Making Zen Practice Part of Your Life
Developing a Regular Zen Practice
If you want to have a regular Zen practice, I would encourage you to make zazen a habit, a part of your daily routine, like brushing your teeth. It would be a bother if every time you brushed your teeth, you had to psych yourself up for it, remind yourself of its value for the health of your teeth and gums, and decide what would be the best time for it that day. It’s just not that big a deal, and neither is zazen. And your daily sitting need not take more time than making and drinking a cup of coffee or taking a shower. Just sit down at about the same time every day for five or ten minutes and count your breath—every morning before you have your cereal or every afternoon before the kids get home from school or every evening at your desk just after you’ve shut down your computer for the day or every night after you’re in your pajamas or whatever works for you.
If you have a regular prayer time each day, you can incorporate your meditation time into that. You might find that doing zazen before you pray can be a way to let go of the mental chatter so that you can be more attentive in your prayer time. Or you might find that you prefer to start with verbal prayer and then when you’ve turned the particular issues of the day over to God, you can settle down to simply being there.
To encourage your meditation habit, you might want to set aside a corner of a room especially for this: a small space that is clean and attractive, with your meditation cushion or bench or chair, perhaps a candle, some incense, some flowers.
When I sit alone, I decide beforehand how long I’m going to sit and always sit for that full length of time, or longer if I’m so inclined. But I don’t quit before the end of the time I’ve decided on. Having made this commitment to myself spares me from spending any of my sitting time deciding when to stop or considering whether to cut the period short. I just sit for however long I’ve decided to sit and that’s that. And knowing that I’m committed to sitting for the full period I’ve decided on encourages me to choose reasonable lengths of time instead of getting overly ambitious about it and then feeling disappointed with myself for quitting early.
Now that I’ve given you all this good advice, let me admit that while other people, including my husband, are self-disciplined enough to maintain a regular Zen practice on their own, generally I’m not, and I know I’m not at all unusual this way. I suspect that those of us who need some external help to maintain a spiritual practice are in the majority.
There was a stretch of about half a year once, between my three-month residency at the Zen monastery and my year’s residency, when I sat at home alone four or five times a week for about twenty minutes at a time. But that’s one of the few times I’ve managed to have a regular meditation practice without some sort of external structure or accountability.
I first had a regular meditation practice when I was taking a meditation class at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. The class was structured like a regular college class. Twice a week we had lectures, which were actually dharma talks. Once a week, we met in small discussion sections to talk about our practice. For homework, we had some reading assignments and we were expected to do something like seven hours of sitting a week. I knew I’d never manage that, so to forestall my inevitable guilt, I adjusted my own requirement down to four hours a week. We had to keep a record of how long we sat each day in a little calendar, like a flight log or a calorie counter, and we met once a week individually with a meditation instructor. I had a regular meditation practice while I was taking that class.
At Zen Mountain Monastery, we did two thirty-five-minute periods of zazen at dawn and two at night, except during the winter quarter, when dawn zazen was optional and I opted to sleep in, and during the monthly weeklong sesshin, when we sat about eight hours a day. If you weren’t in the zendo (the meditation hall) when you were supposed to be, one of the monastics would come find you. I had a regular meditation practice then, although that was a lot more sitting than I really wanted to do, and I felt like I was in the zendo under duress a lot of the time.
In 1999, Brian and I moved to an apartment two blocks from the Atlanta Soto Zen Center. Brian was in charge of opening up the place and timing the sitting periods on Monday mornings, and he was often there for zazen several other times a week. I sat at the Zen center maybe four or five times in the two-and-a-half years we lived there.
One year for Lent, in addition to giving up sweets, I decided I’d sit for at least five minutes a day. That seemed like a reasonable, minimal sort of spiritual discipline to take on. I stuck with the abstention from sweets for the whole forty days—difficult as that is for me—but the sitting fell by the wayside within a week.
I had a regular Zen practice when I was simultaneously helping to run the Zen group at Emory University and leading two Zen groups at churches. I had to show up in the basement of the Emory chapel every Monday afternoon, in the parlor of Glenn Memorial United Methodist Church every Monday night, and in the middle school room of Central Congregational United Church of Christ every Tuesday night. So I sat three times a week, for two periods of about twenty minutes each. This is one of the things I like about teaching Zen to other people: I sit myself. I don’t have to decide to sit; I just show up where I’m supposed to be, and once I’m sitting there on a zafu and have rung the bell to start a sitting period, I might as well do zazen along with everyone else.
