What is the difference between zazen and normal meditation?
Apr.22, 2007 in
Meditation questions
wakeup_mike asked:
Zazen by from what ive read is about getting in touch with reality, to find out who you are simply by doing zazen. But many simple forms of meditation are done simularly, you sit down and maybe focus on your breath for x amount of time daily.
Zazen by from what ive read is about getting in touch with reality, to find out who you are simply by doing zazen. But many simple forms of meditation are done simularly, you sit down and maybe focus on your breath for x amount of time daily.
So can a normal meditator get the same effects of zazen, hence to be closer to reality and who you are by simply sitting and breathing?
Or do you have to do zazen inconjuction with following the zen philosophy and only then you can get closer in reality and find yourself?
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April 25th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
Zazen chiefly refers to a deeper form of ‘zen’ meditation.
Yes! It is absolutely possible for a ‘normal’ meditator to get the same effects as Zazen.
Now, let me explain that ‘zen’ or ‘zazen’ is simply a word which is used by the mystics and monks of the far eastern tradition. Similarly, Indians and Hindus like to use the word ’samadhi’ or ”dhyana’.
To the enlightened, these words have no meaning at all. They just like to bask in the glory of everlasting bliss, which is either denoted by the word zen/zazen/samadhi/dhyana/…..
April 28th, 2007 at 2:58 am
“Simply sitting and breathing,” as you put it, is what zazen is.
“Za” means seated or sitting; “zen” means meditation. And yes, the fundamental principles of zazen practice are the same fundamental principles of many techniques of meditation practiced in other spiritual traditions.
As one quick example, the type of contemplative prayer outlined in the Christian text, The Cloud of Unknowing, ultimately comes down to what its author calls, “a naked, blind, feeling of being.”
For the anonymous Cloud author, that utterly simple presence and naked contact with the basic event of being, was an act of worship. It was in his understanding — and in his personal experience — the way to touch the Divine.
Zen Buddhists have a different vocabulary. Zazen is the living embodiment of “suchness”; it’s the enactment of your fundamental nature and a realization of your “original face.”
But the Western contemplatives like the Cloud author and the Eastern Zen practitioners are doing the same thing. And this is a key, practical point — both traditions will emphasize that this experiential practice is very literally something that is before words. It’s more original than the concepts we employ to describe or categorize it.
It is not a theological belief thing. It is an experience. The fact that different cultural traditions are using different words for it means little in comparison to what they are concretely doing and directly experiencing.
“To be closer to reality and who you are,” as you put it, is the whole point. And if and when we do that, it becomes all the more obvious what is really involved and how “different” meditation traditions are in fact doing the same things.
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