersey City. I was living in Jersey City, and Robert Kennedy was the teacher there or is the teacher there. Uh, and I was blessed to meet him around uh 2010. And so in do in in saying that, it's like I've been almost 20 years of learning, you know, uh from him, where when I lived in Jersey City, I would go regularly. Uh, even when I moved away, I would go at least once a week. And and this meant, especially before COVID, this meant getting up at 4 30 in the morning, arriving there, or even a little earlier, because I would arrive there by 5 30, 5 45. And I moved about an hour away. Uh so what is Zen Buddhism? Uh it's part of Maya Hana Buddhism, uh Zen, there's typically like there's Zen that's booted, or there's Buddhism that's rooted in Zen that can be either Chinese or Japanese, like predominantly. Uh my Robert Kennedy uh was studied studied in Japan, and so the lineage that I've studied with white plum is a bit more Japanese in its oriented uh origination, you know, but uh that those are just like you know the sort of historical things. Uh I don't know about you, I've never been that like into history. Like I like stories, but I I was never really that great at it. But um but Zen did start in in China, and so actually like one of my Zen sisters, Amy Yi, you know, she is you know from China, and uh a lot of what even in Jersey City, as she went through her journey to become a teacher in Zen Buddhism with with Robert Kennedy, you know, we started to like learn more about sort of the China roots of it. And um it did later spread to you know Japan and some other Asian countries like Korea, Vietnam, uh but you know the the majority of the real historical kind of aspects uh come from there. Many of you, if you're interested in this content, you've probably like heard of Dogen. Uh and so this is a uh author, uh spiritual practitioner that's written a lot of Soto Zen in Japan. And and a lot of times, especially a lot of the teachers that I've been uh uh experienced with, um, you know, they'll they'll they'll reference there. So um Zen is about your true nature, and and I think that's why I've always related to it. Now, one of the things I I I was raised Catholic, you know, in a Catholic church, so sort of Christian identity, and what I really remember even going to a bunch of Catholic schools is that a lot of what we we do in in Catholicism is what not to do, you know. Um, you know, um, thou shalt not kill, or you know, thou shalt not coveted our neighbor's wife or whatever, you know, stuff like that. So what not to do, and it kind of scares you because if you do you go to hell, like this dark place. Well, Zen is like we're all trying to awaken our true nature, like you're actually you're you're good. You and here's what things you could do to like stay good or to get better, and that's the eightfold path. But that's like I always really connected with that, and not that you know I'm penalties work, punishment works, I'm a behaviorist at the core of my uh professional practice. So um Zen at the core is saying, like, we all got Buddha nature, and Buddha's not like a god, you're not trying to accomplish anything. It's Buddha was just represents this idea that like suffering. So if you've ever seen a Buddha that has like a really fat belly, he has that fat belly because he's uh absorbing everyone's suffering there. You know, how cool is that? You know, he's taking your suffering so that you don't have to. It's about direct experience, like connecting with the the current moment. I was telling a client today, like I a lot of silent meditation, it's hard. And and coming into contact with that direct experience and sitting for hours uh still is is really difficult. That pro that present moment awareness, trying to get clarity. Um, when we have an altar, again, not an altar in like a you know a church kind of way, but like you know, simple, like some area that has a table so that you could have a plant, some incense, a candle, a Buddha, maybe, you know, and uh a glass of water. And the water is about clarity and and and stillness, you know. So if you look at a a bowl of water in a glass in a glass bowl, uh you can see that the goal is that it just stays totally still if no one's moving it. Um, so I it's very simple. So like you don't have to have all these like fancy relationships or memberships, you know, it's it's pretty simple. So um the primary practice is zazen, so that's what I'm mentioning. So seated meditation. Uh but you know, when uh when I talk to people about zen, they'll be like, well, this is like so hard. Like you sit 14 hours a day, like that's impossible. That would be really hard. And when we sit, you you could if you really had to, but yeah, it's hard. And so zazen is a practice that includes a thing called kinhin, which would be walking meditation. So you're not just sitting all the time, like so you do want to get up, you want to move a little bit. And so typically what we would do, like say if we're doing a session, like a longer seated period, sometimes we'll sit for 14 to 16 hours in that day. So you'll like sit when the sunrise comes up, then you