Neither Zen Buddhism nor Buddhism, for that matter, are well understood by those who are in a rush to learn something about both. In other words, the problem is driven by impatience. Such people simply lack the discipline required to study the subject as it should be studied which can take many, many years. Faced with this impatience, the solution, it seems, is to sit and meditate as if meditation were just a matter of sitting. This also assumes that sitting is a fast track to understanding Zen.
This is where the modern Zen or Dharma center finds its place; basically to meet the needs of people who want, quickly, to understand Zen without too much hassle.
Yes, for the impatient ones, a helpful system can be devised without too much effort which might consist in a lot of sitting practice followed up with mindfulness practice. Whether or not the system actually takes the follower where they wish to go in a year or so, is another matter. The system might very well not work which I think is often the case.
In my own example, the so-called Zen system lost its charm after a year or so. The system, in other words, could only go so far even with my obedience to the system. Pleasing a teacher and the system that wasn’t working is not the same is setting one’s mind on awakening to their true nature, whatever that nature is supposed to be. For me, the quest turned in this direction rather than to the system itself. It also taught me that sitting on my arse is not, technically speaking, meditation or dhyana/samadhi. It is a ritual (gyôji 行事).
Meditation has nothing to do with posture. One can sit and meditate, cut firewood and meditate, walk many miles in the foothills and meditate, eat and meditate and so on. Meditation is about how we use our mind. In my example, my mind was utilized to seek, inwardly, pure Mind. Then after one catches a glimpse of pure Mind, meditation then becomes continually entering into samadhi with this pure Mind, again and again. This I hasten to add is what Zen master Shen-hui (670-762) meant by “sudden enlightenment followed by gradual cultivation.”
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