2 upvotes, 2 direct replies (showing 2)
View submission: Is Anapanasatti and Zazen the same practice?
This focuses on Japanese traditions of Zen.
zazen from Encyclopedia of World Religions: Encyclopedia of Buddhism
Zazen, sitting meditation, is a form of meditation characteristic of Zen Buddhism practice. It consists of both proper posture and breathing and a state of mind. Clothing should be loose and nonbinding.
In Japanese zazen practice there are several ways to position the body. Most commonly, the practitioner sits on the floor with the legs crossed. The rear end is raised slightly with a small pillow called a zafu. Practitioners may also sit in the yogic positions called the lotus or the half-lotus. For those who cannot sit cross-legged, sitting in a chair with the soles of the feet on the floor is permitted. The important aspect of the position of the body is the straightened back, which allows proper, natural breathing. Breathing is normally through the nose. The tongue rests against the upper palate.
Once the body is in place, the head and arms are positioned. The chin is lowered and the eyes focused on the ground in front of the body. The hands are placed in the position called the cosmic dhyana mudra. The hands rest in front of the body, one hand holding the other, palms up. The ends of the thumbs lightly touch. Attention is placed in the hara, a place within the body slightly below the navel believed to be the body's physical and spiritual center.
Meditation, especially for the beginner, often begins with counting breaths, a technique to assist the mind in concentration. This ability to concentrate, called joriki, unifies the mind on one point so it no longer wanders. Jorikiis the first goal of Zen meditation.
The second goal of zazen is kensho, discovering one's Buddha nature, which occurs as a sudden realization that one is complete and perfect and has the power to realize full enlightenment. Kensho then leads to mujodo no taigen, the unfolding of one's Buddha nature in one's daily life and in one's beingness. Different Zen traditions place differing relative emphases on the three goals of joriki, kensho, and mujodo no taigen.The differences in objects of meditation are pronounced. The Rinzai school includes introspection of a koan, as the object of meditation. The Soto school, in contrast, practices a form of meditation, shikantaza,without an object under focus.
Further Information
Fujimoto, Rindo. The Way of Zazen (Cambridge Buddhist Association Cambridge Mass, 1966);.
Kapleau, Phillip. The Three Pillars of Zen (Doubleday Garden City N.Y., 1989);.
Sekida, Katsuki. Zen Training: Methods and Philosophy (Weatherhill New York, 1996);.
Suzuki, Shunryu. Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind (Weatherhill New York, 1970).
Comment by ThalesCupofWater at 02/12/2024 at 03:46 UTC
4 upvotes, 0 direct replies
In Far East Asian Buddhism, Chih-i's Móhē zhǐguān and The Essentials of Buddhist meditation describes how to practice and move between shamatha and vipaśyanā. Although, written from the Tiantai tradition, it pops up elsewhere as a method. Some Chinese and Vietnamese Pure Land traditions seek a Nianfo samadhi as well which can involve shamatha or rather specific instructions besides vipaśyanā. For example, practicing with incorporating breaths and then switching to a method of counting to ten. This is very similar to some of the methods of Chih-i.
Here is an entry on silent illumination meditations.
mozhao Chan (J. mokushōzen; K. mukcho Sŏ n 默照禪) from The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism
In Chinese, “silent illumination meditation���; a form of Chan meditation attributed to the Caodong zong (J. Sōtōshū), and specifically the masters Hongzhi Zhengjue (1091–1157) and his teacher Danxia Zichun (1064–1117). This practice builds upon the normative East Asian notion of the inherency of buddhahood (see tathāgatagarbha) to suggest that, since enlightenment is the natural state of the mind, there is nothing that needs to be done in order to attain enlightenment other than letting go of all striving for that state. Authentic Chan practice therefore entails only maintaining this original purity of the mind by simply sitting silently in meditation. Hongzhi’s clarion call to this new Caodong-style of practice is found in his Mozhao ming (“Inscription on Silent Illumination”), which may have been written in response to increasingly vehement criticisms of the practice by the rival Linji zong, although its dating remains uncertain. In Hongzhi’s description of the practice of silent illumination, silence (mo) seems to correlate roughly with calmness (Ch. zhi, S. śamatha) and illumination (zhao) with insight (C. guan, S. vipaśyanā); and when both silence and illumination are operating fully, the perfect interfusion of all things is made manifest. Silent-illumination meditation thus seems to have largely involved prolonged sessions of quiet sitting (see zuochan) and the cessation of distracted thought, a state likened to dead wood and cold ashes or a censer in an old shrine. The Linji Chan adept Dahui Zonggao deploys the term to denigrate the teachings of his Caodong contemporaries and to champion his preferred approach of practice, investigating meditative topics (see kanhua Chan) through Chan cases (C. gong’an), which demands a breakthrough to enlightenment, not simply what he claims is the passive sitting of the Caodong zong. After Dahui’s obstreperous critique of mozhao, the term seems to have acquired such a pejorative connotation that it stopped being used even within the Caodong tradition. See also shikan taza.
Here is an entry on single practice samadhi, nianfo samadhi is one example of such a practice, although people tend to envision the seated version of the practice in the west more often.
yixing sanmei (S. ekavyūhasamādhi; J. ichigyō zanmai; K. irhaeng sammae 一行三昧) from The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism
In Chinese, “single-practice samādhi.” The term yixing sanmei seems to first appear in a passage in the Chinese translation of the Saptaśatikāprajñāpāramitāsūtra: “The dharmadhātu has only a single mark; to take the dharmadhātu as an object is called one-practice samādhi.” Two practices are then recommended by the text for cultivating yixing sanmei, viz, the perfection of wisdom (prajñāpāramitā) and recollection of the Buddha’s name (S. buddhānusmṛti; C. nianfo). The concept of yixing sanmei was later incorporated into the apocryphal Chinese treatise Dasheng qixin lun and the influential meditation manual Mohe zhiguan. Tiantai Zhiyi, the author of the Mohe Zhiguan, identified the practice of constant sitting, the first of the so-called four kinds of samādhi (sizhong sanmei), with yixing sanmei. Famous teachers of the early Chan community, such as Daoxin, Huineng, and Heze Shenhui, also emphasized the importance of yixing sanmei, which they identified with seated meditation (zuochan) and the cultivation of prajñāpāramitā. According to the Liuzu tanjing (“Platform Sūtra of the Sixth Patriarch”), Huineng interpreted yixing sanmei as the maintenance of a straightforward mind (yizhi xin) while walking, standing, sitting, and lying. Shenhui identified yixing sanmei with “no mind” (wuxin; see also wunian).
Comment by ClioMusa at 02/12/2024 at 04:04 UTC*
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I'm actually loving the bibliography/further reading list. Was that from the article itself?