There is another trick for beginners: sometimes instead of focusing on the point Seika no Itten or on the Animal, you may
find it's easier to concentrate on your back, which will enable you to
feel the whole body. That is, you can concentrate on your back and as a
result be aware of the whole body.
This works especially well if you're doing the walking zazen: try to see the world from your back (from shoulder level to the tailbone) through the eye sockets - ie, try to see from the darkness behind you while pulling the road towards you with the legs. Remember, you can be fully aware of your body and of the outer world at the same time if and only if you feel like an immovable centre relative to which you move everything around (with the legs, for example.) Over time, in this way you'll learn to think with your body.
This works especially well if you're doing the walking zazen: try to see the world from your back (from shoulder level to the tailbone) through the eye sockets - ie, try to see from the darkness behind you while pulling the road towards you with the legs. Remember, you can be fully aware of your body and of the outer world at the same time if and only if you feel like an immovable centre relative to which you move everything around (with the legs, for example.) Over time, in this way you'll learn to think with your body.
As you practise, try to reduce the feeling of your back to the single point located on the spine, at the level of the point Seika no Itten (focusing on either of these points gives approximately the same effect, but the point on the spine is not suitable for working on Mu): find the point Seika no Itten, then find the point on the spine exactly at this level. At first, it was easier for me to find and control this point.
In this way you can also work with some koans: for instance, keep asking the darkness (your whole back) or specifically the Point on the spine: 'who I am?' or 'where am I from?' - classical Zen koans. ;-)
No comments:
Post a Comment