Summary: Excerpted from _The Three Pillars of Zen_, this doc is a cogent and concise primer on zazen, or Zen meditation. From Usenet. hi - i have received a few msgs from folks asking me again for the name of the zen book i mentioned a while back. the book is: The Three Pillars of Zen by Roshi Phillip Kapleau Some other people have commented on how many zen books don't make a whole lot of sense to them. here are some suggestions i can make in this regard, and a detailed excerpt from 3 pillars of zen concerning how to practice correct zazen (zen meditation). Also, after the instruction section, i have included another lecture from 3 pillars concerning "makyo," or visions and hallucinations that might arise in the course of meditation practice. even if you are not interested in zen, you might be interested in this particular passage, as it provides an excellent explanation of these phenomena and how to deal with them. 1. don't worry about what any of it means. the most important part is to learn how to meditate. the "answers" will come through meditation, not through deductive/discursive reasoning. 2. the koans are deliberately designed to tie your deductive mind into knots, so you will let go of that and just experience reality directly. you can not see reality as long as you are attached to IDEAS of what it should be or might be or whatever. everything you perceive is filtered through what you believe, and thus is distorted by your own prejudices and concepts. just sit down and meditate, letting go of concepts, worries, thoughts, etc. and experience what happens. this is very good training for concentration when in the out-of-body state, since what you believe is what you get on the astral plane! do not suppress thoughts, simply let them pass, and do not become engaged by them. the fewer concepts you latch onto in your head concerning reality, the clearer your experience will be. try it. you will find some surprises! 3. the three pillars of zen book is a pretty good beginner's book -- tho it also has a few pretty baffling passages, if you are not a hardened zen practitioner. again, zen masters are always telling us to forget the damn books and sit on our butts and DO IT. books will just fill your head with more of your own ideas. this is why true zen masters will rarely just tell you flat out about your "true nature" or "buddha nature" as they call it. anything they tell you, you will latch onto and interpret in your own prejudicial way, and all is lost --- your head is just full of more concepts again, and reality is blocked. reading zen books to gain enlightenment is sort of like expecting to be in peak physical condition simply by reading about jogging. nothing changes until you get off your arse (or in this case, ON your arse :-) ) and JUST DO IT. i've read billions of zen books, and nothing started to happen until i sat and meditated. i'm still lazy, though, and will still attempt to squeeze enlightenment out of a book, sometimes! silly me. 4. don't worry about how long you are able to sit still and meditate. if you are only able to do it for 10 seconds, then that is 10 seconds' worth closer to awakening! you will soon find that you actually crave meditation, and it will become easier and easier to meditate for extended periods. do try, tho, to extend it a bit each time just past the point where you are comfortable. usually, the discomfort stems from the ego's resistance to awakening (it feels threatened for some reason, even tho nothing bad happens to it during awakening), and it will cook up all kinds of things to throw you/it off the path....like an itchy nose or sore knees or waves of emotion, jumbling thoughts, or whatever. let it do its thing, but don't attach yourself to any of it. push the envelope just a tiny bit each time (not too much, all you workaholics out there, or you will end up hating meditation -- which is exactly what your ego wants you to do!). 5. here are instructions from "three pillars of zen" for basic beginning zen meditation. note that the part about posture is the longest and most detailed. this is because it is one of the most important. the posture is designed explicitly to enable you to (eventually, once you loosen up enough to relax) sit for very long extended periods of time, thus increasing your chances of awakening. the instructions are from a verbal lecture by the great master Yasutani-roshi, the teacher of Kapleau-roshi, the guy who wrote the 3 pillars book. they are the clearest instructions i have encountered, to date. there are a lot of details, so just take it a step at a time: The first step is to select a quiet room in which to sit. Lay out a fairly soft mat or pad some three feet square, and on top of this place a small circular cushion measuring about one foot in diameter to sit on, or use a square cushion folded in two or even a folded or rolled-up blanket. Preferably one should not wear trousers or socks, since these interfere with the crossing of the legs and the placing of the feet. For a number of reasons it is best to sit in the full-lotus posture. To sit full-lotus you place the foot of the right leg over the thigh of the left and the foot of the left leg over the thigh of the right. The main point of this particular method of sitting is that by establishing a wide, solid base with the