Sit to your Limit, Plus One Minute
For Raw Beginners:
When just beginning to learn zazen and practicing alone at home, to “sit to your limit plus one minute” can help you develop ease and the prerequisite patience with a practice that can play an important part in how you view and live your life.
Take the time you need to get the very best posture that you can. Nose and navel are aligned on one plane; ear, shoulder and hipbone on another, back of the waist well forward. If using a chair, do not depend on its back. If using a cushion, sit, not on top of it, but with your sit bones on the front third of it. Knees are thus in a position lower than the hipbones so that the abdomen does not cave in.
If using a chair, feet are parallel on the floor.
If sitting on the floor, legs are aligned parallel in the Burmese position, or half or full lotus position. Chin is tucked in slightly. Top of the head is aimed toward the ceiling. Eyes are partly open, gazing downward at a 45 degree angle, with a soft focus. Left hand fingers overlap right hand fingers in your lap, little fingers against the body, thumbs lightly meeting at the tips in a straight line. Elbows are a little away from the body. Sway slightly to left and right, and then front and back to ascertain your true center. Exhale fully and deeply once through the mouth, expelling all air and thoughts. Close lips and place tongue to palate. Then quietly, with no sound, let the breath do the breathing. Maintain this position without strain, without moving. Don’t worry about a clock or bell. Simply sit to feel at ease enjoying your sitting and breathing. As Aoyama Roshi taught, “Let yourself be babysat by zazen.” Like a smart trout, don’t bite at lures on hooks–the various thoughts that come to mind. Don’t buy into any thoughts, good or bad. Just let them pass on by, keeping attention on the breath. Not being distracted by thoughts, the breath calms and slows down naturally on its own.
An ancestral teacher, whose name I cannot ascertain, is said to have taught:
And letting breathing in naturally fill me,
All that is left is this empty cushion
Under the vast sky,
The weight of a flame.
There is no breathing technique or contrivance in Soto Zen’s shikantaza, or “just sitting.” We are breathed by the causes and conditions of our life, through this body and mind, not separate from the universe. When self is abandoned, what could be on the cushion? Not the cushion made of stuffing, but the cushion called the universe–all of heaven and earth. “Under the vast sky”, this has the of meaning of KU, “that of no obstacle”, or of “pregnant potential.” The last line, “The weight of a flame,” is what is sitting the zazen practice. In another tradition, there is a guided meditation practice of looking at the five elements that comprise the body. One part is: “Breathing in, I see the element of fire in me.” Seeing ourselves as the weight of a flame burns away all other adjectives, leaving simply our pristine “livingness.”
At some point, your feet, legs or back will want you to stop. Be aware of what is taking place in the body. Notice that probably most of your life you have not hesitated to shift upon the first sign of physical discomfort. With zazen practice it’s important to get clear on when ego is trying to distract you, and get you to give up, and when there is a genuine need to end the stillness. In order to see just how much everything in the world moves, you have to gradually find your own way not to move.
When the feeling to move cannot be dissuaded, ask your body to remain still for what feels like one more minute without looking at the time. End your zazen with a gassho, placing palms up momentarily on each knee as you sway left and right, front and back to ease out of the stillness. Stand when you have full feeling in your legs, bow to your seat, the entry to the True Self, turn outwards clockwise and bow in the opposite direction, the world of interdependence with others.
Proceed to do walking meditation around where you had been sitting. Left hand forms a fist around the left thumb, this placed at solar plexus. Right hand overlaps left, this clasp turning inward, back of the right hand facing up, and the joint of the right thumb under the rib cage, elbows away from the body, feet a comfortable distance apart for balance. Walking slowly in a circle around your seat, each foot is lifted on the inbreath, placed a half step forward, shifting hip weight, and lifting the opposite heel imperceptibly, while breathing out. Attention is on the bottoms of your feet, not in getting anywhere. It might take about five minutes to come around to where you started. Then bowing to your seat, and to the opposite direction, sit down once more, taking a good posture. Immediately you will experience the accumulative effect of zazen, and feel encouraged by how much easier it is the second time to sit than the first time. Again, sit until your body feels it cannot remain still any longer. Then ask it for one more patience practice of what feels like one minute. Then end your zazen in the same way as mentioned after the first sitting.
Try and do this every day, if possible. In the beginning, it doesn’t matter what the amount of time is. Five minutes is fine when you are just starting out, or when you are very busy. Five minutes is better than no minute. Over time, the length of your sitting will grow naturally, on its own. It matters that, at first, the body feels no threat by a time limit. With this ease of mind, after a while, the body begins to look forward to what it is doing and begins to bring you to the meditation place. With the one minute of patience practice, you soon experience that this one minute of extra patience is at work for you in other situations, as well. In fact, other people might notice it first about you.
Before long, you are ready to sit with other people with no anxiety about the time. When you sit with other people, then your practice will begin to grow and mature. The number of minutes a group sits can vary from 20 minutes to 35 minutes or more, in some cases. You will be able to experience for yourself that, in preparing for some patience and endurance with the body, greater ease can then come to both body and mind. In this way, you are able to build a settled practice that becomes an integral part of your every day life. Then the real work of deepening your practice and enriching your understanding can begin.
