Do you want to learn Zen meditation?

If so you have a decision to make: do you want to sit in front of a blank wall or do want to know what the other meditators look like?

Though actually here's another decision: do you want to work gradually towards enlightenment or do you want to wait and wait and wait… and then be struck instantly with enlightenment?

And speaking of struck instantly, do you want to simply have an interview with your teacher when you have questions, or you sometimes want your teacher to beat you with a stick?

I ask these questions to be silly on purpose.  At the same time they do highlight some of the differences in approaches to Zen meditation from the two different Zen schools, Soto and Rinzai.

I'm not going to tell you which school endorses which of the practices I mentioned, above.  You can do a search for Zen meditation, and do that research yourself.

The point of this article is to highlight that traditions evolve.  For example, one school insists that, during meditation, you hold your hands with your left hand in the palm of your right hand.  Another school insists that you must hold your hands the other way.

But let me ask you what might sound like a simple question: Do you really think it matters which hand is holding the other in order for you to meditate properly?

Let's change the teaching a little bit and say that one school insists you put on your pants with your right leg first and another school insists the only way to Satori is by putting on your pants with the left leg first. Would you take that even remotely seriously?

Of course not. But when someone in Japanese Zen robes says that you must place your body in some specific posture, we often turn off our rational thinking process.  We tend to avoid questioning and simply do what we're told.

Let's go back to the sudden enlightenment versus gradual enlightenment argument.  In fact, the two different Zen meditation schools split because of this philosophical difference.

When you frame the argument in the terms of sudden enlightenment versus gradual enlightenment, who wouldn't like sudden?  And not surprisingly, it's the "sudden school" that was the breakaway school. "Sudden enlightenment" is a great sales pitch.  But let's look at the reality of what the two schools say is their huge difference.

One school says that the path to enlightenment is like walking from New York to San Francisco and slowly but surely, after some number of years of daily zen meditation practice, after getting closer and closer and closer, you'll eventually reach your destination.  Lets say it takes 20 years.

The other schools as you can just sit in New York, and practice practice practice (maybe do a zen meditation retreat every now and then) and then suddenly out of nowhere.  After 20 years, you'll end up in San Francisco.

Same destination.  Same 20 years.  The only difference is the idea of traveling versus teleportation.

Of course my favorite thing is this: many of the Zen buddhist meditation teachers who argue over this point, who've been practicing for years and years and years, regardless of whether they're getting closer to the end of the trip, or if they're waiting to be beamed to San Francisco… if you ask them if they're enlightened, they'll laugh and wave you away. In other words, you're getting driving instructions from someone who hasn't even completed the trip yet.

Just because some meditation is about stopping your thinking.  That doesn't mean it's about turning off your mind.

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