Mindfulness...

Why do Zazen at all? It’s a question that often comes up. Usually I’m the one asking. If you saw the video clip from my last post the statement is made that most of the time Zazen is boring. I wouldn’t personally describe it as such, but it certainly not the type of “doing” that we are accustomed to. The type of doing that helps us pass the time faster, whether it’s television, or shopping, or spending time on the internet. For me, Zazen is a more subtle type of doing. It’s sort of doing not doing.

Not doing anything at all implies death of course. So it’s not that. It may look like that on the outside, but sitting on your cushion for 20 minutes or 2 hours takes effort. More effort than you might think. When most people first try to meditate they have a very hard time because the brain kicks in and starts reminding us of all the things we could be doing, and judging the “just sitting” as a colossal waste of productive time. I’ve known people that will sheepishly say, “I just can’t do it, I can’t sit still. My brain won’t quiet down.” This is exactly why I do Zazen.

The human brain is an amazing organ. It keeps track of everything in our lives, sometimes too well. Sometimes it doesn’t know when to just relax. Often it guides our actions with all the messages and lessons learned in life, many we aren’t even aware we’ve learned. Zazen offers at a minimum, the opportunity to observe your mind at work. At first it’s difficult to do this because we are so wrapped up with “I should be doing something else this is a waste of time!” And we become anxious. We spin in our thoughts like Dorothy's little house caught in the twister. Through continued practice of Zazen however we can step back and instead of being in the house we can observe the house. You can take a small step back from the anxiety and analyze why it is that these thoughts cause so much anxiety. Or why these thoughts are even there at all.

This is the beginning of mindfulness. We begin to understand what our thoughts are and how they influence our behavior. For many people this is a huge step, it’s the difference between being in reaction mode all the time and gaining some measure of control over our actions. This isn’t the only benefit of Zazen, and this is a very first and basic step in becoming mindful, but for many of us it would be a very helpful step to take.