crossed legs and both knees touching the mat, you achieve repose and absolute stability. When the body is immodbile, thoughts are not stirred into activity by physical movements and the mind is more easily quieted. If you have difficulty sitting in the full-lotus posture because of the pain, sit half-lotus, which is done by putting the foot of the left leg over the thigh of the right and the right leg under the left thigh. For those of you who are not accustomed to sitting cross-legged, even this position may not be easy to maintain. You will probably find it difficult to keep the two knees resting on the mat and will have to push one or both of them down again and again until they remain there. In both the half- and the full-lotus postures, the uppermost foot can be reversed when the legs become tired. For those who find both of these traditional zazen positions acutely uncomfortable, an alternative position is the traditional Japanese one of sitting on the heels and calves. This can be maintained for a longer time if a cushion is placed between the heels and the buttocks. One advantage of this posture is that the back can be kept erect easily. However, should all of these postions prove too painful, you may use a chair. Next, rest the right hand in the lap, palm upward, and place the left hand, palm upward, on the top of the right palm. Lightly touch the tips of the thumbs to each other so that a flattened circle is formed by the palms and thumbs. The right side of the body is the active side, the left the passive. Accordingly, during practice we repress the active side by placing the left foot and left hand over the right members, as an aid in achieving the highest degree of tranquility. If you look at a figure of the Buddha, however, you will notice that the position of these members is just the reverse. The significance of this is that a Buddha, unlike the rest of us, is actively engaged in the task of liberation. After you have crossed your legs, bend forward so as to thrust the buttocks out, then slowly bring the trunk to an erect posture. The head should be straight; if looked at from the side, your ears should be in line with your shoulders and the tip of your nose in line with your navel. The body from the waist up should be weightless, free from pressure or strain. Keep the eyes open and the mouth closed. The tip of the tongue should lightly touch the back of the upper teeth. If you close your eyes you will fall into a dull and dreamy state. The gaze should be lowered without focusing on anything in particular, but be careful not to incline the head forward. Experience has shown that the mind is quietest, with the least fatigue or strain, when the eyes are in this lowered position. The spinal column must be erect at all times. This admonition is important. When the body slumps, not only is undue pressure placed on the internal organs, interfering with their free functioning, but the vertebrae by impinging upon nerves may cause strains of one kind or another. Since body and mind are one, any impairment of the physiological functions inevitably involves the mind and thus diminishes its clarity and one-pointedness, which are essential for effective concentration. From a purely psychological point of view, a ramrod erectness is as undesirable as a slouching position, for the one springs from unconsious pride and the other from abjectness, and since both are grounded in ego they are equally a hindrance to enlightenment. Be careful to hold the head erect; if it inclines forward or backward or sideward, remaining there for an appreciable length of time, a crick in the neck may result. When you have established a correct posture, take a deep breath, hold it momentarily, then exhale slowly and quietly. Repeat this two or three times, always breathing through the nose. After that breathe naturally. When you have accustomed yourself to this routine, one deep breath at the beginning will suffice. After that, breathe naturally without trying to manipulate your breath. Now bend the body first to the right as far as it will go, then to the left, about seven or eight times, in large arcs to begin with, then smaller ones until the trunk naturally comes to rest at center. You are now ready to concentrate your mind. There are many good methods of concentration bequeathed to us by our predecessors in Zen. The easiest for beginners is counting incoming and outgoing breaths. The value of this particular exercise lies in the fact that all reasoning is excluded and the discriminative mind put at rest. Thus the waves of thought are stilled and a gradual one-pointedness of mind achieved. To start with, count both inhalations and exhalations. When you inhale, concentrate on "one;" when you exhale, on "two;" and so on, up to ten. Then you return to "one" and once more count up to ten, continuing as before. If you've lost the count, return to "one." It is as simple as that. As I have previously pointed out, fleeting thoughts which naturally fluctuate in the mind are not in themselves an impediment. This unfortunately is not commonly recognized. Even among Japanese who have been practicing Zen for five years or more there are many who misunderstand Zen practice to be a stopping of consciousness. There is indeed a kind of zazen that aims at doing this, but it is