go have breakfast, which is done in silence, then you go sit some more, and then you might have a little bit of a break, or maybe like a little bit of stretching, and then you have, you know, sit some more, then lunch, then you have some more sitting, maybe a little breaks and stretching, you know, then some more meditation, then dinner. You know, you get the routine. So um, and it's all about posture and the discipline of posture. So sitting up really tall, being really still, focusing on your breath, allowing thoughts just to come and go. It's really the only instruction. You know, it's it's um it could be really annoying because maybe I know when I first went to my teacher, I was like, I wanted more. Actually, my first time I sat with him in a thing called Dyson, which is when you sit one-on-one with your teacher just to learn about your uh, you know, your sitting, or maybe you learn about a co-on, which we'll talk about at some point in these flow into Fridays. Uh you know, I was like, I, you know, I I'm a I'm I'm a recovering perfectionist, I'm a high performer. I was like, I want to be the best Zen practitioner, you know? Uh and he was like, you're exactly where you need to be. And it's such a Zen thing now. I mean, the person who sat there and heard that was so annoyed. And today I'm like, okay, that's cool. Like, I I get it. Um there's there's uh teacher Suzuki who actually said, You are perfect as you are, and you could use a little improvement. That's sort of a co-on, like these dialectics. Uh that's where the East and the West meet. So the dialectic is sort of is like is more of a Western term, and we've certainly adopted it in psychology. And the East has always said like nothing is like this, you know, like uh black or white, you know, you're always trying to find the middle path. So in these flow into Fridays, I'm gonna talk to you a little bit about koons, and maybe I'll bring some ko on teachings. Um so so the main point of these fly flow into Fridays um is to educate you all on Zen. Why? Well, on Eratoctor Pete is really about education, releasing suffering, providing tools. And honestly, recently I was like looking, uh I had a little road trip and I was like, I want to listen to some Zen stuff. Let me see what people are talking about in Zen. And I looked on podcasts about Zen. I didn't find any. So if you know any, please like DM me because uh I I I found a few, but like a lot of them look like they just recorded during COVID for like a year or two, and there was like no recent episodes. Um and you know, one of the things that I've always talked about with my teacher is I'm I'm old, according to a lot of my athletes now, but I'm young relative to this practice. I've been studying for almost 20 years. So I started about like my mid-20s. Uh and you know, that's really cool because I wish I had it when I was at that age, but it's cool because um I'm doing things differently, you know. And he my teacher always says, like everyone he has installed as a teacher, he wants them to be their own teacher, whichever way they want to teach, they should teach. And even though for the last 20 years we've been at this sort of tug of war, because he's like, he's used to people just opening up a Zendo and that's it. You know, you just have a community and you do Za Zen. And I'm like, there's more, you know. Um if you've ever tuned into When East Meets West, you know what I've been talking about this with Dr. Rubin for a long time, you know, ways that you can kind of bring this stuff into everyday life. So um Zen is so that's what these flow into Fridays are gonna be. Uh, I want to just give you like the the simplicity, the minimalism, like all the the silence, like the power that this brings, you know, to you. Um and I'm just really like I just I I hope you tune into that, I hope you like it. If you do, like, follow, and share all the things right at official Dr. Pete officialdrpeat.com. But the goal is so that you know I can educate a little bit about you know Zen, provide some instruction on meditation, uh, and by no means is this the only way, you know, it there are lots of different ways to meditate. And if you've ever come and sat with me or with any of the communities I'm I I sit with, or you know, if you've ever listened to any of the episodes, one of the things that I believe most strongly in is on flexibility. And I'm super flexible with how things are done. There's no one way to do anything. Amen. No one way to do anything. So uh I hope that you are going to tune in for these flow into Fridays. Uh and I will see you. Uh it's gonna be the last Friday of the month. So just last Friday of the month uh on air with Dr. Pete, flow into Friday, learn about Zen, learn about meditation. So thank you, thank you, thank you. If there's a topic in Zen you're interested in, please DM us, send us a message, and you know, please continue to like, follow, and share this podcast with all your friends. Listen to it everywhere like Spodcast, Apple, YouTube, all the places. So I will see you next week with a cool topic. But until then, spread a little kindness, stay well.