Meditation Bench

When I first began meditation, my legs would fall asleep very fast and then it would be painfull, it would be extremely difficult for me to concentrate. I saw Mike using a meditation bench so I decided to try it as well. It is very good, and It helps with my posture and concentration.
-JOE

Jonathan at Baird Point

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Originally uploaded by ubbuddhas.

Dharma Friends,
I'd like to introduce this posture to UB communities.
Enjoy!
Jin

Introduction(10)

Why is this book called The Compass of Zen? Buddhist teaching reveals that this world is an ocean of suffering. Everyone is born, suffers, grows old, and dies. We are reborn, we suffer, we grow old, and then we die. Every single being is reborn over and over and over again. Because of our desires and attachment. We have been doing this since beginningless time. The Sanskrit name for that is samsare-everything is always going around and around and around. The Sino-Korean characters for that are go hae, or “ocean of suffering.” The Buddha taught that we must take a boat across this ocean of samsara, a ship of wisdom or “prajna ship.” But like every ocean-going vessel, this ship needs a compass.

Let’s say that you want to take a ship from Los Angeles to Korea. On board you have stowed plenty of food and clothing and medicine. These are necessary for your body to stay alive. But how do you find your destination on this journey? The most important thing to be clear about is your direction. If your direction is not clear, you will wander for years and years all over the ocean. You will be easily lost. In the meantime, perhaps you will run out of food, or get stranded on some island. So more than anything lese on your journey, your direction is most important: “How can I find Korea? How do I get there? Where is Korea?”

To find your correct direction, you need a compass. If sailors have no compass, then even though they may have a very good boat, good maps, and excellent weather, they will not perceive clearly their correct direction. They will certainly lose the way and not reach the destination. But when you use this boat’s compass correctly, you can find your true way. Then you can perceive that actually your true way is always right in front of you.

So if you want to understand your true self, you must practice meditation. Only keep this question very deeply. “What am I?” Don’t knowww…. But there are many kinds of teachings you can follow along the way. There is Tibetan Buddhist teaching, Chinese Buddhist teaching, Korean Zen, Japanese Zen and Namu myoho renge-kyo; there is Vipassana, Transcendental Medetation, and Clear Light Meditation. There is Pure Land practice, Tantric Buddhism, and esoteric Buddhism. There are many, many kinds of teachings, especially nowadays in the West. What is a clear teaching, and how does it function? How does it point directly to mind? How does it help us find our correct way, truth, and a life that functions spontaneously and compassionately for all beings? That is the point of making this compass: to help you find the true bone of the Buddha’s teaching in the three major Buddhist divisions.

Introduction(9)

Nearly every single human being living in the world today does not understand what they are. The Buddha was simply a man of great determination and try-mind who taught us the importance of resolving just that point. Before you die, you must attain your direction. You must attain what you are. If you read many sutras, or chant to Amitaba, that will help you somewhat. That is not good, not bad. But why do you read many sutras? Why do you try this Amitaba Buddha chanting? So it is very important to make your direction clear. The Buddha taught us the importance of finding our true direction in this life. “What am I? I must attain my true self – this is the most important thing I can do.” If you attain your true self, then you attain your correct way. When you are born, where do you come from? When you die, where do you go? Just now, what is your correct job? Everybody understands this body’s job. Some people have lawyer jobs, or doctor jobs, or truckdriver jobs, or nurse jobs, or student jobs, or husband jobs, or wife jobs, or child jobs. These are our bodies’ jobs, our outside jobs. But what is your true self’s job? The Buddha taught us that for life after life after life, we must walk the Great Bodhisattva Way and save all beings from suffering. In order to save all beings, it is very important that you first save yourself. If you cannot save yourself, how can you possibly save other people? So this is why we must attain our true self, our true nature. This true nature cannot be found in books or conceptual thought. A Ph.D., no matter how wonderful, cannot match the power of even one moment of clear insight into our own true original nature. And the most direct path to that experience is meditation. That is a very important point.

Correct meditation means understanding my true self. The path of this begins and ends by asking, “What am I?” It is very simple teaching, and not special. When you ask this question very deeply, what appears is only “don’t know.” All thinking is completely cut off, and you return to your before-thinking mind. If you attain this don’t-know, you have already attained your true self. You have returned to your original nature, which is mind before thinking arises. In this way you can attain your correct way, and you attain truth, and your life functions correctly to save all beings from suffering. The name for that is “wake up.” That is the experience of true meditation.

