"To learn the truth is to learn ourselves. To learn ourselves is to forget ourselves. To forget ourselves is to be experienced by the myriad things. To be experienced by the myriad things is to let our own body-and-mind, and the body-and-mind of the external world, fall away. There is a state in which the traces of realisation are forgotten; and it manifests the traces of forgotten realisation for a long, long time"
Dogen
Gentleman,
(And lady? Must be a psyop)
I am returning from the mountain to bestow the world with great insights. Triumphant from Zazen Sesshin.
I no longer wish for the destruction of 65% of specific segments of mankind; instead, in the words of Albert Rosenfeld, that while "I will admit to a certain cynicism" I now see the error of my ways and "choose to live my life in the company of Gandhi and King".
This is a quick meditation post-practice-analysis; the sesshin itself brought up some unexpected and useful insights that I wanted to jot down before I forgot them.
To preface - I love the body, and the world around me. I don’t reject material and I’m not ashamed of this.
At sesshin or in meditation, I see nothing but a radical embrace of body. This, awareness, is experience beyond crude perceptual dualities. It therefore necessarily excludes good and evil. This space cannot be accessed with these notions.
No mental construct of philosophy can lead you here.
I don’t see meditation as a rejection; I see it as a radical confrontation and acknowledgement of what is the case. There isn’t anything “otherworldly”. There isn’t somewhere to escape to. There is only reality as it is.
There are capacities we have as organisms in this environment. Capacities that are ever-changing, impermanent. A capacity to more radically engage with everything around us more than we thought possible before. We have confused this aim with language and descriptions.
Ultimately it is always there so it cannot be a rejection of anything. Abiding in this place has prerequisites, things that need to be ignored for us to see.
The primary aim therefore is to understand and ignore reactivity. A discipline of the body is required.
The body is the vault of truth.
Within the body, there is great potential. It’s not something to be desecrated, or rejected as “material”. I cherish material, and I venerate it.
I work to overcome the great demon - reactivity. In this process, often the desire to escape to somewhere or other is confronted. We find eventually that it stems from vulgar reactivity. The desire to run away, to reject it for “something else” or “some other place” other than here.
The difficulty with this process is that no abstract concept can account for it. It is something that must be experienced and can only be experienced through practice.
You are your own barometer, and your own master. Any abstraction, even these words concerning confronting reactivity, must be completely discarded. There is only abiding, the body, the senses.
Real transcendence and the pursuit of wisdom and understanding lies within the body, not in escape to something else. Into convenient words or labels.
When the rubber hits the road otherworldliness has nowhere to exist but as a thought. If we indulge in such notions we are further away from reality as it is than we can possibly imagine.
We are our own masters, our own barometers in this work:
"By oneself is evil done; by oneself is one defiled. By oneself is evil left undone; by oneself is one made pure. Purity and impurity depended on oneself; no one can purify another."
The Dhammapada 165
Practice and the derived wisdom you win for yourself; that's all we have. So how can we best do this?
MY VIEW OF MINDFUL PRACTICE
I know many of you are non-meditators. I hope you still find this interesting, as the principles apply in a general psycho-physical and bio-individual sense. I train in the Zen Soto style specifically.
I'll start hard and fast: Sitting meditation is a robust psycho-physiological realignment practice. There are few things as powerful.
Seated meditation practice is powerful and basically almost of all of us need a strong dram. Seated meditations can do an excellent job on their own with the right direction. And with the odd tap in the right direction with something else, like direct pointing or bodywork, all the better.
With this in mind, I've always promoted meditation as a pillar for practitioners of self-change. The experience I relate here is elaborated from a more traditional angle; however next week we’ll look at it more so from the bio-individual angle.
From the outset, I don't wish to diminish sitting as purely utilitarian, another reductionist argument that is often levelled at me - that, it is certainly not, in the final analysis. As much as Lex Huberman co. would want to make it so.
Meditation, when done right, is a serious business with consequences for how you see the world. It is access to a stunning vibrancy, health, and a radical embrace for life as it is. Don’t believe any philosopher that tells you otherwise, because they are mistaken. You should always listen to the body and the wisdom and potential that lies within it.
PREFERENCES OR PRETTY BLACK AND WHITE?
Soto lineage Zazen is what I practice. Its bare-bones approach is more than adequate for the goal. No real need for cotton candy in this playground. In this great work, the less space for hypnotising yourself into thinking something is happening, the better.
We all have our preferences, though (Kevin routinely reminds me this is real and ok, and ridiculously that I'm not absolutely right about everything). If online discourse is truly indicative, a more fruity temperament in masculine garb is the flavour of the moment and so the basics are often overlooked for exoticisms.
I note a penchant for flamboyant burlesque displays (displays - that's what they are) are more popular than I'm comfortable admitting.
I agree with Zen Patriarch Tendo Nyojo (teacher of the famed Eihei Dogen) and not so much Kevin (j/k) when he has this to say on meditation, however:
"Zazen practice (sanzen) is body-mind dropping off. You have no need for incense burning, homage-paying, doing nembutsu, performing penances, or reading (NB reading - ed) sutras. Just single-minded sitting alone."
