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Let me share some strange experiences I made during the first couple of years just after I started regular Zazen practise:

After ten minutes, the wall in front of me became liquid and kind of transparent. It was fascinating, a bit like sitting in front of a waterfall. But then I was slowly sucked into the wall, and panicked: in case the wall solidifies again, I’d be enclosed by the stones! The vision was so strong that I jumped up from my pillow, shivering from head to legs…

Another time, I was obsessed by the idea that one of my flat-mates stole a book from my room. My concerns became so dominant, that eventually I interrupted my Zazen and went to the bookshelf to have a look. The book was standing there, and I felt very very silly …

During a several days Sesshin I suddenly saw an Enso (a Zen-circle) floating in front of me each time we did Zazen. I could blow it up or shrink it, change its size and colour … it was amazingly beautiful, and the vision returned the whole week through, whenever I wanted.

What is the meaning of such visions? Are they good or bad? Did I, after all, become mad?

These visions are not of any importance! After the initial beginner’s stadium, when fighting against hurting legs and stiff shoulders is slowly getting less severe and your concentration is getting better, your brain produces any kind of visions. In the Zen tradition they are called Makyo (魔境), which can be translated as deamons’ visions. And by no means they indicate you are becoming mental!

What to do with such visions?

Ignore them! Let them come and go, and focus on your Zazen posture, your breathing. With the years, Makyo will completely go away. And better don’t ask your teacher, if this or that vision you just had during Zazen indicates a pre-mature experience of Enlightenment … it does not!

My guest’s wife and baby took a Sunday afternoon nap, so we decided to sit Zazen for a round or two. With little kids, keeping up a regular schedule is often not possible, but this is no problem at all!

Zen is not in the first place meant to follow rigid schedules, but adopting to the circumstances.

When my daughter was still very little, I explained to her that when daddy is sitting on his “resting pillow”, she may come any time, but not talk, unless there is something really really very urgent. That was o.k. for her, and from time to time she came to sit on my laps during Zazen and share a precious moment of silence.

Occasionally, she even enjoyed the privilege of sitting on the “silent pillow” herself, since scolding her after doing something not o.k. was not allowed for me either, as long as she was sitting in silence. Same rights for all doing Zazen! Very likely, reflecting silently for a few minutes about her doings was anyway much better than parent’s advice …

Of course, when the teddy bear was sick or her doll crying, interrupting my Zazen was always allowed. Compassion for others, and be it a teddy or a doll, stands above all rules!

What is the best Zazen? my former Zen-teacher often asked during his talks.

Nowadays, I believe I misunderstood him in that aspect. I always had the impression his very answer to this question was setting up and following a most perfect schedule for our Sesshin, with each and every detail for each minute meticulously planned, and no deviation from the plan tolerated.

If you force yourself too much to follow a plan or an idea of how the best Zazen should be, even the very best Zazen can turn into something pretty unpleasant: 

I have to sit every day!
I have to sit at least twice for 25 minutes!
I must stop thinking or dozing during Zazen!
I must sit in a perfect full Lotus Posture!

Although this all might be true to a certain extend, the best Zazen is always the Zazen you are actually doing, right now! Without hesitation and with all your energy, however good or bad that may turn out to be.

It is not necessary to have any specific idea of what the best Zazen could be.
Just do it!

In a past posting Too Complicated? I wrote about the complex system of Buddhist believe, displayed in the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum I visited in Singapore a few weeks ago.

Now, I learned that my recent posting about Zen and Science is also too complicated (it is gone now, I will work it over some time).

Zen does not require much words, and what you say should be simple and clear.

If an idea or a thought comes along in confusing and complicated words, too difficult to understand, there is a certain chance that your time is better spent sitting 20 minutes Zazen on your pillow, than working through the words, until your mind is spinning.

