When seeing a group of sword and staff students meditating, it would be natural to presume that since they are all sitting alike, they are all doing the same thing ‘under the hood.’ And it would be natural to guess that they are either ‘not thinking’ or ‘trying not to think.’ But this should not be the case. While stillness is the end goal, it is not like a muscle to be exercised but a riddle to be solved. And meditating is the time we set aside to do this work.
While there are many forms of practice (what is happening ‘under the hood’), there are just two we will address here:
- Returning to the Breath
- Seeing Clearly
Some Initial Thoughts
The uniqueness of our humanness is something we might call ‘Learning, Teaching, Choosing.’ That is, within each moment is the potential for choice – choosing to learn or choosing to teach. And ultimately, we want to get to the point where we will also investigate the activity of ‘Clarity,’ specifically the notions of the ‘Clarity of Learning’ (genuine gratitude), the ‘Clarity of Teaching’ (genuine compassion), and the ‘Clarity of Choosing’ (genuine skillfulness). But genuine gratitude, compassion, and skillfulness must be realized – which means work. Hence, practice.
Meditation Practice 1: Returning to the Breath
As the ultimate goal of our practice is to rediscover moving freely in the face of uncertainty, this first practice gets us started; we must learn to walk before expecting to run; we must develop the habit of introspection.
The Sequence
Awaken: Return from thinking to the awareness of the present moment.
Take Inventory: After awakening, note how your awareness has invariably turned to one of the following:
- Form (“Am I slouching”).
- Feelings (“This sitting is so relaxing”).
- Senses (“Look at the couple walking their dogs”).
- Urges (“I would really like to see what’s going on behind me”).
Return To Your Breath: After taking inventory – and perhaps adjusting your posture – simply turn your attention to your breathing:
- Inhaling or exhaling?
- Long or short?
- From the belly or the shoulders?
- Any other sensations (sounds, sensation in the nostrils, etc.)
Continue Following Your Breath:
Repeat: Because the mind inevitably returns to the thinking activity, the sequence will just as inevitably need to begin again.
To Note
- The breath is to be observed only (and not controlled). There is no right or wrong here.
- When ‘taking inventory,’ you will not likely cover all four cases each time you ‘awaken.’ (The list is not a sequence that needs to be rigidly followed.)
- Remember, the goal is to develop the habit of introspection – coming back to the moment … with something to do in that moment.
Meditation Practice 2: Seeing Clearly
After developing the habit of introspection (that of returning to the present moment), it is time to really get to work. Rather than just returning to follow the breath we want to make a jump to something called seeing clearly. In the Zen tradition, there is the notion of crossing over to the far shore – where the near shore is generally one of thinking. We can then consider the far shore as that state when one lets go of thinking. And when we let go of thinking, we are able to see more clearly.
Some Background
Like movement activities, which can be boiled down to four fundamentals – sitting, standing, walking, and lying down – awareness activities can be boiled down to three fundamentals – ordering, orienting, and simple awareness. Ordering, then, is the activity of relating ideas – of thinking. Orienting is the activity of relating objects – of picking out sights and sounds in relation to you. And simple awareness is the activity that precedes both ordering and orienting or once again manifests when ordering and orienting both disappear. Conventional understanding is that we are always either ordering or orienting. There is a third option – simple awareness.
The Sequence
Awaken: Return from the ordering activity.
Take Inventory: After awakening, recall the three fundamental awareness activities – ordering, orienting, and simple awareness – and understand that you have just returned from ordering … and are now orienting.
Disappear: Let go (step off, go beyond, cross over, etc.) … of the ordering and orienting activities and enter the activity of simple awareness.
Repeat: Because the mind inevitably returns to the ordering activity, the sequence will just as inevitably begin again.
To Note
While sounding simple enough, attaining the state of simple awareness is not. The Zen master Joshu Sasaki would call this activity the zero self. Not easy to do. And this is the reason we practice and why we have teachers.