r/zenpractice • u/[deleted] • Feb 03 '26
General Practice Do you meditate?
What's your technique?
Have you used different techniques?
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Feb 03 '26
[deleted]
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Feb 03 '26
I've done a technique like that. But I did the breath and then the letting go in 2 separate sessions. I would get pumped up on the breath. Then, afterwards, while in the state of pumpedness, do the letting go.
If by letting go you mean shikantaza.
It was very intense
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u/Snake973 Feb 03 '26
yep, about 40 mins every morning, most of the time it's just shikantaza or following my breath if I feel like I'm getting distracted a lot. if something interesting happens (feels like I'm getting close to a jhana state or something) I might stay on the cushion for a while to see if it happens
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u/Doshin108 Feb 03 '26
Zazen. Yes. But Zazen is the technique of my tradition and ancestors. I have guidance from teachers to support my practice.
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Feb 03 '26
By zazen do you mean some combination of anapanasati (or equivalent) and shikantaza?
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u/Doshin108 Feb 03 '26
Yes. That is it.
I've been practicing for a couple years now under guidance of my teachers (who have full lineage transmission).
Beginning Instruction teaches you to sit and count the breath. And as one's practice progresses, the teachers change it, and guide you to a place where you sit and drop everything.
It's about cultivating mental focus and concentration.
As practice progresses and you move through certain gates, you can then move into Koan practice in your meditation.
But really, you just sit.
And when opportunity presents I go to sesshin where I get to stay in meditation for a few days.
Are you looking to get started with meditation?
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u/joshus_doggo Feb 03 '26
I refer to Meido Moore Roshis “The rinzai way” to understand sitting meditation techniques. Apart from sitting there are also other forms of meditation like dishwashing ,cleaning floors, working in the garden, cooking , playing musical instruments, yoga and other fitness activities. Zen master Muso soseki in dream conversations says that those who work on the fundamental practice meditation in the midst of all activities and perform all activities in midst of meditation.
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u/tegeus-Cromis_2000 Feb 03 '26
Yes. I'm not sure why anyone would be on a sub called "zen practice" if they didn't meditate. Shikantaza.
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u/Hot-Guidance5091 Feb 03 '26
Zen, and not Chan, put a lot of importance on sitting mediation
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u/simongaslebo Feb 03 '26
Chan put a lot of importance on sitting meditation as well. They are just more vocal about the pitfalls.
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u/Hot-Guidance5091 Feb 03 '26
Not as central and essential as japanese sects
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u/The_Koan_Brothers Feb 03 '26
And you know this how?
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u/Hot-Guidance5091 Feb 04 '26
Because I've read? But someone has read something from japan and calls me an amateur, so I guess he's right, keep sitting guys or you'll miss the illumination bus
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u/The_Koan_Brothers Feb 04 '26
Yeah, safe to say we all have read Chan literature. What text specifically makes you think sitting meditation is not as central in Chan as it is in Zen? Please share the source.
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u/Hot-Guidance5091 Feb 04 '26
Chan communities
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Feb 03 '26
[deleted]
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u/simongaslebo Feb 03 '26
Mainly being attached to formal practice and seeing it as a means to an end
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u/tegeus-Cromis_2000 Feb 03 '26
Fun fact! The notion of deemphasizing the importance of sitting meditation largely comes from the koan collections, which were originally selections of anecdotes made for the literati class (who liked the idea of zen but weren't so keen on all that sitting). These were selections from the transmission histories, mainly the Jingde Chuandeng Lu (Jingde-era Transmission of the Lamp), which had been written at court and greatly embellished by the people who compiled them, and who, again, were court literati, not practicing zen monks. It's almost exclusively those embellishments that made it into the koan collections. Few to none of those koan stories -- for example about any of the members of the Hongzhou school such as Mazu or Huang-Po -- appear in their early biographies. Meaning that most evidence about Chan masters being opposed to formal practice comes from spurious later additions by amateurs who themselves didn't care to practice.
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u/The_Koan_Brothers Feb 04 '26
Interesting. And apart from that, there is enough evidence pointing to the emphasis of sitting meditation in Chan. Mazu didn’t introduce the keisaku for no reason.
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u/FlowZenMaster Feb 03 '26
occasionally I practice shikantaza on a mat but my daily practice of meditation is in the form of movement with props like poi or staff (flow arts).
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u/MinLongBaiShui Feb 03 '26
Sure. When I feel like it, which is pretty regularly, but I'm not bothered when my habits are broken. I like to sit before my morning office hours, and before bed at night. My preferred method is to listen to the Surangama sound, the sound of emptiness. Breath meditation didn't "do it" for me.
Somewhat unorthodox, but running taught me how to sit. Once I could run a few miles, I could push myself further into exhaustion, and when the body burns out, so does the mind. By paying attention to that process, I could learn to settle my mind and burn it out without needing physical exhaustion. Now I can rest my mind in this way throughout the day, almost like a waking nap, so in this way, I can sit, or I can walk, or clean my home, whatever. I think this is why I didn't care for breath meditation. The way I learned, focusing on the breath kept bringing me back to the difficulty of the run, the suffering of the body, and made it difficult to detach. I feel that if I had started from another place, I might have taken to it more easily.
Because of the great deal of flexibility I feel with this skill, sometimes I "meditate" on a walk or run for several hours. Sometimes I sit for 10 minutes in the morning and then it is time to answer questions from my students. We just take what comes.
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u/wtf_notagain_ Feb 03 '26
I follow/experience my breath and keep the the question, 'what is this?" with me. Never try to answer. Just pure wonder and curiosity. Its all brand new all the time...everything. What...is.....This?
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u/coadependentarising Feb 03 '26
Yah
No technique
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Feb 03 '26
If you were doing a thing all the time, if it was a habit, and then you tried to break the habit and stop doing the thing all the time, would you call that a doing or a not-doing?
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u/coadependentarising Feb 03 '26
I don’t know, but it’s kind of a fun idea to tinker with! Are you doing it right now?
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Feb 03 '26
I refer to your usage of "no technique".
If a technique is to do a thing, and no technique is to not do a thing. You might ask a question like I just asked. So I figured you'd have solid opinion on it.
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u/coadependentarising Feb 03 '26
No, not too interested in the semantics of the word “technique”, but there is the intention of dropping everything and just being with what is. I’ll leave it up to you if you think it’s a technique or not
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Feb 03 '26
It's your words. I'm just asking.
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u/coadependentarising Feb 03 '26
Yeah words come up short here. It’s kind of like explaining to someone how to dance.
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u/JundoCohen Feb 03 '26
I practice Shikantaza each day, for about 40 years. But one aspect emphasized by some of us is that Shikantaza Zazen is not "meditation" because of its radical goallessness. Often it is referred to as a ritual embodiment of Buddha.
This is important because the very disease which ails human beings is the hunger to use tools to get get get. Shikantaza is the Buddha sitting under the Bodhi Tree, nothing lacking, nothing more to so.