I did much of the work on this book while Brian and I were living at a Christian retreat center, and I had a regular meditation practice there. The daily prayer services included periods of silence, which I usually used for zazen, and we ate many of our meals in silence, which was conducive to eating mindfully.
The moral of my story is if you want to have a regular meditation practice, you may find it helpful to make a commitment to sitting regularly with a group. And even if you do sit regularly on your own, it also can be valuable to sit with a group.
It helps to have the support of others sitting with you. Sitting alone, it’s much easier to let yourself fidget or answer the phone or decide that this would be a good time to pay the bills or clean out the garage or alphabetize the spice rack. Also, there’s a sort of synergy I can’t quite explain that happens when you’re sitting with a group of people who are all practicing quietness, stillness, and attentiveness. And, of course, it’s nice to get to know some other people who share your commitment, who will be supportive of your practice, with whom you can talk about practice.
For many years, Brian was part of a group in Boulder that met every Monday evening at a Mennonite church to sit silently for half an hour, to discuss issues of peace and social justice, and to support each other’s commitments and actions. The members of the “Monday group” were of different religions or no religion, and they weren’t all doing the same practice of silent meditation or prayer, but they all wanted time to sit in silence with like-minded people.
There are suggestions in the list of recommended resources at the end of the book for finding a meditation group, or you can start your own.
One of the main things that happens at Zen centers is zazen. Zen centers generally offer meditation sessions at least a few times a week, typically consisting of two or more sitting periods of twenty-five to forty minutes each, separated by brief periods of walking meditation. The meditation is usually preceded or followed by a bit of chanting. And Zen centers often have an extended Sunday-morning program, including zazen, chanting, a talk, and an opportunity to meet one-on-one with a teacher.
Visiting a Zen Center
Before visiting, check the Zen center’s website or call to find out its schedule. Zen centers generally offer an introductory session for newcomers, and you may be expected to attend that session before participating in other activities.
The introductory session and the regular meditation sessions will probably be free, but there may be a donation box where you can leave an offering to help support the center.
You will want to dress comfortably for sitting on the floor. At many Zen centers, it is customary to wear black or other dark or neutral colors. Shorts and tank tops are generally discouraged, and you should avoid cologne or other strong scents.
And, of course, be sure to silence your phone.
Bowing
There is a lot of bowing at Zen centers. You bow when entering and leaving the zendo or meditation hall. You bow to the teacher, to your fellow practitioners, to the Buddha, and even to your zafu. Among Zen practitioners, bows are often used in place of “Thank you” and “You’re welcome.”
A bow is generally done with the palms together, fingers pointing up, and fingertips a few inches in front of the nose—a gesture called gassho. With the hands in gassho, you bow from the waist, keeping the back straight.
Some Zen centers use only seated and standing bows. Other Zen centers use full bows. A full bow begins with a standing bow. Then you lower both knees to the floor, touch your forehead to the floor, touch the backs of your hands to the floor on either side of your head, and raise your palms an inch or two—as if lifting the feet of the Buddha, I’ve been told. These full prostrations are often done in sets of three.
In Zen, bowing is not worship but rather a practice of gratitude and nonduality. We bow to the teacher and the sangha in gratitude for a guide on the way and companions on the way and to express that we are not-two. We bow to the Buddha in gratitude for his teachings and to express that each of us is inherently a buddha. We bow to our zafu in gratitude for a place to sit and the opportunity to sit.
Even when prepared with the understanding that bowing in Zen is not worship, some Christians might find that they are uncomfortable with the practice of bowing, especially bowing toward a Buddha statue on an altar. Discussing this issue with a teacher at the center may provide further reassurance.
Chanting
Zen chanting is done on a single low note—actually two notes an octave apart, for the higher and lower voices—in a steady rhythm, speeding up gradually as it goes along. The beat is kept with a large wooden drum called a mokugyo that looks like a giant fish (though I might never have realized it was a fish if I hadn’t been told). The mokugyo makes a low, resonant thoomp, thoomp, thoomp.
Chanting is not primarily about the meaning of the words being chanted but about the activity of chanting. Chanting is a practice like any other Zen practice. You notice your wandering thoughts and return your attention to the physical sensations of the chanting—to the sounds and vibrations of your own voice, the other voices, and the drum. You chant from the hara, from the belly, and blend your voice with the other voices so that they are not separate.
