Having created a foundation we can now turn to how these principles are applied in a Zen practice.
Originally the Zen school was called the meditation school because of its focus on individual practice. However, ‘meditation, does not just apply to sitting meditation which is called ‘Zazen’, but to meditation in all the activities of the day called ‘daily life practice’. This is also known as mindfulness practice, but it is a practice that we seek to develop 24/7.
Sitting meditation is a small part, overall, of the daily life and even for the monks, outside of retreats, Zazen is a small fraction of the day. Mostly, they are involved in chores and other work. Thus daily life practice is the mainstay of Zen training. Zazen allows us to go deeper into the meditative state (called samadhi or ‘oneness’). This state is then taken out into the activities and developed there.
The ‘why’ and ‘how’ of this practice is discussed in these online videos here:
Welcome to this introduction to Zen Practice also known as 'daily life practice', so called because it is a practice to be cultivated in our ordinary lives on a day-to-day basis.
Having familiarised ourselves with some of the basic Buddhist teachings (the Zen school being a school of Buddhism), we now set out to put into practice what the Buddha taught.
The central practice is simply put - to give myself whole-heartedly into what at this moment is being done anyway.
In this second of two talks on starting out in the Zen training, the importance on form is discussed and suggestions as to how to introduce it into daily life practice are given.
The following articles give some key pointers to starting out on Zen training:
