My zazen practice

The following post is about zazen practice in World Religion class at JFKU.

Sitting zazen for 15 minutes is very easy for me.  That is because I have practiced zazen in the morning and night for 15-20 minutes every day since two years ago.  Therefore, zazen practice becomes an essential part of my daily life.

During today’s zazen session, I visualized a path in a beautiful city in my mind.  It was so comfortable and energetic with a lot of greenery and beautiful sunshine.  It looked like Pleasant Hill.  I didn’t think of anything, but I only enjoyed the beautiful scene and relaxed in it.  During the session, I lost my time sensation and I found myself that 15 minutes already passed…

The reason why zazen practice is helpful in my daily life is that zazen makes me aware of being now and lets me relax.  Now, we tend to be surrounded by too much information, for example, internet, TV, mobile phone, and magazines...  There is a lot of information in our life, which we can’t handle, and is flooded into our mind.  As a result, we are apt to lose the sense of being now and feel busy and uncomfortable.  I suppose that zazen practice gives us the wonderful opportunity to restore the sense of being now.  Even if we live in a rush, we will obtain the feeling of freedom, calmness, comfortableness and relaxation if we have only to sit zazen for 15 minutes in a day.

For my experience, in the beginning of starting zazen practice, I couldn’t sit zazen for less than 15 minutes.  Practicing it every day, I became able to sit zazen for long minutes little by little, and I sometimes continued practicing for 40-60 minutes.  The hardest part of anything is taking the first step.  However, once you build up the habit of zazen in your daily life like brushing of teeth, you can achieve a true inner peace.

My life is training to satori: Comparing the Theravada with Mahayana

Although both of the Theravada and Mahayana have strict monastic traditions, there are differences between them in the following points.  The Theravada is called “Teachings of the Elders”, and the aim is to help only a few people who went through rigorous trainings.  On the other hand, the Mahayana is called “Great Vehicle”, and the purpose is to help all animate beings.

For me, the Mahayana is more attractive than the Theravada.  That is because I suppose that the Theravada focuses on the rescue of individual, but the Mahayana pays attention to others with altruistic love.  Please look at a lot of serious problems in the world now, for example, global warming, disastrous war, and economic crisis...  Why these problems were happened?  I know that there are various complicated reasons in these problems, but I think that one of the reasons is lack of thoughtful consideration to others.  It is true that the quality of our life is improving day by day.  However, how about is the wealth of our heart?  Do we become egocentric too much?  Do we need to be more worldcentric?  Please remember the teaching of the Mahayana, altruistic love.  Therefore, I believe that the Mahayana has greater wisdom to offer the world right now.

Regarding to the personal and social transformation, please ask yourself this question: “Who is Buddha?”  Buddha is me?  Buddha is you?  Buddha is he or she?  I suppose that all the answers are right, because Buddha is the universe and we are the universe.  Therefore, all of us are Buddha.  

Of course, we need severe trainings to become Buddha.  However, our life is full of ups and downs.  Can anyone deny the idea that our life is not full of strict ascetic and spiritual trainings?  In my view, our life is the journey of training in itself, and we walk along a path to satori every day.  I’d like to live my life mindfully being aware of the idea that my life is a kind of training to satori.