Introduction(8)

The current situation in the world is like this fruit. Many, many centuries of human development made this fruit. For a long time, this single blossom was only belief in some God or outside power. Then the fruit appeared and developed. But only one side ripened at first; only one side had a good color and good taste, while the other did not. This was the emergence of capitalism and communism in this world. Then recently the changes in this fruit have started to happen very quickly. Communism disappeared, and now the whole fruit is the same color. The fruit has become ripe, and has just one color and taste now: money. Nowadays, there is no longer any ideology for separate belief. The whole world only wants money, and everyone’s energy is going very strongly in that direction. This world has no true way – there is only the taste of money. Already many rotten spots have appeared: places like the Middle East, Rwanda, Yugoslavia, North Korea, even now in America, Russia, China, and Japan. Since the communist world broke apart, we see the emergence of many smaller groups and nations, all fighting each other. There is also the spread of many private armies and the routine buying and selling of weapons of mass destruction.

So human beings must soon wake up and find their original seeds, their original nature. But how do we return to our original nature? Around twenty-five hundred years ago, the Buddha had a very good situation. He was a prince named Siddhartha, and had everything he wanted. But he didn’t understand himself. “What am I? I don’t know.” In those times in India, the Brahman religion of Hinduism was the main religion. But Brahmanism could not give him the correct answer to his questions about the true nature of life and death. So Siddhartha abandoned the palace, went to the mountains, and practiced various spiritual austerities for six years. He found the Middle Way between self-indulgence and extreme asceticism. Early one morning, while meditating under the Bodhi tree, he saw a star in the eastern sky. At that moment – boom! – the young prince Siddhartha got enlightenment. He woke up, and became a Buddha. He attained I. This means that the Buddha attained the true nature of a human being without depending on some outs8de force or religion or god. That is the Buddha’s teaching.

Intro(7)

That is why some people say that human beings are the number one bad animal in this world. Some religious traditions call this kind of situation the “end of this world.”
That is only the end of the current human consciousness. Original human nature does not have this problem. In Buddhist teaching, rather than call this the “end of the world,” we say that everything is now completely ripe. It is like a fruit growing on a tree. At first a blossom appears on the branch. As time passes this blossom produces a small bud, and the blossom drops away. The bud gradually matures into a fruit which swells and swells as time passed. The fruit is green at first, but over time the side facing the sun starts to turn a beautiful color. At this point, only one side is colored, while the other is still greenish. More time passes, and the whole fruit is now a very wonderful color. The fruit may have a beautiful form and beautiful color, but there is still no smell, because the fruit is not yet ripe inside. As a little more time passes, however, the fruit becomes completely ripe.

Up until this point, it has taken a long time for this to develop from blossom to bud and fruit. For many months all of the tree’s energy has gone up from the roots and down from the leaves gathering energy from the sun, and has gone into producing the fruit. This process has taken place over a long period, up to a year of change and growth in the tree and blossom and bud and fruit.

But now the energy flowing from the tree into the fruit is cut off. From this point on, once fruit has become completely ripe, the changes in the fruit start to happen very, very quickly, just in a matter of a few days. Its form is not so good anymore, and its color is also not so good. But inside there is a very, very sweet taste, and the fruit begins to smell very strong. It is beginning to be overripe. Soon a few spots appear on the fruit, tiny black dots indicating that the fruit is “turning.” After a few more days, there are many, many spots on the fruit. Once these spots appear on the fruit, the process of rotting cannot be slowed or stopped. The fruit becomes rotten just a few days after becoming ripe. When it becomes rotten, it cannot be eaten. But inside, this fruit has seeds. When the fruit has become completely rotten the seeds reach maturity.

Introduction(6)

She did not have very much compassion for anything but them. That’s very crazy! But nowadays many human beings are somewhat like this, and so it is not considered crazy anymore. So that is a very interesting story.

Animals’ consciousnesses are not good and not bad. But human beings have many strong ideas and desires, so having some animal consciousness inside is not so good, because they cannot control it. when an animal is hungry, it eats. When it is tired, it sleeps. That is very simple! But human beings eat, and are still not satisfied. Even though their stomach is full, they still go outside and do many bad actions to this world: they kill animals for fun or decoration. Somebody catches fish for sport. Then everybody is clapping: “Ah, wonderful!” they laugh and smile and shake hands. The humans are very happy, patting each other on the back and taking pictures. It is considered to be a very successful day. But look at this fish. He is not happy, you know? The fish is flapping around-he’s suffering! “Where is water? Where is water? Please, I want water!” They are laughing, and the fish is suffering and dying, right in front of them. Most humans cannot connect with the great suffering which is right in their midst. This kind of mind is quite usual nowadays. And that is not wonderful. The mind which lives like this has no compassion for the suffering of this world.