The Heart Sutra, which is one of the most famous and most widely used Buddhist texts, is chanted regularly at Zen centers. A sutra is understood to record the teachings of the Buddha. The Heart Sutra is about a page long and is considered the heart or essence of the voluminous “Perfection of Wisdom” literature of Buddhism. The Heart Sutra focuses on shunyata, or emptiness, which is an extension of the teaching of no-self. Not only human beings, but all beings and all things are empty of “self,” empty of any inherent, independent, separate existence. Things do really exist, but not in the way we tend to think they do. The heart of the Heart Sutra is the line “Form is emptiness; emptiness is form.” Form, or physical reality, is empty of inherent existence, and emptiness cannot be discovered apart from form. Form and emptiness are two appearances of the same reality. From the relative perspective, we see form. From the absolute perspective, we see emptiness. Even the teachings of Buddhism, which are useful from the relative perspective, are ultimately empty, and the Heart Sutra negates one Buddhist teaching after another. For example, it says that “in emptiness” there is “no suffering, no cause of suffering, no extinguishing, no path.” That is, even the Four Noble Truths are ultimately empty. Realizing the emptiness of all things, the bodhisattva lives “far beyond deluded thoughts” and without fear—in nirvana.
The Four Bodhisattva Vows are chanted regularly at Zen centers:
However innumerable all beings are,
I vow to save them all.
However inexhaustible my delusions are,
I vow to extinguish them all.
However immeasurable the Dharma teachings are,
I vow to master them all.
However endless the Buddha’s Way is,
I vow to follow it completely.
In resolving to attain these apparently unattainable goals, we reaffirm a commitment to Zen practice. But again, while chanting the Four Bodhisattva Vows, the Heart Sutra, or any other text, you don’t ponder the meaning of what you’re chanting; you just chant.
As a Christian at a Zen center, you might not feel entirely comfortable chanting texts you don’t fully understand or chanting Zen “vows.” If that’s the case, you might simply choose to remain silent during the chanting—though your silence might prompt someone to guide you to the right place in the chant book, on the assumption that you’re lost. If you think you’d like to continue practicing at that Zen center, I would encourage you to discuss any concerns with a teacher there.
The Kyosaku
An aspect of Zen training that may at first seem strange is the use of the kyosaku (or keisaku), the “encouragement stick” or “awakening stick.”
During sitting periods, a monitor may make the rounds of the zendo, walking slowly and quietly behind the rows of sitters and stopping to adjust people’s posture if necessary—for example, straightening a back that’s leaning to one side or pulling back shoulders that are slumped forward. The monitor carries a kyosaku—a long, thin, flat stick made of wood or bamboo. If you request the kyosaku by putting your hands together in gassho, the monitor will give you a good hard whack on each shoulder with the kyosaku, on an acupressure point between the shoulder blade and neck. This hurts, but it can release tension in the shoulders and back, and it can help revive you if you’re drowsy. It can also be a spur to greater alertness or deeper practice. And the kyosaku makes a loud, sharp noise that lends a crisp, alert atmosphere to the zendo.
Like everything in Zen, the kyosaku is meant to be an aid to practice, but if you know that being hit with a stick would not help but hinder your practice, you simply need not request it.
Dokusan
Zen centers usually have designated times during the week when you can meet with a teacher one-on-one to talk about your practice. These meetings—variously called dokusan, sanzen, daisan, or “interview”—happen during sitting periods.
Each center has its own particular procedure for dokusan, but it typically goes something like this. The teacher, who is sitting in another room, rings a bell to indicate that the student may enter. After a bow or series of bows—you’ll be instructed on the protocol—you kneel on a zabuton, facing the teacher, almost knee to knee, and say, “My name is _____, and my practice is _____.” For example, “My name is Kim, and my practice is counting the breath.”
After that, the interaction is completely free-form. You can ask a question about practice or present your insight to the teacher, who will respond. The teacher doesn’t generally initiate anything. If the student doesn’t have anything to say, the teacher probably won’t have anything to say either. The teacher is there to answer questions, to bring you back on course if you’re going way off, and to act as a mirror for your practice—that is, to help you see where you are.
These meetings tend to be brief, ranging from a few seconds to five minutes. (I’ve occasionally taken as much as half an hour.) The teacher ends the interview by ringing the bell, which is the signal for one student to leave and the next in line to enter.
Dharma Talks
Regularly at Zen centers, a talk is given by the teacher or another member of the sangha. Sometimes these talks explain an aspect of the practice or teachings of Zen, but the traditional dharma talk, or teisho, is a different sort of presentation. The teisho is usually based on a koan, but it is not mainly an explanation of the koan or a commentary on the koan. In a teisho, the teacher is not trying to convey information, but to give expression to the direct experience of the ultimate nature of reality and to speak directly to the students’ inherently awakened nature. The language of the teisho is often paradoxical or poetic, like the language of koans. As Zen teacher John Daido Loori says, dharma talks are “dark to the mind but radiant to the heart.”
