The Benefits of Meditating/Accounts of

[Green_Dreads]

I've heard a lot of ppl tell a lot of good things since I began Zazen. I've been told it will help my concerntration, my clarity of thought and ease my preception of reality. It will provide with a greater level of logic and more vivid ability to imagine and create.

While all this is very tempting I would like to hear from ppl who have actually been there and done that, and discovered first hand the benefits of meditating, regardless of school.

Thanks for any replies. Peace

[Chrono]

How long have you been meditating since this has happend?

I've noticed some things myself in the short time I've been doing it. Most notably was that I noticed that I was becoming more calm and relaxed. My patience, I think, has improved as well.

Jon

[nicojo]

Meditation doesn't work fast enough for me.













(I have nothing to contribute but keep going.)

[Joseph Svinth]

How about learning to sleep sitting up?

From http://ejmas.com/jcs/jcsart_narimatsu_0101.htm

"From late February until mid-April 1961, aikido founder Morihei Ueshiba was in Hawaii. While visiting the Big Island, Ueshiba Sensei stayed at the Nonaka home, and as host, Mr. Nonaka took the Founder and Tohei Sensei to see the volcanoes. It is a long, boring drive, and so both passengers soon fell asleep. Ueshiba Sensei sat in the back seat, and his head bobbed like anyone else’s. However, Tohei Sensei in the passenger seat sat bolt upright, swaying from side-to-side like a Daruma doll. Later Mr. Nonaka told Tohei Sensei that at least in sleeping in cars, he was clearly the senior here. Tohei Sensei laughed and said that this was the result of his Zen training. Whenever he returned to Japan from abroad, he always went to a monastery for two weeks to restore his equilibrium. During free time at the monastery, you couldn’t lie down, but you could sleep sitting up. So he always went to sit near a waterfall. That way if he swayed too much he’d fall in the pond, and not liking to get wet, he had learned to sleep sitting straight up."

[J.T. Hurley]

Growing up, whenever I got one of my frequent ear infections I always slept sitting bolt upright in an unreclined recliner. Not only did it lessen the pain considerably, but it rested me as well as a regular eight hours in bed.

YMMV

[Green_Dreads]

Joseph, that's a fantastic story, but since it contains Ueshiba-sensei I'm doomed to find it interesting. My current garden doesn't have a pound and I've taken to sleeping either on a futon or in a bed, but then I'm yet to go to a Buddhist monastery so I'm safe for now.

[not-I]

Originally posted by Green_Dreads
I've heard a lot of ppl tell a lot of good things since I began Zazen. I've been told it will help my concerntration, my clarity of thought and ease my preception of reality. It will provide with a greater level of logic and more vivid ability to imagine and create.

While all this is very tempting I would like to hear from ppl who have actually been there and done that, and discovered first hand the benefits of meditating, regardless of school.

Thanks for any replies. Peace

Hi Stephen,

We met before in a similar thread. I've been practicing Rinzai Zen under a qualified teacher in the Myoshin-ji lineage for about five or six years now (so not really that long), and have done several Dai Sesshin (7-day monastic meditation retreats with lots of Zazen, Kinhin, chanting, formal meals, Koan practice, and little sleep).

While the initial effects of doing zazen regularly can include those you mentioned, and can be summed up in the experience of learning to step back from your "self," emotions, etc. with an increasing degree of objectivity and occassionally losing yourself in activities, they are not really the aim of Zen practice. If one continues earnestly on this path, the very idea of the "self" is called seriously into question and is ultimately seen as empty in the experience of Kensho (seeing your True Nature).

When i first started, i meditated regularly at the zendo and at home, and after a few months, i began to notice some of the subtle effects you mentioned. (A banal example: I was watching a speech by a politician where i normally would have been cursing and throwing things at the TV, and suddenly noticed i was only vaguely irritated). As i had just come out from a nasty break-up and a period of depression, i took the practice very seriously, and started to go on retreats, starting with one-day Zazenkai and weekends, and then a Go Sesshin (5-day retreat), and finally Dai Sesshin. This is where the actual practice hit full force. With the effort and pain of sitting half-hour periods of zazen for hours, the resulting concentration, the lack of sleep (about 4 or 5 hours), and the stress of following the strict forms, the individual interviews with my teacher became brutal confrontations with my self, or rather, with my idea of myself, i.e. my ego. Many of my own preconceptions, delusions, and self-deceptions (there are still many more, and most of the ones i thought i was "over" continue to pop up)were made so blindingly obvious, that i often felt like just breaking down and weeping.

After one of these Sesshin, i had an experience that i will not call kensho, but which definately shook me and my conception of the world. I will not try to describe it in detail, as it would probably just sound weird to most people, but suffice it to say, it began with someone ringing the doorbell which turned into a gong ringing into infinity and it was like the bottom dropping out of a water-filled barrel. For a day or two there was no fear of death and the world appeared in a kind of grey moonlight. People, plants, and even objects were full of life and not separate from "me." The experience was so powerful that i found it hard to sleep and began thinking about it too much, leading to a brief loss of touch with reality (i suppose psychologists might call it a psychotic episode - although i was rather harmless and only got on my friends' nerves), which lasted about a week.

I now think this experience was rather shallow, but it definately left lasting changes in my conceptions. My teacher never directly confirmed this experience, but later said, "Anyone can get enlightened. The point is to integrate and live the insights gained in practice in daily life." Nowadays, i'm not so worried about "getting enlightened," but simply concerned with getting and keeping my life in order on an everyday basis and peeling away more layers of the ego-onion, which is hard enough. I continue to practice, but with much less idea of trying to gain any specific benefits from it.

