What is your sitting meditaiton technique?

Zazen?
Samatha?
Vipassana?
TM?
Something else not listed here?
Whatever it is, how do you do it? How long have you done it? Does what you do change? Has it changed recently? Do you vary your practice a little or a lot?

Me, as much as I think for some reason that I should work on concentation/samatha, pretty much stick to a style of vipassana that has evolved over the last three years or so.


Sit in a chair. Back straight but relaxed about posture. Eyes closed most of the time. Become aware of the rising and falling of my abdomen as I breath. Feel the pressure there. Mental note "rising" as it rises, mental note "stopping" if it stops, mental note "falling" as it falls, and then "stopping" again at the bottom of the out breath.
First priortiy is to not miss a rise, fall, or stop because of thinking, daydreaming, reflecting, etc. This is primarily samatha I think.
Next, as I'm noting rising, fallling, stopping, (and all the little subtle stops here and there) I notice sensations/vibrations/tensions wherever they are and whatever they are. Sometimes these are in my feet, sometimes my abdomen, my arms, my scalp -- they can be anywhere. They can change rapidly in location, intensity, speed. They can stop - boom, out of nowhere.
I never note the sensations, just sort of live inside them so I can get to where I can sort out the beginning, middle and ending of EACH one.
This can get me thinking and lost, so I'll go back to the rising, falling stopping, primarily until I am concentrated again and then go back to the sensations.
I try to stay at the level of bare sensation as much as possible, even thoughts and images floating in and out I look at as objects, sensations to notice and see rise, do something, and then go away in a distinct process.

When I do this on the commuter van with all the vibrations and noise, it is difficult to feel a lot of subtle vibrations and objects coming and going so I concentrate on the breath as it passes through and touches the nostrils and hairs and top of my lip. There are a lot of sensations just there to be with.

More later and how this leads to fruition/cessation and then ... what?

I stopped meditating regularly for a few months, and now my meditation is fairly crappy, which is pretty entertaining. By crappy I simply mean that I tend to spend most of the sit either daydreaming or falling asleep. Instead of just sitting/being with everything just as it is. I find this intriguing though, and am curious if it will change (I'm guessing it will) in the next days or weeks now that I'm being more disciplined again. I've had a lot of mundane world distractions to my schedule lately, so where meditation used to be a very routine part of my day, it's now has to be fit back in again.

In the past I've done noting (simple labels like "image, talk, touch" based on Shinzen Young's noting method). I dropped the labeling when things got too complex to label, but kept the same kind of attention, noticing. I've done Centering Prayer a few times. I actually think that's one of the most beautiful methods. I am tempted therefore to make it my main practice, but given how difficult "just sitting" is right now, I'm challenging myself to stick with that and see if there's something I'm unconsciously resisting.

These last few sits I've had a lot of non-specific anxiety. We will see where that goes.

I went to hear my favorite Daoist teacher today; he was giving today's version of an introduction to zuowang 'meditation' [which sounded rather different in some way I can't quite describe, from the 'same' talk I heard 6 months ago]. I put meditation in quotes because the literal -- as well as absolutely accurate-- translation of zuowang is 'sitting and forgetting'. And the words are not some kind of special, secret technical terms, but the common words for the common daily experiences. Your grandmother might urge you to 'sit, sit, sit' when you come to visit. Your grandfather might confess to 'forgetting, forgetting!'

His main point was that there is no real reason to meditate. Yeah, there's the 'making an acquaintance/taking an inventory' stage at the beginning, which tends to require some sort of hypothetical goal to motivate the practitioner. But at some point one recognizes that there is no more reason to 'assume the position' than there is to breathe. I don't require a reason to breathe, I just do it, like all the other sentient beings. Having assumed the position, whatever is there, is there-- requiring no more 'regulation' from me than my breathing. I can no more succeed or fail at sitting than at breathing.

It was a great relief to be reminded of these things that I had noticed for myself in the past, because my tour 'round the 'pragmatic dharma' scene these last couple of years had introduced a subtle whiff of uncertainty as to whether 'just sitting there like a bump on a log' was really OK, or if maybe I was fooling myself and I needed to get with some program.

It was also good to hear a reminder of what are the functions of the various components of the posture: the legs provide stability; the easy 'uprightness' of the head and shoulders opens the 'center' so the heart and lungs can function unimpeded.

just what i needed to hear kate. thanks for that. the anxiety turned out to be related to worldly events after all. i awoke this morning remembering even the arguing and shrieking are "god's voice" which makes relating to them so perfectly okay.

yes. including. embracing. accepting. being with. even when the old habit is running away, resisting, not wanting.

