Zen?

So Pat the Bastard asked me to write something about Zen.  I just know about meditation.  So here is something about that:

Zen bastards? You need to be a bastard to succeed at meditation.  Tenacious, relentless, and generally unwilling to accept defeat as you start the adventures onto the cushion and into the screaming heebeegeebee depths of what your mind is actually up to.  Maybe you’re a walking bundle of peace and calm?  Excellent.  Otherwise, this may be useful info.

One thing to remember about meditation: it is training.  Even if you are one of the rather uncommon folks to have the spontaneous enlightenment thing fall in your lap, you actually need to sit and be still once in a while if you want to keep that revelation and make it something real.  But, if you are like 99.9999% of us, you will need to learn to meditate, put in your dues, and face some uncomfortable times before the joy starts flowing, the knots unwind, and you start having an inkling about what non-conceptual awareness is all about.

No prob.  There is a long track record of seriously messed up people going all the way with the training.  People collecting and wearing necklaces made from fingers of the people they killed, folks living on cow poop, people who acted like dogs all became enlightened once they got down to actually meditating.  That’s the story.  Seriously, however messed up you think you are, you probably aren’t living on cow poop.  McDonalds may actually be surprisingly close to that, however.

Ok, pep talk done.  Now, what to do? Go sit.  This is always the answer.  Feeling cruddy?  Go sit.  Feeling good?  Go sit.  Find yourself surprisingly drunk at the time you expected to meditate?  Go sit.  Sit every day; plan the time before hand so it’s simple.  Get a timer; sit about 20 minutes till that’s easy.  Then sit longer. 

When you sit, you sit with your spine strait and don’t move.  That’s about all that’s important with posture.  You’ll be sleepy and dull if your spine is not straight or leaning on something.  Chairs are fine, standing is ok too, and sitting in a perfect lotus is also ok.  If you sit on the floor, sit on a cushion that lets your knees be lower then your pelvis.  Tip you pelvis a little forward to straighten the spine, and then don’t move. 

Then what?  You need a plan.  Otherwise you’ll be making lists, having lovely sexual fantasies, and perhaps generally WASTING your time. 

Lets start with the breath.  There are other objects of meditation, but the breath is a good one to start with and perhaps discard at a later date.

Instructions:

When you breath in, be aware you are breathing in.  Relax you entire body and head one time.

When you are breathing out, again be aware of this fact in a very general way.  Relax you entire body and head one time.

That’s it.

Until you get distracted. 

It may be minutes until you remember what you are supposed to be doing.  No prob.  Don’t fight it, just notice when you get distracted.

Let go of the distraction.  Let it be there, don’t push it away or dislike it.  Stop paying attention to it.

Relax you head and body one time. You wont succeed in relaxing everything.  Doesn’t matter.  Move on.

Smile or even better keep smiling, cause it is all hilarious. (and it makes everything easier – there are plenty of fMRI studies about why its good to smile for your brain)  It doesn't matter if you feel like smiling; just get over yourself and do it.

And then go back to relaxing on the in and out breath. 

Do it again.

That’s really it.

Notice, there is no mention of feeling the breath at your nostrils, counting your breaths, scaning your body for tension, putting your mind in the pain, closely examining the sensations of the breath, or anything like that.  Sit, breath, relax, smile and that will get you where you want to go.  Do everything by doing nothing, that’s always then best plan.

You will experience distraction.  Distraction is actually your friend; returning to the breath is the real training.  You might have some uncomfortable feelings.  Whatever.  This method, in fact, opens up you mind so it will do the crazy things it usually does, or has waiting on deck.  Your job is to not react to anything, let it be there, and simply relax on the breath.  If you don’t pay attention to the distraction, it will eventually go away.  Maybe it will take10, 100, or 1000 breaths.  But, if you follow the instructions without adding or removing anything, the distraction will unwind and leave clarity and calm in its wake.  Then you actually get to hang out in Samadhi.  More on that later.

I hope this was helpful.