MEDITATION

Honestly I do not think it matters a bit whether one can sit cross-legged or not.

(HGL 442)

[The Dalai Lama] demonstrated the sitting position for meditation which he said was essential. In the Tibetan meditation posture the right hand (discipline) is above the left (wisdom). In Zen it is the other way round. Then we go to “concentrating on the mind.” Other objects of concentration may be an object, an image, a name. But how does one concentrate on the mind itself?

(AJ 112–13)

Does Buddhist meditation deny the body entirely and seek to pass over into a realm of purely spiritual abstraction? Quite the contrary. The body plays a most important part in Buddhist meditation, in fact in no other meditation discipline is the body so important. Instead of eliminating, or trying to eliminate, all body-consciousness, Buddhist meditation is keenly aware of the body. In order to master the mind, Buddhist meditation seeks first of all to master the body.

(ZBA 95)

When the delights become a religion, how can you control them?

(WCZ 71)

“First gain control of the body

And all its organs. Then

Control the mind. Attain

One-pointedness. Then

The harmony of heaven

Will come down and dwell in you.

You will be radiant with Life.

You will rest in Tao.”

(WCZ 121)

“The true conqueror is he

Who is not conquered

By the multitude of the small.

The mind is this conqueror —

But only the mind

Of the wise man.”

(xvii.4–5-8, WCZ 90)

“My body is chaos

But my mind is in order”

(WCZ 62)

“Hold your being secure and quiet,

Keep your life collected in its own center.

Do not allow your thoughts

To be disturbed.”

(WCZ 128)

Buddhist “mindfulness” or awareness, which in its most elementary form consists in that “bare attention” which simply sees what is right there and does not add any comment, any interpretation, any judgment, any conclusion. It just sees. Learning to see in this manner is the basic and fundamental exercise of Buddhist meditation.

(ZBA 53, italics Merton’s)

Zen uses language against itself to blast out . . . preconceptions and to destroy the specious “reality” in our minds so that we can see directly. Zen is saying, as Wittgenstein said, “Don’t think. Look!”

(ZBA 49, italics Merton’s)

Buddhist meditation, but above all that of Zen, seeks not to explain but to pay attention, to become aware, to be mindful, in other words to develop a certain kind of consciousness that is above and beyond deception by verbal formulas — or by emotional excitement.

(ZBA 38, italics Merton’s)

The Son Who, in us, loves the Father, in the Spirit, is translated thus by Suzuki into Zen terms: “one mirror reflecting another with no shadow between them.” Suzuki also frequently quotes a sentence of Eckhart’s: “the eye wherein I see God is the same eye wherein God sees me” . . . as an exact expression of what Zen means by Prajna.

(ZBA 57, italics Merton’s)

“To exercise no-thought

And follow no-way of meditation

Is the first step toward understanding Tao.

To dwell nowhere

And rest in nothing

Is the first step toward resting in Tao.

To start from nowhere

And follow no road

Is the first step toward attaining Tao.”

(WCZ 119)