Points to Keep in Mind When Practicing Zazen 

Sitting like an abandoned temple - that is so beautiful! The heat, the rain, birds nesting, trees growing through walls - nothing is rejected because there is no one there to reject.

When I was in the Army they told us to stand at attention or at ease for various amounts of time and we had no choice but to stand there. Sometimes we were put in the ''front leaning rest position'' which is the ''up'' position of a pushup for several minutes. There was no discussion about what to think or how to think, we simply endured the time. I have always approached Zazen this way. I set a timer and sit. The rest is ''the content of my zazen'' as some call it. 🙃

Zen is a tool, and you can continue to use a tool after the job is done, or you can use it for the wrong job. Use it, understand what it is used for, and put it down. Or its a trap.

What you read from the essay was very Poetic, it deeply resonated with me. Since I have discovered this moment, numberless years have flew past, and I often forget people's age changes with time, including my own. When somebody asked me how old I will be at my next birthday I had to really strain my brain to get the number by subtracting today's date from my birthday LOL

When I was a young Karate student we were taught "just sitting" in zazen and we practice meditation on emptiness. He taught us how to empty the mind. I was so young I was able to do it, since I followed my teacher sincerely, and I was still young and untainted by the adult world. I was in the best health of my life when I trained at the Dojo. In the 90s it was more affordable, as an adult, these classes are too rich for my blood.

That just sitting is the hardest practice of all.

I read something ages ago that cultures in Asia locate their "person" being in their chest in their heart. Whereas here in the west, we think we're in our head. "We" are just like all in our head :D lol. but still, interesting when you described the mind and the location of the "mind."

When practicing Zazen, I try to keep NO points in my mind - or, perhaps better said: Sitting still, doing nothing (not even trying to do nothing).

I've been watching your channel lately and this is my favorite song so far! I don't sit, but think it might be a good thing to do. I can't sit cross legged, so would need to sit in a chair.

Man, every time I hear your music, it's like getting a history lesson on where all the punk rock stuff I love came from. You seem to play less hardcore stuff these days, but I can still hear the punk in there. You and my favorite bands share this kind of...Iunno, honesty, for lack of a better word? Y'all seem to take very personal experiences and try to use music to share those feelings with the listener.

Counting my breaths just keeps me focused on the counting itself and loosing the count.

Welcome home ❤

Brad, please, keep on coming to Europe! The sesshin with you was great. And you must admit, european zen is much more relaxed than over there in the US.

I haven’t been motivated to sit in Zazen for months!

Love that song and the way you play it.

You have a floss silk tree! They bloom in September. I prefer to call them dinosaur leg trees.

When energy goes inward it turns into thoughts, feelings, emotions, and when energy goes outward it turns into relationships with beings and nature. But when energy does not move inward or outward, it is just there pulsating, vibrating. Then it is one with the existence, one with the whole. Is this Zazen? "Exactly. When the energy is just there - not going anywhere, just pulsating at the original source, just radiating its light there, blossoming like a lotus, neither going out nor going in - it is simply here and now. When I say go inward, I am simply saying don’t go on moving in the head. The whole society forces your energy to move in the head. All education consists of the basic technique of how to pulsate the energy only in the head - how to make you a great mathematician, how to make you a great physician. All the education in the world consists of taking the energy into the head. Zen asks you to come out of the head and go to the basic source - from where the educational system around the world has been taking the energy, putting it into the head, and turning it into thoughts, images, and creating thinking. It has its uses. It is not that Zen is not aware of the uses of energy in the head, but if all the energy is used in the head, you will never become aware of your eternity. You may become a very great thinker and philosopher, but you will never know, as an experience, what life is. You will never know as an experience, what it is to be one with the whole. When the energy is just at the center, pulsating… When it is not moving anywhere, neither in the head nor in the heart, but it is at the very source from where the heart takes it, the head takes it… pulsating at the very source - that is the very meaning of Zazen. Zazen means just sitting at the very source, not moving anywhere. A tremendous force arises, a transformation of energy into light and love, into greater life, into compassion, into creativity. It can take many forms, but first you have to learn how to be at the source. Then the source will decide where your potential is. You can relax at the source, and it will take you to your very potential. It does not mean that you have to stop thinking forever, it simply means you should be aware and alert and capable of moving into the source. When you need the head you can move the energy into the head, and when you need to love, you can move the energy into the heart. But you need not think twenty-four hours. When you are not thinking you have to relax back into your center - that keeps the Zen man constantly content, alert, joyful. A blissfulness surrounds him; it is not an act, it is simply radiation. Zazen is the strategy of Zen. Literally it means just sitting. Sitting where? Sitting at the very source. And once in a while, if you go on sitting in the source, you can manage all mental activities without any disturbance; you can manage all heart activities without any difficulty. And still, whenever you have time, you need not unnecessarily think, you need not unnecessarily feel, you can just be. Just being is Zazen. And if you can just be - only for a few minutes in twenty-four hours - that is enough to keep you alert of your buddhahood."

Jays Those Exotic birds squawking away !

Ziggy is enjoying the outside

I don’t count my breaths but if my mind is going nuts I’ll turn my mind to my breath. Then my awareness opens up gradually to the rest of my body participating in the bath and eventually awareness expands and is “normal” again.

According to a tibetian teacher friend of mine, tanden is roughly hara. Rinsai had a reaction to my coming over from soto. Not sure but they did not focus on counting breath

That tree that's flowering in the yard is a Bogan villa. They are beautiful , but if they get out of control , they're so hard to prune because of the thorns. Love your videos i'm new to this and they're so informative your fantastic.

Welcome Back

Hardcore Zen.

Missed you

Somewhere I heard count your breathes but youre not really counting up to anything. Such as one in, two out. one in, two out. I guess you could do one in and one out lol. Thanks for the tips

Crank it up! 🎶🎵🎸👍

what's the two-fold emptiness? I've never come across that phrase before. edit: nvm I googled it. I've just never made the distinction between the emptiness of self and the emptiness of stuff/happenings... Aren't I just stuff/happenings? I guess my new question is: how is the emptiness of the self different than the emptiness of phenomenon?

Ex Qi gong and Yoga practitioner here : This breathing into the Hara or Dantien just below the navel business is more of a Qi gong/taichi thing. If we insist its got something to do with Yogic chakras then, I don't know, specialist chakra knowledge is beyond my pay grade. The main chakra business is all about getting the kundalini snake in your butt chakra to shoot out the top of your skull.

Hard to believe you're 59! You're like a vampire lol

I’m pretty sure that’s a Chitalpa. Toothaches suck! Viva Ziggy!

What if someone argued that Zen is just a lot of "be here now" fluff?

Brad tell me about your tax problems, I won't judge.