Caricatures of Christianity
If you visit a Zen center or read more about Zen, you may encounter caricatures of and prejudices about Christianity, either subtle or explicit. More than half of the Zen practitioners in the United States are from Christian backgrounds, and while some of them are practicing Christians, most are not. Since the former Christians were often attracted to Zen in part because of its differences from the Christianity they knew, they can find it puzzling to encounter Zen practitioners who are Christian.
You may hear, from Zen teachers or other Zen practitioners, that Zen is more intellectually satisfying than Christianity, that Christianity is too judgmental and moralistic, that Christianity focuses on belief to the neglect of religious experience, that Christianity confuses mythical and factual language, that Christianity is too hierarchical, or that Christianity is dualistic in understanding God as entirely separate and distinct from human beings and the rest of creation. Of course, such statements are often mistaken generalizations from particular manifestations of Christianity or they reveal an uninformed or unsophisticated understanding of Christianity. If you find yourself in a conversation like this, you might take it as an opportunity to offer a bit of religious education or, in some cases, a bit of pastoral care to a wounded former Christian.
The Catholic church my husband belonged to in Boulder sponsored an event that was officially called something like “Apology Night” but unofficially called “We’re Sorry We Screwed You Up Night.” Former and lapsed Catholics were invited to come tell church representatives how they’d been hurt by the church and were promised that these representatives would simply listen and apologize—no arguments, no excuses, no attempts at reevangelization. As a Christian at a Zen center, you might on occasion feel like you’re the representative of Christianity at We’re Sorry We Screwed You Up Night. And perhaps the most helpful thing you can do is simply to listen and, if it seems appropriate, offer an apology.
Community
If you’re going to a Zen center, looking for the sense of community that you can find at many churches, you may find it, but you may not. Since Zen practitioners gather mainly to sit in silence and do a little chanting, you may sit with people for months before you have occasion even to learn their names.
Brian and I had been participating in the Thursday evening sitting of a small Zen group in Boulder for maybe half a year when we were invited to a picnic. It had been about two years since the group had planned a social event, and they decided it was about time for another. One of the members of the group also invited us to a party at his house once. Those are the only two times we socialized with other members of that Zen group.
But even without much ordinary social interaction, you may develop a special sense of connection with the people you sit with regularly, especially if you do sesshin together.
Sesshin
The sesshin, or silent, intensive meditation retreat, is the heart of Zen training. Even Western Zen centers that have stripped down Zen to its bare bones offer sesshins, lasting from a day to a week.
The primary activity of sesshin (pronounced “seh-shin” or “seh-sheen”) is zazen—about eight hours a day, usually in blocks of two or three sitting periods of about thirty minutes each. The blocks of sitting are interspersed with meals, chanting, dharma talks, a short work period, and some time to rest. Usually, some of the meals during sesshin are eaten in the zendo in an elaborate ritual called oryoki (pronounced like “Oreo cookie” without the “coo”) that encourages the continued practice of attention to the present moment and an appreciation for the food and the labors that go into bringing us the meals. During sesshin, there are daily dharma talks and daily opportunities to meet with a teacher in dokusan.
The Japanese word sesshin literally means “collecting the heart-mind.” (Shin can be translated as “heart,” “mind,” “spirit,” or “consciousness,” among other things.) Sesshin is an intensive and extended opportunity to collect one’s scattered attention and to practice awareness of the present moment. In one sense, you are all alone with yourself during sesshin, collecting your own heart-mind, but you are also part of a group of people who are practicing collectively—sitting together, walking together, chanting together, eating together, working together.
Sesshin is a challenging practice, both physically and mentally. It’s not easy to sit still with one’s body and mind for an extended period. But there seems to be a consensus among Zen practitioners that the first two days of a sesshin are generally the most difficult, and then you settle in and get into the swing of it. (This is a problem with one-day and weekend sesshins: you only get the hardest part.) When I was living at a Zen monastery, I was always relieved when sesshin was over, but by the time the next sesshin came around three weeks later, I was ready to intensify my practice again.
At the end of sesshin, the participants tend to look all bright and shiny. This may be in part because everyone is high on endorphins from sitting still with physical pain. But I don’t think that’s all it is. After many days of noticing wandering thoughts and returning to the present moment, one’s attachments and aversions lose some of their power and one is more prone simply to attend to and appreciate each moment.
Sesshin is an especially good opportunity to practice and experience the liberation from self and suffering that the Buddha taught—to practice and experience our inherent freedom to live a life of joy and compassion.