This week’s reading is pages 182-93 (from BASIC AWARENESS to REGULARITY OF PRACTICE).
In this section Darlene describes our shikantaza practice as developing “the ability to pay attention to everything at once”. During the period of our sit we just allow what is happening to happen, and observe it without needing to change any part of our experience. She presents a short threefold set of instructions for how to sit, beginning with posture, watching the breath, and then expanding the attention out to include everything. She notes that the most important aspect is the willingness to be open.
Darlene points out, as have Kodo Sawaki and Dogen before her, that Shikantaza is not about self-improvement but being present with what is arising, whether that is joy, sadness, anger or anything else. The practice is not to fix things but to observe them.
The second section is about our meditation posture and Darlene notes that although meditation postures focus, for good reason, on the stability of the lower body and straightness of the spine, many of her readers may need different postures. Here she guides us through the regular sitting postures - cross-legged sitting (including full and half-lotus), Burmese style and Seiza (kneeling) – before turning to alternative postures such as sitting in a chair, walking, pacing (fast walking), lying of the back and lying on the side.
My friend Sarah Kokai who is a priest at Stonewater Zen Centre in Liverpool became ill with Long Covid early in the pandemic and she wrote a short article on how she had to adapt her ‘sitting’ practice: Zazen Without The Sitting
Question prompts
1. How do you view Shikantaza in terms of working with pain and illness?
2. How do you sit currently? Do you experience any issues with that which might be improved by using an alternative posture?
Wishing you all a healthful week.
Gassho
Kokuu
In this section Darlene describes our shikantaza practice as developing “the ability to pay attention to everything at once”. During the period of our sit we just allow what is happening to happen, and observe it without needing to change any part of our experience. She presents a short threefold set of instructions for how to sit, beginning with posture, watching the breath, and then expanding the attention out to include everything. She notes that the most important aspect is the willingness to be open.
Darlene points out, as have Kodo Sawaki and Dogen before her, that Shikantaza is not about self-improvement but being present with what is arising, whether that is joy, sadness, anger or anything else. The practice is not to fix things but to observe them.
The second section is about our meditation posture and Darlene notes that although meditation postures focus, for good reason, on the stability of the lower body and straightness of the spine, many of her readers may need different postures. Here she guides us through the regular sitting postures - cross-legged sitting (including full and half-lotus), Burmese style and Seiza (kneeling) – before turning to alternative postures such as sitting in a chair, walking, pacing (fast walking), lying of the back and lying on the side.
My friend Sarah Kokai who is a priest at Stonewater Zen Centre in Liverpool became ill with Long Covid early in the pandemic and she wrote a short article on how she had to adapt her ‘sitting’ practice: Zazen Without The Sitting
Question prompts
1. How do you view Shikantaza in terms of working with pain and illness?
2. How do you sit currently? Do you experience any issues with that which might be improved by using an alternative posture?
Wishing you all a healthful week.
Gassho
Kokuu
) and I turn my Zafu on its edge for sitting seiza. I do add a few additional cushions under knees and ankles to support this 69 year old body.
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