Tendo Nyojo
I like to extend this list to testicle sunning Mindfulness or the dark esoterica of gum disease, white guilt or BLM Buddhist contemplations, My Identity-as-a-powerful-woman meditations, esoteric black sun "rising on the plains" techniques…Glycenated Astral Projection…The Andrew Fridman Podcast...
The nauseating list of misguided, reactive and compulsive novelty seeking goes on and on. The nastiness we're subjected to daily by a wide range of know-it-all-nothing imbeciles is constant and severe.
All the time it serves one purpose - to escape from acknowledging what is. To sit with what is. Overall, modern culture, left wing or right wing, is now nothing more but a distracted consumption of novel information, with little or nothing attached to it.
A medieval Japanese Soto monk would never have had even a shred of the required utterly nihilistic cynicism to have been able to even begin to conceive of what was going to be considered liberating by the "human beings" of the future.
It’s at best an entertaining curiosity, and worst a reaction to abstraction, desperation in the garb of superiority and true insight. how many times have you heard:
“Look at this clipping from a book. This is what someone used to think. We just need to think this and we’ll be superior or what the book is getting at.”
The seals mindlessly clap. They think how he’s just like me. All the time their patterns remain exactly the same as they always have. And like everyone else do, regardless of professed and stated “beliefs”.
The access to novel information, and the way it subverts our evolved reactive tendencies cannot be power, no matter what the content.
With all this imagination and reading and talking, only one thing is achieved: no one practices. No one even attempts the work that great men like Nietzsche or the Buddha pointed to.
This is the entire point of their venture. We are are not wilful. Many make claims of wilfulness but possess none.
Superiority is persistently references or implied. Often virtue is applied to simply doing what they must do. Reacting as they always have, as if there was a hard choice. Their unconscious reactivity, we’re told, is not only good and proper, but laughably to us, it’s superior. Superior reactivity. Ridiculous.
I’ll tell you to it straight. Reactivity, no matter how it’s coloured or by whom, is a disability. And after this week, I wish I could express to you how naturally reactive we are. It is a species level disability. Alas, it is impossible to truly convey unless you’ve also sat. I was thinking:
“If I’m this bad and I’ve spent a large portion of my life doing this - how bad must the average person be? It must be insane being them. Debilitating”.
No wonder it is best not to awaken the robots, and show them this. Remaining asleep is preferable for most.
SIMPLICITY
I'm here to break reactivity with simplicity. It's even in the blog title!
For meditation to be practicable or workable - and I make this as a completely universal claim - completely universal, black and white with zero subtlety, and applicable to absolutely every worthwhile meditational or yogic endeavour - it must consist of:
Posture regulation (there are variations - but straight spine)
Breath frequency regulation
Breath rhythm regulation
Abdominal breath regulation
Mental regulation (i.e. concentration)
All these are cornerstones. I've always believed teachers should look at them more thoroughly before anyone meditates. They rarely do, at least in the required depth. This is because many aren't sure of what’s happening beyond a surface analysis themselves; it just happened to them over time. Some may have a good body shape for it and never really considered it. That’s why they stuck with it.
For many people, getting posture and breath right can take years of trial and error and this could be "clinically" fixed in a relatively short period, saving years of frustration.
In short, the pillars of meditation are not mysterious, not how teachers so often treat them. In Buddhism, The Maha Sutta itself is relatively straightforward. I think it assumed an ancient physique and constitution that no longer exists, particularly in the West however.
In the end, these are the pillars that yield the results.
One of the pillars is concentration. For this articool, I want to tie it in with the rhythmic breath. And I want to make the case that, as far as I can tell, consistent use of this so-called “beginner method” does not necessarily preclude one from high-level realisation or even authentic awakening experiences.
LIKE GOLF SORT OF
Good meditation is a lot like playing golf. Anyone that's done it knows what I mean. Most of your swings miss the mark because you're thinking about one or more elements of the swing. Every now and then, you stop thinking, and your club mysteriously hits the spot. In meditation, at least Zazen, you're trying to balance everything I listed above plus the ever present nature of impermanent circumstance. This is where mindfulness derives its power.
Extended Zazen retreats typically consist of a regimented 10 hours of meditation per day for a week or longer. Each sitting session has 2-4 30 to 40-minutes sitting periods, split up with 15-minute walking kinhin. There are mindful work periods, simple meals and silence, very little sleep.
For me the first days of retreats follow the same formula - starts ok, going less ok, noticing some problems, extreme pain, ordinary quality with pain, some other pain with ordinariness getting better, hit good places, lessons, finish. Know what to work on.
The real purpose of longer-form meditation retreats, aside from offering a deep platform for practice, is to magnify your approach by showing you things you need to work on in your day-to-day Zazen. Something that might be missed in the 40 minutes or whatever a person typically does. Things that get fully magnified after several 10-hour days, believe you me.
I haven't been on Sesshin since covid - it's been a while. So this time, my days and sessions followed the same abovementioned pattern, on steroids. This was despite me doing all kinds of exotic things at home, like non-duality pointing, ancillary dhyana work, breath work or whatever else. And after all this, I was exposed.