Human beings also kill animals not just for food. They take the animals’ skin to make shoes and hats and clothes. And even that is not enough. They take these animals’ bones to make necklaces or buttons or earrings. In short, they kill many, many animals in order to sell the animal parts for money. Because of these desires and this strong animal consciousness, human beings fight with each other, and destroy nature. They do not value life. So now this whole world has many problems: problems with the water, problems with the air, problems with the earth and food. Many new problems appear every day. These problems do not happen by accident. Human beings make each and very one of these problems. Dogs, or cats, or lions, or snakes –no animal makes as many problems for this world as human beings do. Humans do not understand their true nature, so they use their thinking and desire to create so much suffering for this world.

So I said to her, “You are no problem. You come to the Zen Center and do strong practicing. You can bring your snakes. I will talk to the housemaster and we will give you your own room. Then you can sit meditation and take care of your snakes. Do you like that?”

She was very happy: “Oh, yes. That’s wonderful!” Then she came to the Zen Center and sat the retreat.

On the first day of the retreat, this woman’s brother called the Zen Center. He was very anxious. “Is my sister there? Is my sister there? Our mother just got very sick. She is in the hospital, very far away. We must go to see her as soon as possible.”

But instead of being sad for her mother, this woman got very angry! “No, I cannot come. Who will take care of my precious snakes while I am gone? Maybe if I go away they will die! Maybe someone will feed them the wrong things. Snakes are very temperamental, you know….” She gave her brother this kind of strong speech. But he was not surprised. He already knew her mind for many years. He only hung up the phone.

Several days later, one of the snakes got sick. It was not eating its food and only lay in the corner. The woman suddenly became very, very worried. She stopped coming to the meditation sitting and made a lot of phone calls to the local animal doctors, looking for someone who truly understood snakes. Finally she left the retreat to take her snake to the doctor. She would not leave the retreat to see her mother in the hospital, but when her snake was suffering, her mind was immediately deeply disturbed. This is very interesting.

So this woman’s consciousness felt more for her snakes than for other human beings. She showed more compassion for her snakes than for her own mother! The behind-meaning of this is that this woman’s consciousness was part human, but part snake. She could not do so much together-action with human beings’ but she related quite easily and automatically with the snakes’ situation.

Introduction(4)

This is not to say there is something wrong with animals. But when you look at this world you see that animals tend to act together only with their own species, and don’t like other animals. Dog-minds like dog-minds; they do not act with cat-minds. Snakes and lions and rabbits do not get along with each other. A snake-consciousness only follows other snake-minds, and has no compassionate action that can connect it with the suffering that someone else is experiencing. Birds also don’t like other species of birds, so they make groups of their own species and fly around together in these groups. If somebody attacks one of them, often the whole group will attack back. That is the nature of this animal-mind. The political situation in the world today is the same. We now live in a world filled with many smaller countries and political and ethnic groups-many with private militias-all fighting each other. Children become involved with guns and other forms of violence at earlier and earlier ages, doing things to other human beings which were unheard of just ten or twenty years ago.
-*
This all comes from having too much animal consciousness dominating our minds. Nowadays, many, many human beings are like this. They have some kind of animal consciousness inside, so there is a great deal more suffering because they cannot connect their consciousness to human life in a crowded world. Most people only look after their own interests. There is a greater tendency for some fighting-mind to appear. They only follow their own particular ideas and opinions, no matter what is going on around them. Something is out of balance, so naturally suffering appears.

I had one student in America in the 1970s who owned several exotic pet snakes. She loved these snakes very, very much. She would carry them around on her neck wherever she went. Many people were afraid of them, but she was very natural with these snakes. They would even sleep in her bed at night. One day, she came to the Zen Center. I asked her, “Will you sit the three-day retreat this weekend?”
“No,” she said.
“Why?”
“I cannot find someone to take care of my snakes. I love my snakes very much. But no one can take good care of them while I am at the Zen Center. So I cannot do meditation.”

