While sitting in zazen we may have many kinds of experience, just as in any other period of our lives. These states of being are fluid and ever-changing. Some we may welcome, some we may wish would go away. But, with time, right effort and developing skill we can come to see these states as of equal value and importance, and worthy of equal attention and care.
Just as we experience periods of presence, peace of mind, wholeness, integration, unboundedness, concentration and focus; we also experience agitation, boredom, irritation, fragmentation, anxiety, disconnection, indiscipline and lack of focus. It is important not to see these experiences as being stages of development or progression. They are not steps on a ladder of achievement. They come and go as clouds pass across the sky. As we attend to them, we notice how they come and go – how they gain in intensity and then dissolve. There are no clear boundaries between experiences – they merge and mingle. We are in process, and as long as we live, we are in motion.
When sitting in mindful meditation, minimal force is required – psychological and physical. Just enough physical force or effort to maintain balance, to stay upright and stable, to be awake and attentive. Psychologically, to be alert, open and receptive, without striving towards a goal, or for a reward (including enlightenment), or to add commentary, judgment or other reactive behaviour to our experience. We simply sit, just to sit – without forcing, without unnecessary intention or purpose. This is non-violence (ahimsa) in action. Clarity, insight and understanding arise when force and reactivity are minimised.
Dogen, in one of his essays, the Fukan-zazengi, advises us to sit in meditation, ‘neither thinking, nor not-thinking.’ He is, perhaps, suggesting that we should be neither holding on, nor pushing away. Acknowledge sensations, feelings and thoughts, but don’t indulge them or dwell on them – just note them and let them go. Don’t push thoughts away, and don’t cling to them, just be alert and let them be. Elsewhere, Dogen refers to ‘non-dwelling mind’ – the act of being awake to what is going on without dwelling on anything in particular. It is important to be at peace with whatever arises – in this way we can be clear about how things are, aware of what is happening, and thus act wisely and beneficially – with insight and understanding.
This is not a passive process, it is, instead, a dynamic process of maintaining balance between doing and not-doing, thinking and not-thinking – like a tightrope-walker, who has always to be alert, slightly shifting weight, just enough to stay upright. Moving with the wire and not against it – maintaining poise, balance and composure.
In one of the Zen classics, we are urged to ‘observe the mind in tranquillity, with equanimity’ – to observe the whole relational field of experience without attaching ourselves to any particular phenomenon or event. We just sit in peace, observing the procession of events without being disturbed by what comes along – as a heron stands, supremely alert, yet not interfering in any way in the stream of rippling water (until the moment comes to strike). We can learn from the heron, and the tightrope-walker.
To sit and attend to each moment and be open to what arises without comment, judgement or attachment, is to experience awakening. And awakening to everyday events, thoughts, feelings and moods is to practice non-dwelling mind – attending to everything yet dwelling on nothing. As many Zen teachers say: everyday mind is Buddha mind; to sit in meditation is to be a Buddha.
By extending the method of non-reactive, non-clinging attention that we practice in meditation to other aspects of our everyday lives, we change the relationship we have with our experiences. We feel a lightening, a release from the burden of reactive habits and a growing relish for each moment – whatever it may bring. We can be calmer, less easily distracted and more attentive to our own needs and the needs of others.
So, pay attention, stay calm, and keep your balance on the tightrope of life.