"When Hui-neng (the Sixth Patriarch) saw someone in full-lotus posture, he took his staff and beat that person until they got up."

— Zen master Tsung-mi

The big question. Why did the Sixth Patriarch beat someone who was sitting meditation? Isn’t sitting supposed to gradually awaken the sitter? Isn’t sitting the very essence of Zen?

If one’s mind can begin to understand the reason for the beating from Hui-neng, they are far ahead of the Zen center ‘sitter’ who, like the body building enthusiast, feels an addictive compulsion to do sit down meditation (zazen). It should be obvious that a compulsion to sit only increases the disease of ignorance instead of curing it. Moreover it leads—not to pure Mind—but to more delusional thinking which confuses the means with the end.

It is fundamentally true that all physical practices such as sitting are conditioning and conditioned. On the same track, if our mind sticks to the practice of sitting, which is conditioning and conditioned, how will it ever behold the unconditioned pure Mind? And least we forget, in Zen, the real Dharma or teaching is unconditioned pure Mind—not sitting. In addition, all the various Sutras and Shastras; all the letters and words contained in them, are simply pointing to this Mind—not sitting.

Right now we are spellbound to this temporal body together with all of its various desires and woes which arise as a result of mind interfacing with it. It is as if the disembodied part of us were suffering from the effects of amnesia being unable to disengage from the embodied side delusively thinking, “This is mine; I am this, this is the self (atman) of me” when in fact it is not true.

Now, if we continue to sit in the full-lotus posture, being bound up with our embodied conditioned state, how is this going to help us turn around to see pure Mind which is not embodied (nirvana)? In particular, what technique has out teacher taught us by which to transcend the conditioned body to which we are presently yoked and dependent upon? Just to sit is not a fit answer. But surely there must be another way. And there is another way. It is the way of harmonizing with that which transcends our respiration, our mental images, and reflective consciousness (i.e., being conscious of being conscious).