It has become apparent to me that simplicity is king: simplicity trumps all.
STEPS IN SOTO
Sitting meditation is a discipline, training the primitive brain not to be a muppet and get in the way of genuine, examined living. Beyond this, to show someone, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the true nature of experience.
In a very general sense, in the Soto lineage, the doctrine of Shikantanza specifies the essential doctrine of Soto practice. The fundamental way it works, therefore:
PHASE 1 - SIT STRAIGHT IN LOTUS AND COUNT YOUR BREATH
PHASE 2 - STOP COUNTING AND BE MINDFUL OF YOUR BREATH
PHASE 3 - ACHIEVE "ENGROSSING" SELFLESS CONCENTRATION, SAMADHI
PHASE 4 - SEE THE ORIGINAL FACE, OR UNBORN, NON-DUAL MIND
PHASE 5 - STABILISE AND RESIDE, BECOME FREE FROM VEXATION, ENLIGHTENED
I NEEDED ANSWERS
Because of my shortcomings and challenges this time around, I needed answers. Because of the pain, my mind got scattered, and the Zazen sessions were intolerable. I got rocked, ok? You happy? Do you think you've won this?
So what do you do when you're in a tight spot? I found myself simply returning to breath counting. If following the breath, expanding awareness, or non-dual contemplation wasn't working - return to basics.
Tried and true. Where does everyone start?
Breath counting….
Was I above breath counting? I thought so. So do most I know who possess a relatively above average attainment level. I constantly see counting mocked on message boards and discords. They think they're above it. It's a practice for the concentrative hoi-polloi. Entry level. Basic. Do it for 12 weeks and move on.
What surprised me was the absolute power of breath counting to bring everything back. It's always sold as a "when you start" thing. I acknowledge now that you could continue this to the end if you pleased; it would be a magnificent technique. Breath counting is a universal mantra of power. The truth is, very few people are so far down the line they don't need it. They may act like it, but I don't believe them.
MY EXPERIENCE WITH IT THIS WEEK
Even in very engrossed states, I would continue to count instead of letting it go. Why not? With counting, there is no doubt - You know how long you went without being sidetracked, without the sneaky tyrant, the "self" attempting to kick you in the square in the bollocks before you obtain the golden fleece of the session.
So this is what I did. And in doing so, the entire sesshin took a 180-degree turn. I was grounded again. I examined the pain away. I obtained some of the deepest meditational states I had ever had, using counting as the base practice.
Walking meditation in Zen is known as "Kinhin", following up a 40-minute sitting block by walking slowly and deliberately. I continued counting during this, which I had not done for a long time - and it was terrific.
in fact I counted 1-10 for 5 full days. Many of you will ask, “are you insane” and rightly so. But this simply lends legitimacy to the power of counting and the mind-states it can help induce.
Instead of inhibiting anything, I had brief moments of non-dual walking (where the earth is moving, but you're not) with the silent rehearsal of numbers animating the entire world as an indistinguishable part of it, only adding to the dumbfounding magnificence of the momentary totality of my engrossment. What is it that is saying the number? What is it that perceives the number?
I couldn't believe it.
So I had a Dokusan with my Zen master and asked him the question - do you still use breath counting? He answered that he did and specified that many of his teachers also did. He informed me that he knew of several extant and historical people who had become enlightened or had awaking experiences during counting meditation.
He told me even several decades-experienced meditators sometimes need help getting to the 1 count - just because someone is highly regarded doesn't mean they're not subject to mind from time to time like the rest of us mere mortals.
He related that his master told him, even though it is referenced in the texts as the introduction to breath awareness, that it should not be underestimated as an advanced technique in its own right - one that works very well for some people beyond being the universal territory of mere novices.
This has inspired several things here at Breathwish blog.
So, I will be using it for daily sessions indefinitely unless something radical impels me otherwise - I'm sure of it. Beyond cutting away residues of thought, I noticed that it exists as a way into non-dual states on its own merit. It becomes a part of, like anything else, the experience itself.
COMING UP & MY APPRECIATION
Firstly, got my first paid subscriber, and in appreciation of my paid reader/s (thanks, whoever you are), I will release a paid subscriber-only “powerpoint” presentation on Shikantanza with subtleties beyond what you hear on the tube. Along with some other insights.
And the power of breath counting in general. Although you can find many methods online, and it's straightforward, I will introduce you to other lesser-known elements I've learned from my master in his lineage and used to significant effect. Little tricks of the trade to deepen your work. I'll also talk about Hara and exercises you can use to deepen that with your mindfulness work. These are all key elements.
In this video, I will also present how this pertains to reactivity in general and some ideas about why you should do daily Mindfulness, even when not Buddhist or after Buddhist aims like liberation. Building on this theme, Reactivity and Mindfulness will be next week's newsletter, exploring a non-Buddhist case for meditation work.
Finally, we will go through in detail on stages of concentration and what to expect from a Zen perspective in a bit of detail in this video.
I hope to have that out this weekend, so look out for that.
Appreciate all your shares and comments, every little be helps the venture.
Until then,
Remember to be well, breathe and keep it simple. Don’t waste your time being reactive, get to it.