Contemporary Zen hogwash

I was not prolonged ago informed by a Zen student of prolonged standing which this blogs ideas about imagining have been not Zen. Zen, we was informed, focuses on a hara(J., belly)and you do objectless imagining (whatever which is). (This is Japanese Zen, especially Soto.)

Frankly, this is so much hogwash. An early description of imagining Zen ordinands were compulsory to do, who had been since Dharma (shou-fa), was to lay in zazen afterwards use anapana-smrti (hsi-nien), which in Pali is anapanasati, differently called awareness when respirating in as well as out. There is no discuss of a hara in this imagining (cp. Peter N. Gregory, Tsung-mi as well as a Sinification of Buddhism, p. 4143).

I should discuss briefly, which a single of a really early meditations of Zennists was i-hsing sanmei which translated is single-mode-samadhi. More on this can be found in a book, Traditions of Meditation in Chinese Buddhism which is edited by Peter N. Gregory. The particular article we used is by Bernard Faure entitled, The Concept of One-Practice Samadhi in Early Chan.

Zen master Ejo who followed Zen master Dogen, of a Japanese Soto School, described a rsther than interesting meditation. (Brackets have been mine.)

"Hence we know which a sitting imagining of a school is absorption in a book of light hereditary directly from Burning Lamp [Dipamkara Buddha] as well as Shakyamuni. What other doctrine competence their be? This is a light which is not two [advaya] in ordinary people as well as sages, which is a single car [Ekayana] in past as well as present" (T. Cleary, Minding Mind, 57).

From what we can gather, Zen master Ejo is saying which Japanese Sotoshu teaches which sitting imagining is absorption in a book of light which is a same as a radiant Mind.

If most of a supporters of modern Zen adhere to being just aware of a hara, forsaking other forms of meditation, they will never comprehend a Mind which Bodhidharma came to China to reveal. Realizing ! a swell is not realizing a Mind.