Chris-- is the experience of 'IS' another thing entirely than 'running toward' or 'running away'? Is is what includes both, as well as any other formulation that you could come up with?

[Sounds like an annoying rhetorical question, I know; but I'm asking about how you experience it, how it feels to you.]

Yeah, it's always great to provoke a little exposition from you!

Yesterday, Liu Ming casually referred to zuowang as something you 'just do'-- until it is what you are. In what style or manner you 'just do' it varies as needed along the way-- and the manner 'makes a difference' in the sense of having different effects. But all the descriptions of 'reality' or 'completeness' or whatever name is given to what is beyond being nameable seem to indicate that 'buddhanature' is something that neither dogs nor I nor any other being 'has' or can 'attain'-- it is what all beings ARE, inescapably, from beginninglessness. At our 'worst' no less than at our 'best'. We just trip all over ourselves at our worst, and it's unpleasant. Lazy buggers like myself find ways to avoid the tripping.

[whoops! simultaneous posting]

I have a sort of practice lifestyle that includes sitting meditation and non sitting practice that I do because I want my life to be about greater insight, intimacy, peace, joy, learning. I want to be present for myself, my family, my employer, all the tnings to which I am connected. This is an impluse that I've always had that I just can't and won't avoid.

It's all about approaching. However, there is a fine line between approaching to get somewhere and approaching to get nowhere. The only way to get somewhere is to approach just for the sake of approaching whatever is happening right now. Otherwise, one may think one is getting somewhere, but it will just be more mental projections/illusions.

is the desire to "get somewhere" not simply unavoidable at certain points? i just keep thinking it's easy to say that's misguided when it's not what you are dealing with (anymore)
but @chris
said, there was a time when that was important to you too.
that chasing and tripping over self is what you have to do. ?? thoughts. ?

Ona --
It's an art, I think. I practice for a reason so to say I'm not trying to get something would just be a lie.
However, while practicing, the technique is to be with exactly what is going on right now -- even if that is being with the desire to get somewhere.

i don 't even know what i mean. lol. pouring rain. too many wired kids stuxk in the house. bbq thwarted by storms. me pretending to nap in a dark room to reduce the sensory overload.

Yes, quite right. If there's a stream to enter, after all, it's this.

What I've found (or perhaps, what I'm finding) is that the desire to get somewhere and the desire to be here now need not be mutually exclusive. They can actually coexist within the same space. There's room for both. There's room for it all.

I'm coming to this conversation late and all; but, if you want to know what my sitting meditation is like these days, it's this: hold it all.

If one's practice is truly to be with what is, then often they will be with a desire to get somewhere -- it's all part of the same movement of the objects of existence.

The reason I like Chris' is (assuming that I really understand it) is that it is a verb, that is is the central verb of our human language, indicating the central that fact that life, existence, is a constant movement, a constant process of change, of living, of dying.

well i never met a meditator who wasn't seeking something, looking, searching, wanting. at least at first. otherwise why would you bother?
people who aren't seeking don't take up mystical or spiritual practices.

well i never met a meditator who wasn't seeking something, looking, searching, wanting. at least at first. otherwise why would you bother?
people who aren't seeking don't take up mystical or spiritual practices.

-ona

This morning, I found myself putting it this way, writing to a friend:

The long and the short is that 'enlightenment' really doesn't matter; it's just the shiny object that catches your attention and seduces you into discovering that practice does matter,
but not because of any 'end' to be reached. There's something in that
famous Dogen quote about enlightenment not only encompassing all and
everything, but going on endlessly-- right? The misdirection is that it
was said so beautifully, that the funky, unglorious reality surprises.
Lucky us. Surprises are the best!

For those unfamiliar with the Dogen quote [in case such there be reading this], let me look it up... Here we go:

"Studying the Buddha way is studying oneself.
Studying oneself is forgetting oneself.
Forgetting oneself is being enlightened by all things.
Being enlightened by all things is to shed the body-mind of oneself, and those of others.
No trace of enlightenment remains, and this traceless enlightenment
continues endlessly."

PS-- 'why would anyone bother'. Actually I think some people have not been searching-- or were not sufficiently self-aware to recognize it in latent form-- they got blindsided by reality, and then had to research the backstory and reverse-engineer dharma. One of those wry little ironies that are so amusing.

The other irony that strikes me lately is that everything I declare is a misrepresentation by virtue of being so partially true that it is a falsehood. You will notice that this does not convince me to STFU...

kate- delightful. thanks.

never met a blindsided person i don't think. and dont stfu !!
you are bringing a grin to my face during my long day of airport delays. almost home! thank god for the internet.