Unpacking Zazen (bare awareness meditation) “Just do it” OR “Sit as though saving your head from fire”
(moon in a dewdrop, writings from Master Dogen edited by kazuaki tanahashi)
Edited for print from Dharma talk given on September 22, 2020 at the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center
By Carrie Garcia
Part of Soto Zen practice, we could say the center of Soto Zen, is the practice of “just sitting” or zazen.
When I first started a Zen practice, that’s the first thing I did, I “just sat”. I came into a room filled with black cushions, “zafus and zabutons” and I saw how people were sitting on them and I imitated their posture. I “just sat”.
I HAD meditated before, before I found Zen. I had a home practice, were I sat on a cushion in front of an altar, did various guided meditation and imageries. I would meditate off and on. I did not have a regular practice for a long time. I continued like this, on and off my cushion, letting life jostle me around and being surprised, astonished and incredulous when things did not go my way and wondering what was wrong with me.
Susan Hirshfield a writer and Buddhist who received lay ordination in 1979 and studied at the San Francisco Zen Center under Suzuki Roshi tells the story that Suzuki Roshi told her, that of Baso and the tile. Baso, who’s nickname is Horse-master is sitting zazen in the monastery garden. His teacher, Nangaku, saw him and asked, “What are you doing?” Baso answered, “I am sitting zazen.” “Why are you doing that?” asked Nangaku. “Because I want to be a buddha.” Nangaku went to another corner of the garden, picked up a tile, and began to rub it vigorously with a cloth. Baso saw him and asked, “What are you doing?” “I am trying to make a jewelled mirror out of this tile, “ Nangaku replied. “How is it possible to make a mirror by rubbing a tile?” Baso asked. Nangaku answered, “How is it possible to make a buddha by doing zazen?” Of this story, the thirteenth-century teacher Dogen Zenji later said, “When the Horse-master becomes the Horse-master, Zen becomes Zen.”
Susan continues in her essay, Poetry, Zen and the Net of Connection (in the book Beneath a Single Moon) “We write poetry and sit zazen not to become something other than ourselves, a buddha or a mirror but to know in these activities the original face of our lives.”
“Just sit without expectation, not even enlightenment. If we are sitting for a desired outcome (i.e. enlightenment), then there it is, attachment to desire,” said Shohaku Okumura, Minnesota Zen Meditation Center’s second guiding teacher.
The difficult part of this is that we already come to zen (meditation) with desires. It could be that we found our way to a sangha (community) because we didn’t feel happy or we are curious about zen (meditation). We want to gain something (happiness, intellect). So, when we are told to “just sit” with very little other instruction, we might think that this zazen stuff is all just smoke and mirrors.
I think that this is the genius of Dogen, of his instruction that begins with saying so little about the mind (what is causing us suffering) and focuses more on the environment of zazen.
In moon on a dewdrop, “Rules for Zazen” – (zazen-gi), Dogen states, “Practicing Zen is zazen.” He then goes on to lay out the environment….
1. quiet place
2. thick mat
3. no drafts, smoke or dew
4. protect and maintain the place where you settle your body
5. the place you sit should not be dark and it should be warm in the winter and cool in the summer
The whole first 2 paragraphs of instruction are about the environment that would be best to sit. It reminds me of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Google it if you are not familiar. It is a triangle with 5 areas of human needs. Physiological needs are the foundation of the pyramid and have to be met before the pyramid can be built. The foundation is the wide base that supports the other realms, the other needs. I would dare to say that Dogen was including Safety (the second layer) in his introduction to zazen right from the beginning…warm, dry, lighted, free from smoke…a safe place.
Norman Fischer, former abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center, in his book, Experience, Thinking, Writing, Language & Religion states that “Zazen is a physical practice.” Dogen takes care of the physical body first. When I teach Introduction to Zen Meditation, I spend a good portion of my instruction time on how to make the body comfortable. Who has been uncomfortable during meditation? Back hurting, legs turn numb and go all tingly? Who here has tried to stand up after meditation, only to find that they don’t have a working leg or LEGS? I sure have! Taking care of our physical body and our surroundings, making it conducive for the experience of “just sitting”.
To me, the sangha or community, is representative of the next layer of Maslow’s pyramid. It is a place of belonging, it is a place of compassion and love. In places of meditation practice I have found tolerance, support and guidance and a place where, no matter where you were in your life or who you are, an invitation that this practice, that zazen is available to you. AND as I am on the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility committee at the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center, I’ll say that we can make it MORE inclusive and available to all people, especially people of color.
