- Zen meditation is the art of doing nothing
- The action of inaction
Physical Posture
- Sit comfortably. A chair is fine, or use the floor with a cushion.
- Sit tall and straight. Try to stretch the top of your spine towards the sky.
- Relax your muscles. Open your shoulders, relax your arms and legs.
- Close your mouth and breathe in through the nose, out through the nose.
- Focus on slowing down your breathing with each cycle.
- Eventually, you don’t need to specifically sit to meditate, you can use the sword of meditation in any position your body is in – playing games, walking the dog, brushing your teeth, doing dishes. You can slash your thoughts and return home, to your body, the present moment.
The Sword
Zen Meditation is a state of non-action and non-thinking. This is paradoxical, since it’s impossible to stop thinking or stop acting (you’re still breathing!).
The challenge isn’t to stop thinking.
The challenge is to stop giving into your thoughts. Stop identifying with them, stop valuing them, stop going down rabbit holes of thought.
Meditation will never stop the thoughts from coming. Meditation is a sword which slashes each new thought as it comes, letting you leave it in the past.
Whatever you start thinking about, whether it be your surroundings, people in your life, what you’re doing later, the whole point is to notice you’re thinking about something, slash that thought with the sword of “I don’t care”, and let that thought drift away out of your conscious mind.
Then, the next thought comes in. Something different, maybe about burgers this time. Who cares, slash that thought and let it drift away.