John Daido Loori
Editor’s Note: There have been thousands upon thousands of books published on Zen practice, the Buddhist tradition that Bodhidharma famously declared as “a special transmission outside the scriptures . . . not relying on words or letters.” That said, if you’re going to read one book on Zen, you couldn’t go wrong with Daido Loori Roshi’s Finding the Still Point. It’s short, practical, to the point, and from the heart. Here’s an excerpt from Daido’s introduction.
There are many schools of Buddhism and a vast array of teachings on how to realize our true nature. Some schools focus on the rules of conduct. Others concentrate on academic study and debate. Still others use visualizations and chanting of sacred sounds and words. In Zen, the emphasis is on zazen, or sitting Zen. Zazen is the heart of the Zen path.
To practice zazen is to study the self. In its early stages, zazen has the appearance of what is normally called meditation. But we should understand that zazen is more than just meditation. It is not mere contemplation or introspection. It is not quieting the mind or focusing the mind. Zazen is sitting Zen—one aspect of Zen. There is also walking Zen, working Zen, laughing Zen, and crying Zen. Zen is a way of using one’s mind and living one’s life, and doing this with other people. No rule book has ever been written that can adequately describe Zen. You have to go very deep into yourself to find its foundations.
The great Zen Master Eihei Dogen said:
To study the Buddha Way is to study the self,
To study the self is to forget the self,
To forget the self is to be enlightened by the ten thousand things.
To study the self is zazen. To forget the self is zazen. To be enlightened by the ten thousand things is zazen—it is to recognize the unity of the self and the whole phenomenal universe.
The Buddha attained enlightenment while practicing a form of seated meditation. Zen practice constantly returns to that basic seated form. This practice has continued for twenty-five hundred years, transmitted from realized practitioner to realized practitioner, from generation to generation. It traveled from India to China, from China to Korea and Japan, and in the twentieth century it arrived in the West.
Zazen is a very simple practice. It is very easy to describe and very easy to follow. But like all practices, it takes “doing” in order for anything to happen. And what happens with zazen can transform our lives.
Most of us spend our time preoccupied. We are constantly carrying on an internal dialogue. While we are involved in talking to ourselves, we miss the moment-to-moment awareness of our life. We look, but we don’t see. We listen, but we don’t hear. We eat, but we don’t taste. We love, but we don’t feel. The senses are receiving all the information, but because of our preoccupations, cognition is not taking place. Zazen brings us back to each moment. The moment is where our life takes place. If we miss the moment we miss our life.
Every other creature on the face of the earth seems to know how to be quiet and still. A butterfly on a leaf; a cat in front of a fireplace; even a hummingbird comes to rest sometime. But humans are constantly on the go. We seem to have lost the ability to just be quiet, to simply be present in the stillness that is the foundation of our lives. Yet if we never get in touch with that stillness, we never fully experience our lives.
When the mind is at rest, the body is at rest—respiration, heartbeat, and metabolism slow down. Reaching this still point is not something unusual or esoteric. It is a very important part of being alive and staying awake. All creatures on the earth are capable of manifesting this stillness.
In zazen, as you practice letting go of your thoughts and internal dialogue, and bringing your mind back to the breath, the breath will slowly get easier and deeper, and the mind will naturally rest. The mind is like the surface of a pond. When the wind blows, the surface is disturbed. Then there are waves and ripples, and the image of the sun or the moon or whatever the surface is reflecting is broken up.
When the wind quiets down, the surface of the pond becomes like glass. The stilled mind is like a mirror. It doesn’t process, it just reflects. When there is a flower in front of it, it reflects a flower. When the flower is gone, the reflection is gone. When a fire engine goes by, we hear the fire engine. When the fire engine is gone, its reflection is gone. The mind returns to that original smooth surface. A still mind is unobstructed— always open and receptive. It doesn’t hold on or attach to anything. At any moment in time, it is free.
