What do I do at meditation?
For those of us coming to the meditation
service at Chuang Yen monastery:
Yoga friends,
I would consider this as just sitting with my eyes
closed.
"Well, what do I do while I'm sitting with eyes
closed? Is there a procedure, something step by
step, to hang my hat on?"
We've heard about letting go of our thoughts. Not
thinking about anything and letting our mind be
empty sounds all well and good, but how is that
done? Thinking about no thought is like scraping
a rock to experience a soft breeze.
Don't worry about it. That's the first thing. At
worst, I can always fall back on my thoughts. In
case I should find myself in a thoughtless void and
panic sets in, I can always just think about stuff.
Problem solved because I know how to do that.
Or else, if I'm not meditating attentively, maybe
I'll fall asleep.
At least it will be an interesting experiment in
trying to detach my brain from activities outside
of myself and seeing for how long I can do this.
At best, without all the external information
pouring in thru the senses, the electrical circuitry
in my brain quiets down enough for me to look /
listen inside, down past that watery surface of the
self and see a glimpse of what the Buddhists call
my original face.
Come and exercise by trying not to move,
physically or mentally, on Sunday morning.
)ohn
service at Chuang Yen monastery:
Yoga friends,
I would consider this as just sitting with my eyes
closed.
"Well, what do I do while I'm sitting with eyes
closed? Is there a procedure, something step by
step, to hang my hat on?"
We've heard about letting go of our thoughts. Not
thinking about anything and letting our mind be
empty sounds all well and good, but how is that
done? Thinking about no thought is like scraping
a rock to experience a soft breeze.
Don't worry about it. That's the first thing. At
worst, I can always fall back on my thoughts. In
case I should find myself in a thoughtless void and
panic sets in, I can always just think about stuff.
Problem solved because I know how to do that.
Or else, if I'm not meditating attentively, maybe
I'll fall asleep.
At least it will be an interesting experiment in
trying to detach my brain from activities outside
of myself and seeing for how long I can do this.
At best, without all the external information
pouring in thru the senses, the electrical circuitry
in my brain quiets down enough for me to look /
listen inside, down past that watery surface of the
self and see a glimpse of what the Buddhists call
my original face.
Come and exercise by trying not to move,
physically or mentally, on Sunday morning.
)ohn
posted by John at 10:25 PM
1 Comments:
part 2- meditation technique
begin with focusing on breath. the monks at the chung yen monastary
guide us one step at a time:
1) count our breath. counting either each inhalation or exhalation,
count from one to ten. we continue repeating the count until ten
during the meditation.
we try to keep our thoughts entirely on the movement in and out.
we can instead count the length of inbreath and outbreath, or we
can count not by number but by ascribing the sound "han" to
each inhale and "sa" to the exhales.
2) follow our breath. breath following is watching without influencing.
the coolness of the outside air gently being warmed by its passage
thru the nose. the little eddies of current inside our nasal passages.
the warmth of our interior bodies reflected in the temperature of
the outbreath.
we watch the flow reaching the apex at inhalation, see that instant
where the breath shifts to exhale and follow it to its nadir. we notice
notice if the transition includes a pause, how much the flow seems
overlap directions or else crosses that point of balance beyond
which breath flows in the opposite direction.
the shifting balance of yin and yang exists in our breath. as inhale
increases, exhale diminishes and within the fullness of one exists
the seed of its counterbalance. our heart pumps enriched blood
from the full expansion of our lungs even as co2 exchange happens
to allow exhale. the balance is apparent in the deflation of our lungs
helping to draw the veinous blood back to the heart by creating the
vacuum in the chest cavity even as that same vacuum allows the
next intake of breath.
we can practice the 4 other steps to breath awareness
after we practice these first 2 methods.
.....................................................................................................
part 1- monastery life day-to-day
the vegetarian food at the monastery is a strange assortment
of sea cabbage dishes mixed with tofu alternatives. every morning
there is a large pot of rice porridge from which we serve ourselves
along with filling our plate with cooked greens, some cold, some
squishy. surprizingly the food is tasty, generously spiced with
ginger and garlic. we all eat a lot, platefuls and seconds.
working meditation is cleaning up and helping to prepare for
the next meal, which is always a vegetarian variation.
the morning has four meditation sessions divided by fifteen
minute breaks for stretching our knees or back or hips or whatever
else is causing pain during our sitting. outside of meditation there is
essential speaking such as a greeting or question but chatting is
discouraged.
each session begins with a walking meditation around the edge
of the large carpeted space, in the middle with a tall buddha statue.
it lasts for fifteen minutes but halfway thru, the monks sound a bell
and cry out something like "vamos" in chinese, whereupon we all
take off and start walking fast, sounding like a thundering herd.
the rest of the hour we do sitting meditation, eyes closed,
watching our breath, stilling our minds. it seems the best way to
empty our minds is to do nothing. the daily turbulance subsides
enough so that our experience becomes a quiet space thru which we
can listen for our true selves, physical and spiritual. it is simple
reasoning, direct in its approach and difficult to accomplish.
after lunch, more working meditation (clean up and food prep),
then rest til 2pm. three more hourlong meditation sessions, walking
and sitting, in the afternoon, the last one with chanting, which we
always do standing in rows, reciting in chinese from our phonetic
booklets. the monks wear plain brown robes, quiltlined sandals and
bald heads. most are young.
at 5:30 there is dinner for half an hour then brief working
meditation. the kitchen monks stay in working meditation after we
return to the dormitory for showertime. men sleep in one building,
women in another, in the basements below each huge buddha hall.
before lights out at 9pm there is a communal sharing about the
success or difficulty of our meditation that day.
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