The Lions Rear

Health and Well-Being Course – Blue Cliff Zen Center

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Topics: Plan to meditate for 25-30 minutes each day! Over the 8 weeks we’ll be exploring a variety of topics including:

  • Stress and time pressures

  • Physical pain

  • Difficult and strong emotions

  • Promoting good health, and taking care of yourself

  • How to live and function at an elevated level

The meditation techniques we cover include:

  • A Zen Body Scan

  • Counting the breath

  • Following the breath

  • Mindful movement including walking meditation

  • Incorporating presence and mindfulness in daily life

  • The practice of dwelling in the “un-born state”

This Meditation and mindfulness course is offered by Blue Cliff Zen -- I did it in Spring 2022 and had a really good development of my practice during this period.

winter 2023

week 1 notes

two "types" of meditation -- concentration and insight

zen <- chan <- jhana (huh!) translates as meditation

meditation is seen as an important way "up the mountain"

talking about Samu

mindfulness -> 念 -> now + heartmind or "simply paying attention" or "consciousness alive to the present moment"

rinzai unique in zen tradition in focusing on meditation to help with health specifically.

progress ebbs and flows but always upwards

week 2: mindfulness and stress

see last year: Week 2: Mindfulness + Stress, Zen Body Scan

goal of body scan is Accepting Awareness

stress (v): nonspecific response to a stimulus/stressor

hpa axis: hypothalimus, pituitary, adrenal..

think abt both internal + external stressors -- everyone has different stress responses to those stressors. traffic is "just" cars, unmet needs are "just" conceptions, etc... safety things like bike incidents are real limbic reactions, but the response to that is something we can still control, practice empowers our ability to self-regulate towards a clear baseline.

meditation practice 1) acts as stress "oasis", calm space in busyness of the day for things to settle/dissipate. meditation practice 2) as insight/prajna/presence engine, from seeing the world as objects to seeing as processes/flow. the more we practice the "slippiness" of flow, the more natural it comes when stress manifests

kabott-zinn -> from automatically reacting to stressor to consciously responding to stressor

hakuin -> buddhas are like flowing water, mundane people are like ice; meditation is like sunlight on the ice, slowly revealing flow this is slow, committed work; little by little becoming less reactive

each day try to note down a stressor, how your body responds or whatever "comes up" -- shift in to a body scan as it unfolds

week 3: mindfulness and physical pain

  • check ins

  • meditation isn't about getting rid of or evading the pain but to open to it, feel it, experience it, flow through it

  • approaches for pain being-with:

    • tune-out

    • make it object of meditation, watch as pain develops and changes in concert with your own changes

  • desmond tutu and dalai lama documentary a la The Book of Joy - Dalai Lama & Desmond Tutu on netflix

  • Metta practice this week.

    • additionally: each day, while walking try to slow down and bring attention to breath and steps and walking meditation/mindful walking

week 4: mindfulness and emotional pain

  • triads

  • joan halifax being with dying, two arrows, letting go

  • emotional pain

    • range of painful emotions/labels

    • not abt protecting from the emotion, but how to be with full range of emotions, to dodge the second arrow

    • aa: awareness and acceptance; exposing them this way can make way toward healing. things can't change/flow in the denying state

    • this stuff doesnt work in the abstract -- it's experiential in the present moment

    • pain as messenger, if we listen deeply it can lessen the hurt

    • "that which sees suffering is not suffering"

  • curiousity in meditation

    • not trying to intellectualize/get in our heads/memories

    • physical/embodied feelings

    • aside: metta is an engine for generating tanha/stuck-ness for exploration; is this true for other meditations?

  • keep up with walking meditation this week, note down 1 or 2 pleasurable experiences each day

week 5: elevated functioning

  • triad discussion

  • moving from stress response & returning to base-line toward how meditation practice can help us excel

  • i find all of this to be a little cynical / ego-driven... hm.

  • from the ego/top-of_their game uncomfort to Altered Traits

    • focus+concentration trait gain

    • psychological well-being trait gain

    • feelings of self-worth, self-acceptance

  • increase in empathy, development of prefrontal cortex

  • towards the esoteric: guts/hara/grounding cultivation

  • telemerase/aging/blood pressure etc

    • amygdala activity decrease

  • daily mindfulness activity

  • daily gratitude journaling

spring 2022

Week 1: Orientation and Zen Body Scan

I undertake for the duration of my meditation course to faithfully practice to the best of my ability for 30 minutes a day. I will do my best to practice all the subsidiary exercises. I make this undertaking through my own free will.