I always try to keep a healthy balance between reading and sitting Zazen, and especially if reading time becomes dominant, I do not feel well …

When I started practising Zazen as a young student, I sat down on my pillow whenever I liked, and as long as I felt good. That wasn’t all bad, but soon I found it hard to improve my practise with this random schedule:

Should I really get up early in the morning to sit? Shall I answer the phone during Zazen or not? What if my flat-mates come in my room, they never know when I sit? It is boring now, should I stop, or sit a bit longer? Shall I go back to bed and sleep a bit longer?

I realised, when each and every time I first have to decide if I want to sit or not, and if so, when to stop, this is making my Zazen practise incredibly complicated and tiring. Fortunately, around this time, I relocated and joined the regular Zazen-practise in the Dojo where I then lived.

Although following a strict schedule was completely against my intentions and in contradiction to what I thought I understood from Zen (eat when hungry, sleep when tired, sit when …), after some, time I found the daily routine a great help!

It is already difficult enough for a beginner to keep up the motivation for doing Zazen alone at home. But if you constantly have in mind that not sitting on my pillow is an alternative, it becomes unnecessarily complicated.

Let me suggest to set up a routine, a schedule for your Zazen:

• Prepare a special Zazen place in your flat, one square meter is enough!
• Practise Zazen regularly, every day, or every other day, or every Sunday …
• Always sit at the same time, maybe at 7 after getting up, or at 9 in the evening.
• Always sit for the same duration, 5 minutes, or 15 or 20.
• Let no minor events interrupt your schedule, but better stay flexible in case of sickness, holiday, family matters or guests at your place.
• Announce your schedule, to yourself, your partner, your family. Communicate (and make clear to yourself) that this is your Zazen time, that it is important for you and nobody, not even you yourself, may interrupt you without a very good reason.
• Follow your schedule without any doubt or hesitation, and only from time to time, maybe every couple of months,  re-consider if it is still suitable for you, or if you want to modify it.

I am confident, this will help you to develop a stronger and more joyful Zazen experience!

To our yesterday’s seminar, one participant brought cherries and a salad to share with all of us during the lunch-break.

Usually, I ask the students to bring food for themselves to eat, and that’s just what they do. In the evening, they take back home in their bellies what they brought the morning in their rucksacks.

Though, when you generously share what you brought, be it food, humour or pain, your rucksack will be a bit lighter and easier to carry when going home!

My work on our seminars and Sesshin is not aimed to fill the students’ brains and hearts with lots of stuff, so they go home even more heavily loaded. I wish my Dojo to be a place to alleviate a bit of the load you carry with you. If it is nice food we all can enjoy, I say thank you!

Like many of us, enthusiastic after coming back from my first trip to Japan more than a decade ago, I wanted to give my home a bit of a Japanese atmosphere. I tried very hard, but it did not work out.

Was it the western architecture of my flat? The lack of a nice calligraphy hanging in the tokonoma? Was my ikebana flower arrangement not good enough?

Travelling back and forth, every time I was in Japan, I carefully studied the Japanese style rooms, architecture and decoration of the temples and the ryokan I visited. I took so many notes and pictures back home, every detail I observed. It did not help.

That was until once, when my Shakuhachi teacher announced to come to Bonn and teach at my place, and I spent a whole week cleaning each and every corner. No dust, nothing, nowhere … and suddenly it was there, this special atmosphere, which I believed to be so typical Japanese!

Since then, my preparation for seminars at my Dojo is not reading Zen books, or deep thinking about what and how to teach, or the schedule or the students’ background. It is just cleaning the place thoroughly, so my mind gets empty and the students can enjoy a bit Japanese atmosphere.

As a beginner, how to find your teacher, is the most important task to solve!

But how can you know, if he or she is really good? Or if he or she is just a fake, maybe abusive, maybe only a business oriented self made guru? You have no chance, but finding out yourself!

Once you found some candidate for being your teacher, work with him, full heartedly. Don’t hold back, and see where it brings you! But keep your responsibility for your life, for your mental and physical health, with you!