not the traditional zazen of Zen Buddhism. You must realize that no matter how intently you count your breaths, you will still perceive what is in your line of vision, since your eyes are open, and you will hear the normal sounds about you, as your ears are not plugged. And since your brain likewise is not asleep, various thought forms will dart about in your mind. Now, they will not hamper or diminish the effectiveness of zazen unless, evaluating them as "good," you cling to them or, deciding they are "bad," you try to check or eliminate them. You must not regard any perceptions or sensations as an obstruction to zazen, nor should you pursue any of them. I emphasize this. "Pursuit" simply means that in the act of seeing, your gaze lingers on objects; in the course of hearing, your attention dwells on sounds; and in the process of thinking, your mind adheres to ideas. If you allow yourself to be distracted in such ways, your concentration on the counting of your breaths will be impeded. To recapitulate: let random thoughts arise and vanish as they will, do not dally with them and do not try to expel them, but merely concentrate all your energy on counting the inhalations and exhalations of your breath. In terminating a period of sitting, do not arise abruptly, but begin by rocking from side to side, first in small swings, then in large ones, for about half a dozen times. You will observe that your movements in this exercise are the reverse of those you engage in when you begin zazen. Rise slowly and quietly walk around with the others in what is called "kinhin," a walking form of zazen. Kinhin is performed by placing the right fist, with thumb inside, on the chest and covering it with the left palm while holding both elbows at right angles. Keep the arms in a straight line and the body erect, with the eyes resting upon a point about two yards in front of the feet. At the same time continue to count inhalations and exhalations as you walk slowly around the room. Begin walking with the left foot and walk in such a way that the foot sinks into the floor, first the heel and then the toes. Walk calmly and steadily, with poise and dignity. The walking must not be done absent-mindedly, and the mind must be taut as you concentrate on the counting. It is advisable to practice walking this way for at least five minutes after each sitting period of twenty to thirty minutes. You are to think of this walking as zazen in motion. Rinzai and Soto differ considerably in their way of doing kinhin. In Rinzai the walking is brisk and energetic, while in traditional Soto it is slow and leisurely; in fact, upon each breath you step forward only six inches or so. My own teacher, Harada-roshi, advocated a gait somewhere between these two and that is the method we have been practicing here. Further, the Rinzai sect cups the left hand on top of the right, whereas in the orthodox Soto the right hand is placed on top. Harada-roshi felt that the Rinzai method of putting the left hand uppermost was more desirable and so he adopted it into his own teaching. Now, even though this walking relieves the stiffness in your legs, such relief is to be regarded as a mere by-product and not the main object of kinhin. Accordingly, those of you who are counting your breaths should continue during kinhin, and those of you who are working on a koan should carry on with it. This ends the first lecture. Continue to count your breaths as I have instructed until you come before me again. "Makyo" are the phenomena -- visions, hallucinations, fantasies, revelations, illusory sensations -- which one practicing zazen is apt to experience at a particular stage in his sitting. "Ma" means "devil" and "kyo" the "objective world." Hence makyo are the disturbing or "diabolical" phenomena which appear to one during his zazen. These phenomena are not inherently bad. They become a serious obstacle to practice only if one is ignorant of their true nature and is ensnared by them. The word makyuo is used in both a general and a specific sense. Broadly speaking, the entire life of the ordinary man is nothing but a makyo. Even such Bodhisattvas as Monju and Kannon, highly developed though they are, still have about them traces of makyo; otherwise they would be supreme Buddhas, completely free of makyo. One who becomes attached to what he realizes through satori is also still lingering in the world of makyo. So, you see, there are makyo even after enlightenment, but we shall not enter into that aspect of the subject in these lectures. In the specific sense the number of makyo which can appear are in fact unlimited, varying according to the personality and temperment of the sitter. In the Ryogon (Surangama) sutra, the Buddha warns of fifty different kinds, but of course he is referring only to the commonest. If you attend a sesshi of from five to seven days' duration and apply yourself assiduously, on the third day you are likely to experience makyo of varying degrees of intensity. Besides those which involve the vision there are numerous makyo which relate to the sense of touch, smell, or hearing, or which sometimes cause the body suddenly to move from side to side or forward and backward or to lean to one side or to seem to sink or rise. Not infrequently words burst forth uncontrollably or, more rarely, one