Modern Zen practitioners usually sit on mats and cushions indoors but we practice outdoors whenever it’s reasonable to do so. Even the Buddha eventually established monasteries where people could sit indoors. The purpose of sitting in meditation is not to see how much hardship a person can endure.
We don’t sit because we believe that a rabbit once committed hara kiri. We don’t sit in order to get into heaven or to avoid hell. Nor do we sit because the Buddha sat; sitting is not the cause of enlightenment and enlightenment is not the effect of sitting.
We sit because we believe the Buddha spoke the truth when he said that all living beings are truly enlightened and shine with wisdom and virtue. We sit because we believe our minds have become deluded and turned inward to the self-centered ego, thereby preventing us from realizing that we are whole and complete, just as we are, shining with wisdom and virtue.
But if sitting is not the cause of enlightenment, then why sit? We sit to create the conditions that allow awakening to occur. When we sit, we are not running around, creating more karma. For once, we are finally doing nothing, not stirring the pot. We sit in serene silence so that we can experience the inherent wisdom and virtue that we possess but which noisy daily activities cover up. We sit in deep silence. But we sit relaxed, happy and calm.
When issues arise, we just let them go. We drop anything that arises. We relax, let go, smile, get even calmer, and continue to sink into silence and calmness. We do so without effort, without working. This is what the Buddha did.
We eventually arrive at the heart or the jewel of the lotus; we arrive at the center of everything and discover that no thing and no one is there. The self is empty of self.
When we realize that there is no self, we give up all doubts about the Buddhadharma, we realize that chanting alone and following rites or rituals do not lead to awakening, and we enter the stream.
We cannot reach that silence, that tranquility, however, if we lead a heedless life.
Just sitting comfortably on a mat doesn’t alone create the conditions that allow awakening to occur. A mind that is undisciplined and filled with ignorance cannot wake up just by the simple expedient of meditation.
When the Buddha sat, he brought a high degree of discipline with him. He was not a mean-minded, loud-mouthed, opinionated, pleasure-seeking ignoramus who decided to sit to experience bliss. He was not trying to get high. He simply wanted to find a way that, if followed, would put an end to the suffering of all sentient beings. He resolved to wake up to reality itself with no preconceptions as to what he would find, with no expectations of feeling good or bad; he just resolved to see clearly.
Most Buddhist teachers teach that every serious Zen practitioner can benefit by having a personal teacher. Some students therefore ask: Who was the Buddha’s teacher? The answer has already been given but it is repeated below.
When he sat down, he did so as a deluded individual. He wanted something. He didn’t want himself or anyone else to suffer anymore. He wanted happiness.
But he had practiced many disciplines. He was a person who had learned to avoid harming other people and other living things. His lifestyle was in harmony with nature and his fellow human beings. He was a practicing monk. He was a renunciate. He had left home. He was not a fool when he sat under that tree.
He realized that his belief that he was an independent individual who suffered was the root cause of that very suffering.
The desire to end suffering is the cause of suffering. When we understand that suffering exists but there is no sufferer, we begin to wake up. Religions promise the end of suffering by requiring the believer to believe in something that is quite unbelievable and threaten those who cannot believe nonsense with eternal torment. By practicing psychological terrorism, religions cause the suffering they promise to alleviate.
Suffering does not exist, any more than happiness or the passage of time does. For suffering or happiness or time itself to appear, the illusion of an independent self must first arise. The belief in an independent self as a subjective entity in an objective world is what allows time, suffering, happiness, and everything else, including the entire universe or plurality of universes, to arise and become manifest. Enlightenment is liberation from that delusion.
The teacher of the Buddha was suffering itself.
And we sit because we breathe. Meditation is the normal, natural state of mind just as breathing is the normal natural state of the body. And the mind that disagrees with that statement is deluded and needs to sit.
