Physical Exercise Can Be as Effective as Zazen

Properly performed, physical exercise give the same effect as walking meditation, and for this, you should feel like an immovable centre relative to which you're moving everything around.

 For successful Zen practice, physical exercise are not just desirable, but indispensable. And if you do them regularly, in about a year, you'll begin getting more energy than spending. Sometimes physical exercise are even preferable to zazen when it comes to interrupting your thoughts: doing sitting meditation, you can cheat yourself in many subtle ways, whereas you can't cheat press ups: the more mess in the head you have, the more it's painful to perform them. For me, for more than twenty years, press ups, squats on one leg, and something for abdominals are mandatory.

When doing press ups, imagine that your body is immovable, and you're pushing the floor (the chair or the wall) up and down with the arms. Similarly, when doing squats, imagine that you're lifting and lowering the floor with the legs, or leg: when doing squats on one leg, I usually don't straighten the non-working leg. In both cases, you can concentrate on the point Seika no Itten, on you back,

or on the Animal. As you exhale, stretch your limbs and on an inhale, bend them.

Abdominals I started doing as in the second picture here (now someone found that this exercise is somehow harmful; but I don't think so: as far as I know, it's quite an ancient exercise, which has traditionally been used in martial arts. In my experience, by doing it, you only get energy and fun.) Focus on the point Seika no Itten, on you back, or on the Animal. As you exhale, bend the torso; on an inhale, straighten it. As you exhale, you can try to comprehend the situation around: try to grasp intuitively what's happening around by making an intuitive snapshot of the situation.