This was a very personal account, and the first time i've really written it down, but i think that's what you were asking for. My point though, is that sitting zazen at home once or twice a day will likely make you calmer, more objective, and concentrated (and probably improve your MA practice as well), but it is only a glimpse of a formal practice with a teacher that is both the adventure of a lifetime (a wild, dangerous, and very rough ride on the way to answering the question "What is my self?" with the rug repeatedly getting pulled from under your feet) and, at the end of the day, an empty form that only becomes more ordinary as you stick with it (just like martial arts in a good dojo).

[Neil Yamamoto]

Omori Roshi of the IZS and his account of enlightenment.

My experience is not very impressive, so I don't like to talk about it, but.... I finished zazen and went to the toilet. I heard the sound of the urine hitting the back of the urinal. It splashed and sounded very loud to me. At that time I thought, "Aha!" and I understood. I had a deep realization.

"I AM," I thought, and I was very happy. But it was not a showy or flashy experience. It was even not very clean ....

[Green_Dreads]

Neil, thank you for sharing that story, I found it very impressive. It sounds like you have the kind of interest in Zen to actually reach Enlightenment or at least understand what it means - which is more than most of us can hope for.

I have discovered some benefits from both attempting traditional meditations and simply through 'not trying' to meditate, but just letting it happen. Whether this is a seperate technique to Zazen I don't know, but rather than thinking about the breathing and the route to Zazen from normal mentality... well I have a way of doing it that seems to be working better for me, and since I discovered this method I've had a lot more benefits.

I've tried writing things down and trying to make sense of my mind through self-pyschoanalysis, but whether this can be seen as effective is entirely up for debate. I'm a happy man, 19, bright future, doing well in studies, in budo, reasonable social life, nothing too heavy. I do get a little fustrated when forced to confront realities around me though. Why are humans so evil to each other, for example? In Luton, there are Thailand sex slaves, drug addicts mugging ppl daily, domestic violence... there's other things around that bother me. The evils of the sex trade, reality TV, the drug trade, the cost of human pleasure.

I intend to find a teacher to help me further my practise.

[Chrono]

Originally posted by not-I
and have done several Dai Sesshin (7-day monastic meditation retreats with lots of Zazen, Kinhin, chanting, formal meals, Koan practice, and little sleep).

That sounds like fun. I assume you enjoyed it since you kept going to them. Why so little sleep, though? I thought that would help with the relaxation.

Jon

[not-I]

Originally posted by Green_Dreads
I have discovered some benefits from both attempting traditional meditations and simply through 'not trying' to meditate, but just letting it happen. Whether this is a seperate technique to Zazen I don't know, but rather than thinking about the breathing and the route to Zazen from normal mentality... well I have a way of doing it that seems to be working better for me, and since I discovered this method I've had a lot more benefits.

Counting breaths, focussing on a point on the floor, etc. are simply exercises to quiet thinking in zazen, especially at the beginning. If you can already "just let it happen," that's wonderful, go for it! It's not a seperate technique, it IS zazen. Just remember to keep posture, and when thoughts crop up, as they often will, let them pass and return to those basic techniques. Again, these are the kind of questions that a qualified teacher who knows you and your practice can answer with much more pertinence.

Good Luck and Gassho!

[not-I]

Originally posted by Chrono
That sounds like fun. I assume you enjoyed it since you kept going to them. Why so little sleep, though? I thought that would help with the relaxation.

Zazen is relaxing and refreshing, but within Zen practice as a whole, it is primarily a tool for realization. Sesshin ("collecting the mind") are not designed to be enjoyable or fun. Despite impressions that they might be nice, relaxing retreat-weeks, they are designed to be as intense and stressful as possible (within a specified traditional form) in order to provide the framework for concentrated practice and possible breakthroughs to actual insight. After your knees and shoulders are on fire after several days of sitting, you have trouble remembering correct form and staying awake, you're desperately trying to solve a koan such as "What is your True Self before your parents were born?" and your teacher has little mercy for your tender ego, the concept of fun becomes irrelevant.

The moments where we feel we can't go on any more are the same moments where we may discover that we can, and learn something in the process.

There is an old Zen saying about scaling a ten-meter pole -- Now climb another meter up.

[Chrono]

Originally posted by not-I
you're desperately trying to solve a koan such as "What is your True Self before your parents were born?"

That is exactly the same question my philosophy professor had asked me when I was in her class. I had no answer for her, no one did.

Originally posted by not-I There is an old Zen saying about scaling a ten-meter pole -- Now climb another meter up.

I don't know, I kind of like that attitude. I think I would enjoy a weekend like that, even though I may not show it.

Jon

[Joseph Svinth]

Y'all are making this much harder than it needs to be.

Who was I before my parents were born? Four words: "Before Abraham, I am."

For the tree falling in the forest, there are several reasonable replies. Most of these gasbags get annoyed by detailed discussions of acoustics, so try this more amusing response instead: "Gee, Doc, if I'm at your house screwing your wife, and you aren't there to see it, are you still being cuckolded?" If he says yes, you reply, "Damn," and if he says no, you say, "Whew, that's a relief."

For one hand clapping, you have alternatives. One is to immediately bitch-slap the questioner, and then say, "Want to hear it again?" Alternatively, rub your fingers against your palm, in the universal sign for baksheesh, and say, "Aha! The true meaning of the Buddha revealed."

Cynical? How so? If the purpose is to defeat Ego, then a small first step involves eliminating the Confucian notion of respect and filial loyalty. Thus, the true meaning of "Meet the Buddha on the road, kill him."

As for sitting and breathing, alternatives include not-breathing, which tends to make you turn blue, and doing something constructive, such as chop wood, carry water, drive freeway. Much to be said for the latter.

***

Almost forgot. Climbing 11 meters up the 10-meter pole? That's the moment for modesty. You bow graciously, and say, "After you."

[nicojo]

Much appreciated, all.