The story about the rabbit that cooked itself indicates that the rabbit was already enlightened when it did its famous (among those of us who read Jataka stories) deed.
Although the term “Zen” is usually translated as “meditation,” the actual practice of sitting meditation is just part of Zen practice.
Zen meditation is not the same thing as Hindu meditation where the practitioner recites a mantra with closed eyes in an effort to merge with some higher being.
The presence or absence of one or more higher beings is irrelevant in the practice of Zen. That allows Zen to be practiced by those who hold religious beliefs as well as by those who don’t.
Zen practitioners don’t recite mantras nor do they fully close their eyes completely during practice. Sitting meditation is called zazen, where “za” means “sitting.” The full practice of Zen includes zazen but it also includes much more.
To practice zazen, we place a square mat on a floor so that the leading edge of the mat is about a foot from a wall, center a round cushion atop the mat so that the trailing edge of the cushion coincides with the trailing edge of the mat, and then sit on the round cushion with back and head erect, eyes slightly open but unfocused, looking down with the eyes but not with the head.
We don’t move a muscle during the sitting. As the teachers say, if the body is moving, the mind is moving.
We remain alert and alive in the present moment, making no attempt to enter into a trance.
The Buddha sat outdoors, under a tree. He had no factory-made mats or cushions, although the early texts say he fashioned a cushion of grass. He had given up on his teachers; none of them could answer his questions. He was not satisfied with homilies such as: “Brahma is in control; just trust in Him.”
The Buddha vowed that he would sit in meditation until his questions were answered. He placed his faith in himself, not upon any external entity.
He paid attention to his breath as it flowed in an out and according to the Pali canon, on the morning of the seventh day he saw Venus and purportedly exclaimed: “Wonder of wonders, all living beings (that would include bunnies) are truly enlightened and shine with wisdom and virtue. But because their minds have become deluded and turned inward to the self-centered ego, they fail to understand this.”
In other words, all living beings have Buddha nature. Even animals. Some teachers say all sentient beings have Buddha nature, thereby excluding plants. I don’t know if trees and plants have Buddha nature or not. But I suspect animals do.
After the Buddha became enlightened, he remembered having lived before. He remembered lifetimes as a human, but he also remembered lifetimes as an animal. He remembered being a rabbit who saw a holy man starving to death, a man who would not kill a rabbit even to save himself. The rabbit that would become the Buddha after many more lifetimes threw himself onto the monk’s campfire, cooking itself alive, so that the monk could eat without violating his vow not to kill.
We westerners read such stories and think: Well, Buddhism sure is a crazy Asian religion. If you can believe a rabbit could recognize a monk in trouble, and then do a bunny hop into a campfire to painfully immolate himself for the benefit of that monk, you can believe anything. You can certainly believe in multiple lifetimes if you can believe the rabbit story.
Yet the story of God becoming a man through a virgin birth and suffering an agonizing death inflicted upon him by people capable of mind-boggling cruelty because he taught people to love God and each other, only to be resurrected after three days and then rising into heaven on a cloud after promising to return to earth at some future unspecified date to reward believers in him with eternal happiness and unbelievers with eternal torment is deemed plausible by westerners.
It isn’t hard to understand why the Chinese told the Jesuits that Christianity sure was a crazy western religion.
