Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Zazen is a meditative discipline that is typically the primary practice of the Zen Buddhist tradition. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] The generalized Japanese term for meditation is 瞑想 ( meisō ); however, zazen has been used informally to include all forms of seated Buddhist meditation.
Nishijima was the author of several books in Japanese and English. He was also a notable translator of Buddhist texts : working with student and Dharma heir Mike Chodo Cross, Nishijima compiled one of three complete English versions of Dōgen 's ninety-five-fascicle Kana Shobogenzo ; he also translated Dogen's Shinji Shōbōgenzō .
A zazenkai (座禅会), literally meaning "to come together for meditation" is a Zen Buddhist retreat that is usually less intensive and of shorter duration than sesshin.It may comprise a short meeting, without liturgical service, headed by a monastic, or by a group of practitioners without the presence of a teacher.
The sesshin schedule typically allows for four to five hours of sleep per night, though practitioners occasionally will spend much of the next-to-last night of a five- or seven-day sesshin in zazen. This is called yaza and is much revered as a particularly effective time to meditate when the thinking mind and ego lack the energy to derail practice.
Regarding practice, Dogen counseled a distinctly nonattached or nonclinging kind of action, that is, an activity completely unconcerned with benefits or the accomplishment of ulterior goals: the activity of 'just sitting' or 'nothing-but-sitting' (shikantaza) whereby self-seeking is set aside in a manner resembling a resolute 'dropping off of ...
Zazen in a dojo. Zen emphasizes zazen, meditation c.q. dhyana in a sitting position. In Soto, the emphasis is on shikantaza, 'just sitting', while Rinzai also uses koans to train the mind. In alternation with zazen, there is walking meditation, kinhin, in which one walks with full attention. To facilitate insight, a Zen teacher can assign a kōan.
Suzuki arrived during a 100-day practice period at the temple and was the youngest student there. Zoun-in was a larger temple than Shōgan-ji. At 4:00 each morning he arose for zazen. Next he would chant sutras and begin cleaning the temple with the others. They would work throughout the day and then, in the evenings, they all would resume zazen.
Pranayama is mentioned in verse 4.29 of the Bhagavad Gītā, which states "Still others, who are inclined to the process of breath restraint to remain in trance, practice by offering the movement of the outgoing breath into the incoming, and the incoming breath into the outgoing, and thus at last remain in trance, stopping all breathing. Others ...