Flowing Zen: Foundations of Meditation Practice
“Be like water.” — Bruce Lee
“flowing water does not argue with itself” — Tashiro Roshi
Zen - Questions and Answers on Meditation Practice
by Ken Shuho Small
Why engage in Zen meditation practice?
Zen meditation offers a clear method of discovering our innate mind/body balance center. This method is the practice of unifying our awareness, breath and body, in the seamless experience of self and other. Engaging this daily practice opens a more fluid, spacious awareness … ‘flowing water does not argue with itself’. Our thoughts, feelings, emotions, sensations, memories, all arise … and fall away … within this spacious awareness of engaging and nurturing through our Zen meditation practice our innate balance center.
How to practice Zen meditation?
Optimal meditation requires much more than just sitting comfortably. Zen meditation involves a specific kind of breathing, posture and awareness, which we call the ‘yoga of Zen’. This specific method of unifying Awareness in our Breathing and Posture, is the basis of this centering process.
Zen offers a subtle and far reaching inner ‘yogic’ practice of working with our body/mind that establishes a more open and effective basis for inner awakening.
While it does take our dedicated time and effort of applying the Zen method to achieve the clear body/mind shift needed, the beneficial results of increasing inner balance and harmony are far reaching and life changing.
Sitting Meditation Posture
When seated, neither to the left nor the right, forward nor backward. When viewed from the side, your ears and shoulders should be in a straight line and from the front, your nose will be in a straight line with your navel.
Place your tongue against the roof of your mouth and maintain your lips closed. This helps seal the flowing of subtle energies during meditation.
Your legs can be in full or half lotus position, a kneeling position (seza) with cushion or bench to sit on or a seated in a chair, all depending on ones flexibility.
Your eyes should be slightly open with a broad 180 degree gaze.
Your breathing should be silent and soft through the nose.
Maintain your awareness intimately unified with this body/breath/posture.
Deep Center Cultivation of Breath/Body/Awareness
Deep Center Cultivation is called tanden soku. This yogic practice is also found in Tibetan Varjayana Buddhism, in Taosim and other traditions. This practice deepens our innate capacity for establishing a strong centering core in our meditation; a strong vehicle for our practice. We will give instruction during these introductory classes on how to cultivate this essential practice.
Awareness: The Zen View
As you inhale, ‘self’ arises; as you exhale ‘self’ releases completely.
In this precious moment, hearing the birds sing and wind blow in the trees,
Who am I ?
“Be in possession of a mind that has been let go of.” - Takuan Soho
“What we call ‘I’ is just a swinging door which moves when we inhale and when we exhale.” - Suzuki Roshi
Intro Video to Zen Practice
A short film for beginners about zen meditation by Taigen Shodo Harada Roshi, abbot of Sogen-ji monastery in Okayama: https://youtu.be/Nib0Pov-lsQ
What are the benefits?
When this method is engaged in consistently and with clear, present awareness, in the right way, a new fluidity and freedom arises sourced from our core balance point.
This opens us to a broadening bandwidth and ease in navigating life’s challenges and a natural
and spontaneous all encompassing awareness.
This Zen balance point practice, expands our receptivity and creativity where flowing into a deeper co-creative and vibrant relationship with life arises spontaneously and naturally.
Gradually within this enhanced flow of life, moments of awakening spontaneously occur. These ‘pinpricks of satori’ cut through our delusion of separation opening us to embrace a greater field of being and awakening.
Recommended Zen Readings
Zen Mind Beginners Mind by Suzuki Roshi
The Rinzai Zen Way: A Guide to Practice by Meido Moore
Hidden Zen: Practices for Sudden Awakening and Embodied Realization by Meido Moore
Invoking Reality: Moral and Ethical Teachings of Zen by John Daido Loori
The Practice of the Six Perfections by Aitken Roshi
The Unfettered Mind by Takuan Soho translated by William Scott Wilson
Crazy Clouds: Zen Radicals, Rebels and Reformers by Perle Besserman and Manfred Steger
The Diamond Sutra translated by Red Pine
Zen Retreat Practice Centers
Jemez Bodhi Manda
Jemez Springs, New Mexico
Bodhi Manda Zen Center (bmzc.org)
Korinji Monastery - Meido Moore Roshi
Reedsburg, Wisconsin
Meditation | Korinji Rinzai Zen Community, Madison Wisconsin
One Drop Zen - Shodo Harada Roshi
Puget Sound Zen Center
Vashon, Washington