Meditation Instruction

KOBUN: Sink on a cushion. That's zajō, sitting samadhi.¹

When sitting samadhi, relax more, and body go flat on the ground or bed — that is gajō, lying samadhi, most favorite samadhi.

From standing samadhi you start to move forward, backward, sideway, moving your feet. At that time speed of breath, breathing about the same, unless you move fast — metabolism cause of fast breath naturally.

When you walk in this room without sound, you move rather slow walking, especially while everyone is sitting and you come late, or you keep from entrance. You keep spirit of samadhi, hojo kinhin,² half step, holding each time on each breath.

And, recommend, keep your bare feet to feel floor directly, ground directly on your sole. And feeling is, keep contact with ground, with kind of grabbing the earth you can feel — instead of just walk like that. Grabble, and make sure you are on the ground, and feels really strong you are holding earth.

Same way when you stand up, you are not separate from the ground. You are growing from the ground, as a part of ground. And you don't need to go around, seek something. You found yourself here.

So please relax, keep your mind relaxed, and get familiar with yourself more and more.

I hate to speak in this way, but it's emergency case, and it is economy of time and energy. So, thank you. When days, weeks go, you might have lot of experience, questions arise, and accordingly we will share knowledge, wisdom, and help each other.

I was supposed to give sitting instruction this morning, but each day a little bit in the end. So if necessary.

So, first sitting this morning. Some brand new practice. Many of you have sat already, practicing several years.

We using those three sound. It's signal to go into meditation. And two bells are usually from sitting to standing, or walking. And one sound is end of meditation. While you doing walking, when you hear one sound, that is a break of meditation — you go toward the seat again. When you hear two sound, that is from sitting position to walking meditation, or standing to do next activity.

Sound, it's entering samadhi. Have more minute, two.

As you know, sitting zazen — it's not particularly new experience. No, it has been survival technique, survival action, to achieve knowledge of surrounding, external and internal, exact knowledge of what's going on.

From ancient time, when people were living thing, meet with a new occasion and dangerous situation — sit, or stop still, and open your every sense organs toward the inside, outside. That was immediate and necessary ability to develop. In every spiritual path today we see have this primitive mind, instinctive activity — especially for very beginner who have never sat before in this way.

I like to welcome you here deep from my mind, and celebrate you are coming. For all of us to sit still for such long time, more than five minutes, it's a very painful thing. We prefer to do a lot of enjoyable things. But this is very wonderful time for you to go deep, deep, deeper into your treasure house of your body and mind. You discover innumerable wonderful things within you.

How many of you who have sat before, even once? Everybody. You could raise if you think you haven't sat before.

One, two, three. Oh, very few.

I am also — we forget about Zen, or Transcendental Meditation, or yoga, or anything. Just reveal your own self on the cushion, and accepting you as you are, its first thing. Knowledge could come around later. Action go first.

Good to see you. Thank you. Tomorrow again.

Notes

1. 1 He is naming samadhi in each of the four postures — sitting, lying, standing, walking. Both engines garbled the Japanese terms; zajō and gajō are the readings that fit what he goes on to describe, and the archive's earlier transcript of this same recording heard the first as "zajor".
2. 2 Recovered on a second pass by re-decoding the clip in isolation. Kinhin is the walking meditation he goes on to describe — half a step on each breath.