What I find interesting about zazen is that the emphasis is entirely on posture, with nothing that the practitioner is supposed to think or do, and this is said to have a “balancing” effect on the mind. Having tried it for about a week I can say that it does seem to induce a state of somewhat relaxed alertness, but that the effect varies widely depending on how you were feeling before you did the zazen. Also, it’s extremely difficult to maintain motivation to do it every day as recommended, because of the boredom and discomfort of sitting in lotus, staring at the wall.
As to whether this has any applications to rationality, I’m unsure. According to practitioners it may help in avoiding being overcome by emotion, and increasing concentration, but these claims may be a dishonest attempt at proselytisation by buddhists (“join our religion and gain these benefits”) and I’m having trouble tracking down any satisfactory references. If anyone else has any experience with this I’d be interested to hear about it.
The Zen center I sat at for a while when I lived in Dallas, didn’t do any proselytizing that I noticed. As I understand is the general practice, if you tell the Roshi what purpose you’re meditating for, he’ll assign you an appropriate practice. If you’re seeking “bompu Zen”—i.e., purely material benefits like concentration and willpower enhancement, you’ll generally be assigned a practice like counting your breaths. Enlightenment seekers are more likely to be assigned following the breath, a koan, or shikan-taza.
the emphasis is entirely on posture, with nothing that the practitioner is supposed to think or do
What do you mean? If you’re concentrating on, for example, counting the breath, then that is something you’re supposed to think/do. From what I understand of zazen—which comes mostly from the Three Pillars of Zen—good posture helps, but it isn’t the main point.
As to the benefits to someone interested in thinking clearly, one of the things I find worth mentioning is that it showed me something about the way my mind works. Until I tried zazen I had no real idea of how ridiculously hard it is to actually focus on something I’ve chosen to focus on. (Crowley writes well about that problem, too, but actually trying it is different than reading about it). Catching the distracting thoughts “in real time”, as they arise, was interesting and instructive.
There’s a certain persistence I learned from this, the ability to avoid frustration and refocus on a goal time and time again despite distraction or temporary failure. When you are supposed to be following (=paying attention to) your breathing, and you catch yourself thinking about something else, then you’re prone to be dismayed or angry or otherwise generate more thoughts and emotions. This makes it even harder to refocus. Eventually though you learn to respond -only- by returning your attention where you meant it to be, without wasting unnecessary thought/energy on the fact of having been distracted. This is a useful skill.
This seems like the right thread to add some info about zen meditation (“zazen”) for those who are interested in trying it. These are some pages from an american zen master’s website: how to sit zazen and stretches to get to the lotus position.
What I find interesting about zazen is that the emphasis is entirely on posture, with nothing that the practitioner is supposed to think or do, and this is said to have a “balancing” effect on the mind. Having tried it for about a week I can say that it does seem to induce a state of somewhat relaxed alertness, but that the effect varies widely depending on how you were feeling before you did the zazen. Also, it’s extremely difficult to maintain motivation to do it every day as recommended, because of the boredom and discomfort of sitting in lotus, staring at the wall.
As to whether this has any applications to rationality, I’m unsure. According to practitioners it may help in avoiding being overcome by emotion, and increasing concentration, but these claims may be a dishonest attempt at proselytisation by buddhists (“join our religion and gain these benefits”) and I’m having trouble tracking down any satisfactory references. If anyone else has any experience with this I’d be interested to hear about it.
The Zen center I sat at for a while when I lived in Dallas, didn’t do any proselytizing that I noticed. As I understand is the general practice, if you tell the Roshi what purpose you’re meditating for, he’ll assign you an appropriate practice. If you’re seeking “bompu Zen”—i.e., purely material benefits like concentration and willpower enhancement, you’ll generally be assigned a practice like counting your breaths. Enlightenment seekers are more likely to be assigned following the breath, a koan, or shikan-taza.
Interesting,
What do you mean? If you’re concentrating on, for example, counting the breath, then that is something you’re supposed to think/do. From what I understand of zazen—which comes mostly from the Three Pillars of Zen—good posture helps, but it isn’t the main point.
As to the benefits to someone interested in thinking clearly, one of the things I find worth mentioning is that it showed me something about the way my mind works. Until I tried zazen I had no real idea of how ridiculously hard it is to actually focus on something I’ve chosen to focus on. (Crowley writes well about that problem, too, but actually trying it is different than reading about it). Catching the distracting thoughts “in real time”, as they arise, was interesting and instructive.
There’s a certain persistence I learned from this, the ability to avoid frustration and refocus on a goal time and time again despite distraction or temporary failure. When you are supposed to be following (=paying attention to) your breathing, and you catch yourself thinking about something else, then you’re prone to be dismayed or angry or otherwise generate more thoughts and emotions. This makes it even harder to refocus. Eventually though you learn to respond -only- by returning your attention where you meant it to be, without wasting unnecessary thought/energy on the fact of having been distracted. This is a useful skill.