Dogen’s Rules for Zazen continue…(moon in a dewdrop)
“Set aside all involvements and let the myriad things rest. Zazen is not thinking of good, not thinking of bad. It is not conscious endeavor. It is not introspection. “
“Do not desire to become a buddha… (as represented in the story about Baso and his desire to become just that!)
…let sitting or lying down drop away. Be moderate in eating and drinking. Be mindful of the passing of time, and engage yourself in zazen as though saving your head from fire.”
Here’s the good part, the part that I want to rest on. “Engage yourself in zazen as though “saving your head from fire.” I can’t imagine what that would be like. I have not been in a fire. Just recently, a good friend of mine’s house caught on fire. It was very scary for her and luckily she is still alive. Had it not been for her husband who was sleeping on the couch in the living room and work up to the flames from the hearth and the smoke-filled house, she would have NOT survived. Her cats, sadly, did not. There’s great urgency here, in Dogen’s statement. It’s a fire! Your head is going to be on fire if…if what? IF you don’t engage yourself in zazen (bare awareness meditation). RIGHT NOW! Just do it!!
This is the subtitle to my talk…”Just do it!” Yes, I stole it from Nike and I also stole it from a YouTuber called “Hardcore Zen” who has a talk about Dogen’s Fukan-Zazengi, Universal Guide to Standard Method of Zazen. Just do it. Why this? Because that is the hardest thing to do at first (and at first may mean many years)… just get to your cushion. Regularly. Come and sit. Sit for 5 minutes a day, for 10 minutes a day. How can 5 minutes seem like so much time? If I were to tell my boss that I only had 5 minutes a day to read email, I imagine that I might get fired. Yet, if I did an ab workout for 5 minutes a day, I might see a little improvement in my muscle tone around my waist, my back might ache less. AND what if I increased that to 10 minutes of abs a day? Or if I did an hour of ab work a day? WOW! I think I would see LOTS of improvement.
“Zazen is a physical practice.” Physically coming to your cushion daily, sitting upright, aligning your body so that your hips are higher than your knees…
Zazen is a physical practice…physically coming to your cushion to see what’s up with your body. What’s going on there? What ARE those sensations? Can I open up to everything, just as it is?
When you’re sick, do you come to your cushion? Can you be with the SICK you? When you are tired, do you come to your cushion? Can you be with the TIRED you? Save your head from that fire! There is no other time! Come as you are! Because here is the thing… you ARE Buddha. Just like this.
Julie Nelson’s article in Tricycle magazine…(summer 2018) “Sick and Useless Zen” Julie writes about sitting with her illness, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome as she knew it at the time she wrote this article. Her life wasn’t what she knew I to be. She was usually pursuing two ways of being, ”I want to feel good or be good.” Yet, with the symptoms of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome; headaches, body aches, insomnia and general crappiness, she was unable to live in either of the places she pursued before she got sick. She states, “A lot of us come to Zen because deep down we feel that we ourselves need fixing. We hope that Zen will rid us of the bad parts of our character. We fear we have fundamental flaws that make us somehow - perhaps even uniquely among all humans - unable to be appropriately wise, peaceful, vital or loving. We want zen practice itself to serve our productive urges, moving us toward some ideal better self...Yet, Zen, over and over, points us back to the realization that this - even this!- is really it. The basic instructions are, “Sit down, shut up and pay attention!”
So, I invite you to “Just do it”…find a time, find a place, find a teacher, get an app on your phone, start a habit. AND here’s the thing, you don’t need to be perfect, because you already are. If you forget to meditate one day, you forget to meditate one day. You come back tomorrow. If you forget to meditate for a week, you come back the next week. You set an intention and you create time and space for this new habit to form and it will happen. Get support. Surround yourself with people who are “just doing it” too! As my teacher’s teacher teacher, Katagiri Roshi said, “You are already perfect, you just need a little improvement.” His teacher, Suzuki Roshi said, (Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind) …”if you make your best effort to continue your practice with your whole mind and body, without gaining ideas, then whatever you do will be true practice. Just to continue should be your purpose. Form is form and you are you, and true emptiness will be realized in your practice.”
There’s no shaming or blaming, you are already Buddha. Just do it.