During Zazen,
Lay all your energy in the posture of the body.
Instead of following the thoughts,
Instead of getting drained by emotions,
Follow the rhythm of the breathing,
Which becomes natural,
Extended,
Fluid,
As we sit more.
The posture should be straight and strong,
Knees pushing on the ground,
The top of the head towards the sky,
As if you wanted to make your body longer.
The shoulders are relaxed,
The face is relaxed,
The chest,
The belly,
All of these are relaxed and move in and out smoothly,
With a smooth breath.
The ears are aligned with the shoulders,
The nose is aligned with the belly button,
And it is in this supple verticality that we can return to our normal state of being,
Unconditioned by the difficulties we meet in life,
With an open heart,
Free from fear,
Deeply bonding with our true nature.
To open this area of the heart,
We need to be able to relax the diaphragm,
Which separates the air part of our body from the earth part,
That is to say,
The lungs from our intestine.
And to be able to relax the diaphragm,
We need to tilt the pelvis slightly forward,
So that we're sitting well on the sitting bones,
And the breathing can descend deep into the lower belly.
You can easily visualize this by following,
With the out-breath,
The gravity point of your body descending into the lower belly.
A mind on fire cannot be steered by a mind on fire.
If you want to be in control of your mind,
It needs to come from the concentration on posture,
That means embodied awareness,
And harmonizing with that body that sometimes feel awkward,
Harmonizing with that through the breathing.
There is no other way to realize than realization through posture and breathing.
These simple two things,
Body posture and breath.
Here and now.
These are the manifestations of reality as it is,
In its simplest form.
This vibrant reality of being fully alive,
Expresses itself through body posture and breath.
And by constantly returning to this,
Returning to a graceful posture,
Sitting vertically,
And finding peace with the breathing,
That we gradually uncondition from the knots that we are growing inside our head.
There is no other realization outside of this.
No need to go far to exotic places,
To places of practice.
We have this all the time,
With us,
At any given moment.
At any given moment,
We can decide to step back,
Turn the gaze inward,
And focus on posture and breath.
Master Dogen said,
Shu Sho Ichi Nyo,
Practice and realization are not any different.
Just here.
Just now.
This body.
This breath.
Nothing to add to that.
Nothing to reduce from that.
Just sitting quietly,
Is what aligns us with the constantly changing reality,
And makes it acceptable.
And from that acceptance,
New possibilities,
Opportunities,
Peace,
Harmony,
And joy,
Naturally.
Naturally.
