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Sitting in Chairs is not Zazen
DaltheJigsaw
Mountain View Veteran
My interview on conscious.tv is up. But it's kind of hard to find. First you have to go to this page:
http://www.conscious.tv/nonduality.html
Then you'll get a screen that looks like this:
See how I've circled where it says "traditions" and put an arrow showing where it is? Click there and it takes you to another page and on the top of that page on the right hand side you'll see my interview. Click on me and enjoy! Or go to this convenient link and see if that works http://bcove.me/5evkpoh3. I'm embedding it at the bottom of this page, but I'm using a new program that I'm not totally sure about.
Today I am in Antwerp, Belgium. I caught the intercity rail out of Brentwood, Essex yesterday, changed to the Hammersmith & City tube line at Liverpool Street station, arrived at King's Cross/St. Pancras, made my way to the Eurostar line, took a train under the English Channel and soon arrived in Bruxelles Midi station. There my friend Isabelle and her sister Melissa picked me up and drove me to Antwerp with a quick stop for some frietjes covered in mayonnaise and ketchup.
This weekend I'll be running two events in Antwerp; a talk on Saturday and a day of zazen on Sunday. Information can be found at http://www.rsyoga.eu/. Go to that page, then click on "workshops," then click on "12-13 November 2011 - Brad Warner - Antwerpen" and it's all there in plain Dutch.
Last weekend I led a day of meditation in Brentwood, Essex. Let me tell you a little about that.
http://hardcorezen.blogspot.com/2011/11/sitting-in-chairs-is-not-zazen-part-one.html
http://www.conscious.tv/nonduality.html
Then you'll get a screen that looks like this:
See how I've circled where it says "traditions" and put an arrow showing where it is? Click there and it takes you to another page and on the top of that page on the right hand side you'll see my interview. Click on me and enjoy! Or go to this convenient link and see if that works http://bcove.me/5evkpoh3. I'm embedding it at the bottom of this page, but I'm using a new program that I'm not totally sure about.
Today I am in Antwerp, Belgium. I caught the intercity rail out of Brentwood, Essex yesterday, changed to the Hammersmith & City tube line at Liverpool Street station, arrived at King's Cross/St. Pancras, made my way to the Eurostar line, took a train under the English Channel and soon arrived in Bruxelles Midi station. There my friend Isabelle and her sister Melissa picked me up and drove me to Antwerp with a quick stop for some frietjes covered in mayonnaise and ketchup.
This weekend I'll be running two events in Antwerp; a talk on Saturday and a day of zazen on Sunday. Information can be found at http://www.rsyoga.eu/. Go to that page, then click on "workshops," then click on "12-13 November 2011 - Brad Warner - Antwerpen" and it's all there in plain Dutch.
Last weekend I led a day of meditation in Brentwood, Essex. Let me tell you a little about that.
http://hardcorezen.blogspot.com/2011/11/sitting-in-chairs-is-not-zazen-part-one.html
0
Comments
So according to Mr. Warner, only sitting on the floor or maybe a cushion with legs folded in lotus position is zazen? Wait, it can also be half lotus, and that's still zazen. Or is that only half zazen? OK, so the Seiza kneeling posture is also zazen, because that's also traditional, but only if someone has a doctor's excuse that keeps them from doing full lotus. So that's, what, quarter zen? And if someone is sitting lotus, but listening to rock music on earphones, are they still doing zazen, and if not, why not?
You see where this is going? It's confusing form with function. Zazen is sitting meditation. Period. Nothing more, no bull about traditional ways of sitting being the 'authentic' zazen. Zazen is sitting meditation. Sitting in a chair is not traditional Japanese or Asian zazen meditation posture, certainly. You know who should care one way or another? Traditional Japanese zen centers.
People sit in lotus on the floor to meditate because that's how the Eastern cultures sit in comfort -- on the floor, with legs folded because what else are you going to do with the legs that doesn't let people trip on them. They sit this way from the time they are babies. If Western people lived on the floor, we'd find lotus comfortable. And no, Mr. Warner, we don't sit in chairs because we're a lazy people. We don't sit on the floor because unlike the East, the floors aren't heated and our houses aren't designed with tiny rooms and we don't come from a culture where only royalty were even allowed furniture on threat of beheading. So we sit in chairs, mostly. Bit deal. It's as natural to us as sitting on a cushion is to a Japanese monk.
Zazen is sitting meditation. If you sit in meditation in a chair, that is zazen. If you twist your legs into a pretzel but don't meditate, you aren't doing zazen. What your butt sits on and how much you torture you legs has nothing to do with zazen.
So sit down. Meditate. There, you're doing zazen. Is it good or bad zazen? Even asking the question is wrong. Sit. Meditate. Anything else is widely missing the mark.
If you'd like to make a case for zazen being exclusively lotus sitting, please do so. I could very well be wrong and I'm definitely interested in your logic. But if what I've been doing for the past ten years, since I gave up painful legs for comfortable meditation, isn't zazen, it's good enough for me.
The last doctor I went to told me I'd probably caused my knee problems due to the many hours as a young man sitting in meditation and pain should never be ignored. So for Western zazen, maybe we can focus more on what we're trying to do and less on how other people do it. Just something to think about.
Of course meditation is not dependent on any one posture or anything but the fact remains that the posture holds and every genuine Buddhist teacher/Master has cultivated in (typically) seated but regardless, formal, meditation periods over long periods of time.
Like anything else, sitting in zazen is something that you have to condition yourself for. I still can't do the lotus position, but I can do the Burmese or 'tailor' posture, which is where the legs are folded in front but the feet sit on the floor rather than on the opposite thighs. I'm hoping to build up to the lotus gradually as my flexibility increases.
So far, the lack of lotus in my life hasn't stopped me from meditating. Whether that is 'zazen' according to some uptight purist is neither here nor there. A good meditation teacher - indeed, a good teacher of anything - will accept the current limitations of the student and not try to force them into something they aren't ready for, whilst encouraging them to test their ability from time to time to see if they can move on from where they started from. A good teacher doesn't sneer and say 'you're not doing it properly'.