Introduction(3)

For centuries, if a man wanted to eat meat, he went into the forest and shot maybe one or two animals with bow and arrow-piitchhuu! Then he went home and ate it with his family. This animal died. But there was some kind of relationship between the animal and the person who killed and ate it. Their karma was somewhat clear. When the animal died, it could perhaps understand a little of what was happening: “Oh, this man will eat me! Maybe next life I will get him!” so the karma was very simple: it was only between this one man and this animal. It could be resolved between them and eventually brought back to a balance through the simple operation of cause and effect. In the twentieth century, however, human technology has grown up too quickly. Many special guns and techniques have been created to kill a greater and greater number of animals. Every single day, millions and millions of animals are routinely and mechanically slaughtered all over the world just to satisy human beings’ desire-minds. Now one man pushes a button in a factory, maybe far away from the animals. When these animals die, many consciousnesses are suddenly and violently released from their dying bodies. These animals’ consciousnesses then wander around and around and around, looking for a new body. Where they go, they don’t understand.

The Buddha taught us that everything comes from primary cause, condition, and result. When so many millions of animals are killed this way every year, some of their consciousnesses are inevitably reborn as humans. Perhaps only 0.00001 percent become human beings, but that is still a lot of humans that have some kind of animal consciousness operating inside them. If you look at humans in this world nowadays, you see that while they may all have human faces and human bodies, their consciousnesses are not completely human. Some people have dog consciousness, some have cat consciousness. Others have rabbit consciousness or snake consciousness. Cow minds, pig minds, chicken minds, lion minds, tiger minds, and snake minds are all mixed together. Most people live with perhaps five or ten percent of our original human consciousness functioning inside them and the rest is some animal consciousness controlling their mind. Instead of having the original human capacity for love, cooperation, and compassion, people nowadays only fight with each other and with this world. They cannot do correct together-action with other human beings.

Introduction(2)

So nowadays it is very important that human beings wake up. They must soon attain their correct job. Why do you live in this world? What are you doing in this world? When you are born, where do you come from? When you die, where do you go? Everybody says, “I don’t know.” That is a human being. Human beings think that human beings are very clever animals. But despite all their intelligence, if you look closely at what has happened in the world you see that human beings are actually the stupidest animals, because human beings don’t understand human beings. A dog understands what a dog should do, and cats understand what cats should do. All animals understand their job and only do it. But we don’t understand our correct job and correct way in this world, and instead we live only for ourselves. So meanwhile time passes, everybody gets old and dies. When you die, where do you go? Despite all their intelligence and cleverness, human beings don’t understand the answer to this very important question.

If we want to understand ourselves and help all beings get out of suffering, we must first understand where this world’s suffering comes from. Everything arises from our minds. Buddhist teaching shows that everything comes from primary cause, condition, and result. This means that some primary cause, when it appears under a certain condition, will always produce a certain result. So what is the reason for so many human beings appearing in this world, and what is the result of it? Why is there so much suffering, and why does it seem to increase every day? Perhaps the most important reason for such a dramatic increase in the amount of suffering in this world is the increase in the amount of meat-eating that humans do. Before World War 11, human beings did not eat so much meat. In Asia, people have always generally eaten meat only on special occasions, perhaps only twice a year, on one of the major holidays. Nowadays Asians eat meat sometimes several times a day. The same has been true in the West for generations. This century has seen a very big increase in the amount of meat-eating on the planet. But how is this connected to the dramatic increase in suffering all over the world?

introduction(1)

Zen Master Seung Sahn. 1997. The Campus of Zen (Shambhala:Boston)

Introduction
Where are you going?

A long time ago, the world was a very simple place. Nowadays this world is very complicated. The main reason for this is that there are too many human beings living on this planet. The human population has increased far too rapidly. In 1945 there were some two billion people living in this world. Through thousands and thousands of years of human history, only two billion people appeared on earth, and that was enough. Compared to today, people’s minds were relatively simple and clear. But in just the last fifty years since the end of the Second World War, three billion more people have appeared, and now human beings have become very complicated. Today there are nearly six billion people in the whole world, and some scientists say that in the next thirty years another three billion people will appear. There facts are directly connected to the sudden increase in the amount of suffering that humans and other beings are now experiencing. Let’s look at this more closely.

Nowadays humans live more closely together, so their relationships have become more complex. Their desire for material things becomes deeper and stronger. Their thinking is more complicated, their lives are more complicated, and consequently there is much more suffering than ever before. Even the kinds of suffering in the world have become more complicated as humans come up with new weapons and new ways of hurting each other. Human beings not only make each other suffer. Nowadays, we bring much more suffering to all of the other beings in this world. We hurt the air, the water, the grass, the trees, everything. Human beings cut down whole forests, and take away the green belt. We pollute the water, the air, and the ground. Human beings always say they want freedom, but actually they are the number one dictators in this world.