Orientation

A lot of Shinkai's guidance and teaching here was stuff that I had heard in smaller or different words, but it's always good to hear these things again and with a fresh set of ears, as it were. An insight that I had during his remarks was a connection to the idea of Type 2 Fun, the idea that some things are going to be incredibly difficult at times, there will be "ups and downs", but you look back and see the reward of them and remember the fun and growth you had in those downs.

Some of the talk was broad strokes at "what is there" in meditation, what is the practice. There are two practices, a concentration meditation like shi-nè or so to clear the mind and bring a deep clear/crystal focus on an object of meditation as a way for training that one-/empty-mindedness. There is also a category of Insight Meditation which Zen falls under, Vipassana too ... a useful way for me of thinking of the differences between a practice like Vipassana focused on "cultivating an enlightened mind" and Zen-mindedness which tries to short-circuit, perhaps, some of the cultivating/grasping mindset: "If you're so focused on where you're going, you never appreciate where you are."[fn:1] It seems as though rinzai walks a fine line around this non-cultivating mindset as it seems at least or especially with the lineage Blue Cliff Zen comes out of that enlightenment is ultimately the goal whether people in Eugene or America are capable of achieving that or not. But Shinkai did not differentiate these practices and ultimately they are all compatible in different ways for different needs. Focus v. Awareness v. Presence v. Quietude they all lead to the same set of gates. These insight meditations are, in my opinion, ultimately about building a form of de-conditioning to uhh build The doors without walls.

Mindfulness is sort of an inverse of this focusing, an application of the focus skills back in to the normal flow of life, to put all of your focus in to doing the thing well whatever the thing is. The point of meditation is not just to sit on a pad and evaporate in to enlightenment, it's to live a life with less suffering, no? Why do we sit on the pad? Is enlightenment something I should pursue so single-mindedly that the rest of life slips through?

It's fun always to see my own thinking and practices I've built in this notebook and in to my life be pointed at here, again, even my tendency towards Journaling and recording a rough outline of my Meditation practices, I'm looking forward to treating that part of my notebooks a bit more closely.

Zen Body Scan Meditation Practice

References

I've been doing this for a while but I liked the pacing of how it was taught this time. One pass very slowly, focused and intent, and slowly ramping up over 2-3 more iterations of the scan, get in to a quick scan and eventually moving towards a "general awareness".

Awareness, allowing, non-judgement. Sit and watch.

practice lying down, on your back or on your side, spine long and straight. Centre your awareness on the breathing in your belly. Bring your attention to the crown of your head; just becoming aware of any feelings or sensations there, without judgment about what you find, and without trying to change anything or do anything.

Move your awareness down your body in the following order: face, head, neck, shoulders, upper torso, upper arms, lower torso & abdomen, lower arms, hips and pelvis, hands, upper legs, knees, lower legs, ankles, feet. Then return your awareness to the top of your head and let your attention sweep down through your body faster and more easily.

Now allow your awareness to be generalised through your whole body, particularly being aware of any place that feel uncomfortable, tense, stressed, or anything that's not quite 100%. Allow these areas to be held in gentle, curious presence.

Zen Body Scan video

Week 2: Mindfulness + Stress, Zen Body Scan

Noticing I didn't journal after yesterday's meditation, tut tut.

"as it is" doesn't mean "static" nor "unchanging"

this is ultimately the realization you're trying to intuit in the "mindfulness" practice, to put your attention on the current moment and see that it is always changing compared to the last. widen that context to challenge things like "i have always been really bad at X" and see that it is both untrue and capable of being changed.

stress response is mal-adaptive in some sense.

NEXT follow up on Polyvagal theory and vagus nerve ...

fight flight freeze

stress & arousal states override normal bodily functions, pulling resources from digestion, etc, for pulmonary and muscular use.

mindfulness brings the stress reaction out of subconsciousness, but it some time to flow through the system & give it some loving attention

re Trauma cropping up in scan/meditation practice

self kindeness, praciticing, having a skill of/for breaking out of ruminating patterns, "room scanning practice" to move out of the body/stress response and in to the space. Shinkai referenced a book with tools/processes that may help here and said he'd follow up. i should if he doesn't.

