Could you explain what happens during such a meetup? Do people just meet and meditate to have a fixed time to do it? At my university there was a Zen-Buddhist group, but its meetings usually took place when I had other obligations, and then one time I went there out of curiosity, I did not find it very convincing. Basically the same things that I also found weird in the Suzuki book “Zen Mind, Beginners Mind”: Posture is everything, so sit correctly and everything will follow.
At our meetup people are free to meditate how they like so long as it’s silent and otherwise not distracting to others: it’s simply a space for people who want to practice meditation to do so together. Many people find it hard to keep up their practice on their own, which is why sangha is valuable. We don’t totally provide all that sangha can, but we do provide at least some like-minded folks you can be with while meditating and talk to about meditating. So yes, it’s a regularly scheduled time when people can commit to meditating and the social component helps it stick.
We don’t normally give instruction, but if people ask I just give the most rudimentary of guidance: sit comfortably so you are at ease but not totally relaxed and attentive but not on edge, then draw your attention to your breath without trying to control either your attention or your breath so you just observe what’s happening. If you get distracted that’s fine, just notice and return to the breath; you can’t really meditate wrong because you are discovering a skill for yourself, and it’s better to err on the side of saying “oh great, I noticed I was distracted; I noticed something!” than “shit, I got distracted; guess I suck at meditating”.
I practice zen so I’m familiar with the kind of instruction you received. There’s more to it than posture but the form is the only thing we really have anything to talk about, because the goal is to just sit (this is the literal translation of shikantaza, the primary form of meditation in soto zen; another would be “simply getting on with sitting”), and learning how to do that is something we don’t believe can be effectively taught but is something you can discover for yourself through experiencing stillness, and that starts with stilling your body by sitting in a particular form that encourages that.
Incidentally I think this is why zen, despite its seemingly large position in the marketplace of ideas relative to other forms of Buddhism to the point that “zen” just means something like “calm” to many people, is not a very popular practice; it’s just not the sort of thing that resonates with lots of people. I think this is why vipassana has become so popular: it’s a style that better meets most (Western) people where they’re at. But personally I don’t mesh with vipassana or many other styles well, so I stick to shikantaza because it’s what works with me. Humans have enough variation that it makes sense to me that different styles, even if they seem only subtly different, will work with different people differently, so if you don’t like one way of meditating you may like another.
Thanks for your reply. I have read Dan Harris’ 10% book, and found it quite entertaining, though in fact the parts that really tell you about meditation are a small share. I also read half of Suzuki’s book. To be honest, it seemed to me like the kind of text where people start to believe they are into something but mostly because things seem so deep. I respect the insight that some things cannot be taught by theory, but then I expect that the example of those who practice Zen for a while must be something that can be useful for demonstrating what a valuable practice Zen is?
Could you explain what happens during such a meetup? Do people just meet and meditate to have a fixed time to do it? At my university there was a Zen-Buddhist group, but its meetings usually took place when I had other obligations, and then one time I went there out of curiosity, I did not find it very convincing. Basically the same things that I also found weird in the Suzuki book “Zen Mind, Beginners Mind”: Posture is everything, so sit correctly and everything will follow.
At our meetup people are free to meditate how they like so long as it’s silent and otherwise not distracting to others: it’s simply a space for people who want to practice meditation to do so together. Many people find it hard to keep up their practice on their own, which is why sangha is valuable. We don’t totally provide all that sangha can, but we do provide at least some like-minded folks you can be with while meditating and talk to about meditating. So yes, it’s a regularly scheduled time when people can commit to meditating and the social component helps it stick.
We don’t normally give instruction, but if people ask I just give the most rudimentary of guidance: sit comfortably so you are at ease but not totally relaxed and attentive but not on edge, then draw your attention to your breath without trying to control either your attention or your breath so you just observe what’s happening. If you get distracted that’s fine, just notice and return to the breath; you can’t really meditate wrong because you are discovering a skill for yourself, and it’s better to err on the side of saying “oh great, I noticed I was distracted; I noticed something!” than “shit, I got distracted; guess I suck at meditating”.
I practice zen so I’m familiar with the kind of instruction you received. There’s more to it than posture but the form is the only thing we really have anything to talk about, because the goal is to just sit (this is the literal translation of shikantaza, the primary form of meditation in soto zen; another would be “simply getting on with sitting”), and learning how to do that is something we don’t believe can be effectively taught but is something you can discover for yourself through experiencing stillness, and that starts with stilling your body by sitting in a particular form that encourages that.
Incidentally I think this is why zen, despite its seemingly large position in the marketplace of ideas relative to other forms of Buddhism to the point that “zen” just means something like “calm” to many people, is not a very popular practice; it’s just not the sort of thing that resonates with lots of people. I think this is why vipassana has become so popular: it’s a style that better meets most (Western) people where they’re at. But personally I don’t mesh with vipassana or many other styles well, so I stick to shikantaza because it’s what works with me. Humans have enough variation that it makes sense to me that different styles, even if they seem only subtly different, will work with different people differently, so if you don’t like one way of meditating you may like another.
Thanks for your reply. I have read Dan Harris’ 10% book, and found it quite entertaining, though in fact the parts that really tell you about meditation are a small share. I also read half of Suzuki’s book. To be honest, it seemed to me like the kind of text where people start to believe they are into something but mostly because things seem so deep. I respect the insight that some things cannot be taught by theory, but then I expect that the example of those who practice Zen for a while must be something that can be useful for demonstrating what a valuable practice Zen is?