If you get angry, if you get very angry,  if your teacher (who once was so soft and kind) corrects you and scolds you all day long, although you already explained you gave your very best; if you think he or she is an idiot, and you should stop working with this teacher immediately; even if he eventually kicks you out … don’t quit! In case of trouble, sit down on your pillow, practise Zazen! Maybe, after an hour, a day or a week,  you’ll find out, that he or she did a great service for you, touching your big big ego! 

This teacher is good and loves you, and by all means you want to stay with him!

But if you realise that he, or people in his close environment, are going to destroy your life, your family, your body and soul, you must leave!

Only professional young Zen novices, entering the training hall to sacrifice their life for studying with their Roshi, have no alternative. If you feel up for this, go ahead! But we Zen lay people must never forget our responsibilities, our family, our job, our beloved ones who depend on us. And it is vital not to mix this up!

So, if you find out that the relation becomes abusive, if you get a very clear impression that you do 100.000 times more for your teacher, than he or she does for you; if he lets other people in his environment interfere the exclusive teacher-student relationship; if he manipulates you instead of letting you grow … or if end of the day you realise it’s all about titles, certificates and money,  you must quit and safe your life!

My first contact with Zen was through a book (Zen Mind, Beginners Mind by S. Suzuki, I still recommend, if someone asks me for a “good book on Zen”). It gave me some good initial ideas, what “Zen” is about (mainly practice, not theory, mainly daily life, less something holy, special, enlightened …), and I started practising at home, on my own.

But soon after, I got stuck. Problems with my daily sitting emerged, mentally and physically. And unfortunately, I read more books on Zen to solve my problems. The advices given there did not help me much, and even worse, I tried to live up to what was described there. Eventually, I got the impression, that the only real and justified way of practising Zen is to become a (possibly Japanese) monk in a (possibly Japanese) Zen-Temple.

Fortunately, at this time I relocated due to my University studies. Having no money to rent a flat, I lived for a couple of months in an Aikido Dojo, with a busy daily schedule, including Zazen in the early morning.

I did not like getting up so early and sitting for long hours, but I had no chance! Before 6 a.m. I had to roll up my sleeping bag and get my pillow ready. Then the teacher came, and we did Zazen … he did not give much advise, except correcting my posture and explaining how to breath properly. But that was just right, after all the “Zen” I read. And having someone around, day by day, every morning, sitting with me, was an enormous help! Suddenly, there was no more doubt that I wanted to sit, and that it was good and somehow important to keep up this practise without questioning too much.

Years later, I met my second Zen-teacher, with whom I very closely worked for almost 13 years. It was an enormously intense exchange,  which often brought me to my absolute physical and emotional limits. Today, in spite of all the hardship and suffering during those years, I feel very grateful for his dedicated teaching!

Sometimes I read or hear, that it is better not to engage into too many activities, but focus on Zen practice alone. I believe, that the basis of all our practice is a regular, strong and joyful Zazen! Without sitting regularly, day by day, everything I do becomes weaker and weaker, like a flower lacking of water.

But as human beings we have to eat, which involves chores, preparing food and chores again. We must maintain our living environment, which means chores and manual work. As lay-persons we often have a job and family … there are so many things to do in our life, and we should not consider them as something unpleasant, distracting us from Zen-practice!

In the beginning, when our Zazen is still weak and our practice lacks depth and experience, there is sitting Zazen on the one hand side, and daily life on the other. This is o.k. for beginners, you need some time to adjust your body and mind to a new routine!

But for sure, if we do not force our Zen practice to be restricted upon the time we spend on our pillow, our Zazen experience will more and more pervade our daily life. Gradually, the way we prepare food or do chores will change, and with surprise and joy we will realise, how much Zazen and preparing food or cleaning the toilet have in common.

But this is not adding Zen to our daily life! It is not something, we put on top of our day-by-day routines!

Our Zen-experience takes something away! It takes away the non-focused, over-concerned, lost-in-thoughts and anger-about-good-and-bad way, in which we often perform our tasks. And with all these disturbing thoughts gone, we just do what we do, realising daily life is more pleasure and demanding less physical and emotional energy than before.