Coming from the West, the practice of Zen Buddhist meditation can seem confusing or, at the very least, magical and mysterious.  But if you strip away all the mythology, Zen meditation can actually be quite simple to understand.

A warning in advance — this simplicity will destroy all of the magical, mysterious qualities that often attracts people to Zen.

Here we go.

I'm going to refer specifically to Zen archery, or kyudo, which some people call Zen meditation in motion.  I'm using kyudo for my example because once you understand Zen in the context of Zen archery, it'll be obvious how my explanation relates to other forms of meditation.

In Zen archery you have this interesting paradox where you're trying to shoot an arrow at a target without trying to hit the target. It's important to do the form correctly — which would result in you hitting the target — and, at the same time, you want to be completely unattached to whether or not you actually do the form correctly or hit the target. It's a brilliantly impossible paradoxical situation: you want to be perfect, but there's no way to be perfect, and you want to be okay that you're not perfect, and yet strive to be perfect.

In the process of doing Zen archery, when you have the bow at full draw, you also have to balance being strong with being relaxed, being open with being focused, being on the edge between in- and out-of-control.  You're using a weapon that could be dangerous to you and the people around you, so you want to treat it with respect… and remain casual.

As you engage in this impossible practice, you typically have only a few different types of thoughts that arise: One is striving — wanting to do the form correctly and hit the target. Another, fear — knowing that if you control too much or too little you could hurt yourself and others.  Another is wanting to look good — you have this specific form and, often, people are watching you, including your teacher.  Pride comes up when you think you're doing well.  And then the run-of-the-mill random thoughts, when you're just kind of bored with the whole practice.

So, in the process of shooting arrows, with each shot you get one of those 4 or 5 thoughts. That's pretty much all the shows up. Over and over. Same process to shoot. same thoughts that arise.

So the first thing that happens in kyudo practice is that, over time, you discover you can continue to do the practice regardless of whether those thoughts arise or not.  There's no specific thought that actually can keep you from the action of shooting the arrow.

In other words, over time, by sheer repetition, you become slightly less interested in your thoughts.

And then over more time (and "more time" is the operative phrase, as this can take decades), as you continue practicing, what happens is that, frankly, you to start to get bored to death with your own thoughts. You get tired of hearing the same nonsense go through your head every time you pick up the bow and arrow and point toward the target and pull back the string and let go.

Over time — and did I mention this could take decades? — you get so sick of hearing the same stuff in your head, so bored with the same repetitious crap, that you just tune  it out or, sometimes, it just doesn't arise.

You bore yourself to death and, in the wake of what's left over, there's a little bit of quiet.

And if this sounds like something that you wanted — to spend years and years boring yourself to death to get to some quiet — here's the annoying Zen punch line:  The quiet is no relief.

It's not like the quiet makes you feel better or happier.  It's just instead of all the annoying repetitious nonsense, what shows up as something kind of quiet instead, and then that gets boring!

As you might've guessed the only difference between what happens with Zen archery and sitting Zen meditation practice is that with Zen archery the kinds of thoughts that arise tend you to be slightly more limited than the ones that show up during Zen Buddhist meditation practice. With sitting meditation practice, you tend to have a wider variety of thoughts which, in a way, makes it take even longer for you to get sick of yourself and get some peace and quiet.

Welcome to Zen.

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