imagines he is smelling a particularly fragrant perfume. There are even cases where without conscious awareness one writes down things which turn out to be prophetically true. Very common are visual hallucinations. You are doing zazen with your eyes open when suddenly the ridges of the straw matting in front of you seem to heaving up and down like waves. Or without warning everything may go white before your eyes, or black. A knot in the wood of a door may suddenly appear as a beast or demon or angel. One disciple of mine often used to see visions of masks -- demons' masks or jesters' masks. I asked him whether he had ever had any particular experience of masks and it turned out that he had seen them at a festival in Kyushu when he was a child. Another man I knew was extremely troubled in his practice by visions of Buddha and his disciples walking around him reading sutras, and was only able to dispel the hallucination by jumping into a tank of ice-cold water for two or three minutes. Many makyo involve the hearing. One may hear the sound of a piano or loud noises, such as an explosion (which is heard by no one else), and actually jump. One disciple of mine always used to hear the sound of a bamboo flute while doing zazen. He had learned to play the bamboo flute many years before, but had long since given it up; yet always the sound came to him when he was sitting. In the Zazen Yojinki we find the following about makyo: "The body may feel hot or cold or glasslike or hard or heavy or light. This happens because the breath is not well harmonized [with the mind] and needs to be carefully regulated." It then goes on to say: "One may experience the sensation of sinking or floating, or may alternately feel hazy and sharply alert. The disciple may develop the faculty of seeing through solid objects as though they were transparent, or he may experience his own body as a translucent substance. He may see Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Penetrating insights may suddenly come to him, or passages of sutras which were particulary difficult to understand may suddenly become luminously clear to him. All these abnormal visions and sensations are merely the symptoms of an impairment arising from a maladjustment of the mind with the breath." Other religions and sects place a great store by experiences which involve visions of God or deities or hearing heavenly voices, performing miracles, receiving divine messages, or becoming purified through various rites and drugs. In the Nichiren sect, for example, the devotee loudly and repeatedly invokes the name of the Lotus sutra, to the accompaniment of vigourous body movements, and feels he has thereby purged himself of his defilements. In varying degree these practices induce a feeling of well-being, yet from the Zen point of view all are abnormal states devoid of true religious significance and therefore only makyo. What is the essential nature of these disturbing phenomena we call makyo? They are temporary mental states which arise during zazen when our ability to concentrate has developed to a certain point and our practice is beginning to ripen. When the thought-waves that wax and wane on the surface of the mind are partially calmed, residual elements of past experiences "lodged" in the deeper levels of consciousness bob up sporadically to the surface of the mind, conveying the feeling of a greater or expanded reality. Makyo, accordingly, are a mixture of the real and the unreal, not unlike ordinary dreams. Just as dreams are usually not remembered by a person in deep sleep but only when he is half-assleep and half-awake, so makyo do not come to those in deep concentration or samadhi. Never be tempted into thinking that these phenomena are real or that the visions themselves have any meaning. To have a beautiful vision of a Buddha does not mean that you are any nearer becoming one yourself, any more than a dream of being a millionaire means that you are any richer when you awaken. Therefore, there is no reason to feel elated about such makyo. And similarly, whatever horrible monsters may appear to you, there is no cause whatever for alarm. Above all, do not allow yourself to be enticed by visions of the Buddha or of gods blessing you or communicating a divine message, or by makyo involving prophecies which turn out to be true. This is to squander your energies in the foolish pursuit of the inconsequential. But such visions are certainly a sign that you are at a crucial point in your sitting, and that if you exert yourself to the utmost, you can surely experience kensho. Tradition states that even Shakyamuni Buddha just before his own awakening experienced innumerable makyo, which he termed "obstructing devils." Whenever makyo appear, simply ignore them and continue sitting wholeheartedly. The good news is that *anybody* can experience kensho (awakening) and satori and samadhi. in 3 pillars, there are accounts of shop keepers, teachers, the invalid daughter of the president of Mitsubishi even, experiencing kensho. you do not have to be a saint, a zen monk (although the latter helps inasmuch as you are devoting your full strength to awakening), or any other high-falutin' sort to achieve kensho. all you have to do is meditate, preferably under the guidance of a good zen master. and it is for *free*.