Hello, My Friend!
Another post on “The Three Pillars of Zen,” since it is really impacting my life at the moment. I have been practicing sitting zazen for the past few days (not kinhin, which is walking meditation, because I still can’t sit for 30 mins straight…check out my last post for more context on this if you’re unfamiliar with it), and I noticed something that really surprised me.
According to this book, beginner students are tasked with counting their breaths as they sit in lotus pose. Through this, they learn to focus their mind on counting and breathing only, trying to a) not lose count of their breaths, and b) not let their mind wander elsewhere as they breathe.
I definitely went into my first practice with ego, which was immediately humbled; instead of counting my breathing until I lost count, I decided I would make it conditional: I would only keep count while my mind was focused, so if I had any thought at all, I would restart my count. Hence, I started counting backward from 10, and every time anything other than my count popped into my mind, I would reset my counter.
For the first many, many attempts, I was stuck on 10. I would complete one breath and then think, “yay, I did it!” and the counter would reset. I would be in the middle of a breath and think, “ok just focus on the breath,” and the counter would reset. I would start counting my ninth breath and think, “this is difficult,” and the counter would reset. I would be counting my breath and make an observation about how my mind likes to wander, and once again, the counter would reset.
It was frustrating, but eventually, I really did stop thinking for long enough to get to 0 and worked my way up to counting backward from 15. The most important learning from that practice wasn’t what my mind is and is not capable of, but rather what I’ve wrongly been passively training my mind to do my whole life: think.
My mind is so used to thinking when there is nothing to do, that as soon as I brought myself to a state of thoughtlessness, my entire body felt uncomfortable. I felt an intense sensation of needing to move manifesting as a result of my refusal to think. And as soon as I let down my guard slightly, the random thoughts would come surging back like a tsunami breaking a dam. The thing is, the thoughts that came up didn’t serve me or the moment - they took away from the immense sense of peace that coated my mind, disturbed my sense of presence, and only served to break this feeling of discomfort that arose in my body.
The following practices, I followed the recommendations of the Zen masters in the book; in the book, they suggest that you sit with your eyes half open, simply keep count of your breaths, and don’t pursue any thoughts that arise (including actively trying to release thoughts as well). While I had come up with a technique to not think from my first “zazen” practice, this practice was infinitely harder for two reasons: 1) keeping your eyes open actually makes it much harder to focus because there is more sensory input to separate yourself from, and 2) it is really hard to allow thoughts to arise but not pursue them at all.
From these practices, I learned my next big lesson: most idle thoughts are useless to us and our lives, they only give us satisfaction or entertainment for a moment. As the thoughts came up, they could very easily be classified into three main categories: 1) reliving past memories, 2) envisioning a hypothetical future, and 3) subjective observations about what I’m seeing or hearing. As the thoughts came and went each zazen practice, the impermanence of these thoughts, as well as their insignificance started to hit me more deeply.
The amount of time we spend just thinking idly, with the sorts of thoughts that don’t really matter in the long run, is the amount of time we spend building up a perception of reality for ourselves and trapping ourselves in the prison of our mind. The more we try and rationale why we did something or why someone said something or why something happened, the more we’re believing the reality that’s in our minds and giving credence to what we imagine in our heads, leading us to make judgments, choices, and decisions that are often unfair, purposeless, or misleading.
The fact of the matter is the only true reality is the one that exists in the present moment - our memories of the past will always be imperfect, the future is unknown, and thoughts about what someone is saying or what I think about a color are also based on my mind’s opinions and experiences. As a result, to truly live our life, it’s important to be in the present at any point in time, of course, but most importantly, when we have some time to just kill. This idle time is an opportunity to simply be present and appreciate our existence in its most simple form, without any action, accomplishment, or objective attached to the moment.
So, I ask of you, as you close this new year, to pay attention to your thoughts as you’re relaxing and enjoying a moment in time. Are your thoughts keeping you centered in the present or are they taking you away into an imagined reality? Will this thought serve your true reality or is it simply giving you satisfaction for this moment in time?
With that, I wish you a very happy new year. See you in 2023!
Shreya
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