Practice at MKZC

I went to the second part of orientation at the Maria Kannon Zen Center today. I sat 2 rounds of both zazen and kinhin the first a 15 minute siting and the second for 25 minutes sitting – kinhin is 5 minutes.

Before I give the details of my experience today, I feel that I need to say that I am realizing that I have not given nearly enough of my spiritual “history” for everything I will be talking about to make sense. I will be working on correcting that by adding to the about page. Until then I’ll have to explain as I go along.

I am taking orientation at MKZC because (1) it is a formality for all students and (2)even though I practiced at MKZC for over 2 years, that was a long time ago. I feel that the orientation acts as a refresher and also, this is a new stage in my life. It’s another time of death and rebirth. I want this to be new- as in Shoshin or beginner’s mind.

That said, the orientation today was good to experience. It was enjoyable to see all kinds of people, including those new at zen and old hands as well as a young girl. I am thinking she might be 10 or so. That’s very unusual and delighful to see a child choosing to practice along with her parents. If it were not a choice, I wouldn’t be so happy about it, but again that has a lot to do with MY history.

During the talk, Helen Cortes, assistant Zen teacher, mentioned that she was available for dokusan. So I asked fora talk. What happens in Dokusan, stays in Dokusan supposedly, and it should IMO. But I did talk to her about my goal of making MKZC my “monastery” by moving close by and attending as regularly as possible. She was very receptive, so ’nuff said. I plan on moving within a mile or so of the center and making it my “work” as well as my practice. I can’t think of anything better for a 58 year old me to do.

I’m cutting it short there as I am tired. I just wanted to dash this down because I am happy about it.

Namaste and all that,
jpaul

Today’s practice

My goal was to start my daily zazen practice yesterday with two ten minute periods. Well I did one. I have done two already today, one early, about 5 am and one around noon. Ten minutes is a very short time in terms of Zazen. It takes that long just to settle into position and for all the thoughts to begin to stop fluttering around, especially the one that says “look at me, I’m doing ZEN, bubba!” Again, cheating at solitaire.

I think my sitting was good. I managed my posture well and I do remember the posture. My major problem is lower back pain caused by letting my belly sink forward and pulling my lower back in and butt out. But I’m finding it, I’m finding it. I’m finding that invisible line that runs through my head and body and straight on down into the earth. I am doing shikantaza at times (just sitting, following the breath) and I am counting the breath at other times.

I have begun a technique that I’ve never heard of. Many times I have heard Zen masters and teachers say that the in breath is not so important as the out breath. In the temple, the in breath was supposed to be no more than half the length of the out breath. My teacher’s Master wens so far as to say that he DOESN’T breath in. I am sure he meant that he puts all his attention on the out. Suzuki says that people who are interested in the in breath tend to be selfish.

So what I did during my last session was simply to take that quick in breath and use the time to subtly adjust my posture. The breath is very quick, not abrupt or gasping but quick. There is always some subtle adjustment that I would be doing anyway. moving my hand an eighth of an inch to make a more perfect mudra, settling my ass a squinch and, very often lifting and straightening my back and head and tucking my chin. These tiny movements would not be observable by someone sitting next to me or even watching me maybe. I think everyone does it. It’s really the practice – keeping the posture. But this way my concentration is not on the in-breath and my posture is in constant check. I can let the out breath flow slowly and watch it all the way down to the very bottom. I like it – but I’ll have to check it out with Rubin when I finally get dokusan (private interview – I promise to start a glossary soon) with him.

So, again the ten minutes is short and I will probably increase to twenty-five very soon. This is way premature, but I may even start doing two twenty-five minute rounds with a five minute kinhin (walking meditation) in the middle. We’ll see.