Goal for the second week

  • Continue same body scan + journal exercise

  • each day notice one stress response time, work with it, do a brief body scan, record thoughts

Week 3: Mindfulness + Physical Pain

this week integrate mindful following breath in to walking/idle-ish time

Hakuin's Zazen Wasan

:PROERTIES: :ID: 20220421T232631.114701 :ROAM_REFS: https://villagezendo.org/practice/suggested-readings/zazen-wasan/ :END:

All beings by nature are Buddha, as ice by nature is water; apart from water there is no ice, apart from beings no Buddha.

Zen Body Scan Meditation Practice can act as the sun that melts the proverbial ice. Our job is to site in the sun.

Mindfulness can filter or recontextualize pain sense

pain can be the context/focus of our practice

meditation can be tune-in or tune-out (see orientation discussion)

tuning in is curious & tuning out is not a denial

the goal is open, curious, caring relationship with all our parts, even the pain

Joan Halifax's "Being with dying" passage

User our experience with pain _right now_ to prepare ourselves for the real pain ahead

Important to stay with the physicality and not let the mind "take over"

the story we tell about the pain is often worse than the pain itself

even great pain is Impermanent

Week 4: Mindfulness + Emotional Pain

Meditation teaches Awareness and Acceptance

Some of this "feels like" DBT 101 but all of this all points to the same thing, DBT is Mindfulness 101 in many ways.

"the goal" of Meditating

The goal is not to escape emotions / pain but to learn to live with & integrate it. To take the Skandhas and the delusions the engender and see them as they are: empty, unreal, not part of "who i am", free of them or able to live next to them but not "as" them.

Emotions can only be "dealt with" as they occur. Takes practice, and space, and curiosity.

Meditation creates a space where "new things" don't come up so much, so it is a natural place for "old things" to come in to.

Stay with the _body component_ of emotions, not as a separate watcher, nor an intellectual/ruminating "presence"

you can bring awareness even to depression or burnout

Week 5: Role Stress + Time Pressure

our practice can help us identify + refine when we are playing roles

over-identifying with our roles brings them in to our subconscious, induces stress + dissonance

not being in a role isn't an option, the key is to remember they are masks we wear

over-identifying makes it harder to adapt to change

so the key is a lightness/playfulness in role-taking

What are some roles I take?

(numbered where 6 is most stressful)

  • 5 consultant/answerer/brainstormer/oracle for CR Digital Lab

  • 6 "good" son for Mom

  • 4 moral pillar/community pillar (self-taken role)

  • 2 spiritually open/humble/aware/woke son/person

  • 3 listener/helper/fixer

  • 1 carefree/playful/hacker

Time Pressure and flow

Transition to talking about time and Flow State -> a full time-less focus for its own sake.

some of my flows:

  • Coding for fun

  • Cycling an open road

  • an engrossing novel

  • Brewing session with a friend and a tea I "know"

moving from "destination-oriented" culture to more of a "life is about the journey" type of living

Goals for this week

  • daily "open" breath practice

  • walking meditation 3-5 minutes

  • normal activity "mindfully"

    • chemex

    • cleaning

    • something on computer like my agenda process or so

Week 6: Taking Care of Yourself

What nourishes my life?

  • Tea Brewing

  • intellectual/thoughtful/connective conversations

  • clever/pleasing hacks

  • sharing meals/cooking together

What diminishes my life?

  • unnecessary/limiting dependencies or dependents

  • drudgery/work that doesn't feel like it's towards a goal

  • non-reciprocal relationships / "spending" empathy

What can be done with these things?

re diminishing:

  • much of them can be recontextualized, especially the drudgery stuff.

  • redirect draining conversations to mutual interests

  • strip complexity from parts and pieces of my life -> or stop micro-managing and sanding every edge down

generators of joy

  • gratitude practice

  • giving practice/volunteer work

  • metta

Week 7: Elevating function through meditation

talking broadly about the benefits of meditation as a way to improve your "craft", or perform your roles better. lots of examples of notable people who have experienced an "unlocking of potential" through meditation and zen states.

Flow State as the optimal "mind body connection" state

focusing on developing the hara -- Zen ties the physical development of the hara through this practice to be also a development of personal "guts", basically.

Week 8: Changing your Life

Meditating in to the rest of life past this class -- thinking about varying "levels of investment" and finding where I am most comfortable

think (sports player metaphor):

  • ex-player, invested in the past, have these skills but don't use them any more

  • occasional, using it as a tool for stressful moments or for short-term state benefits

  • regularly practicing, more deep benefits & development, slowly working towards journeyman or "weekend player", maybe a tournament/retreat once or twice a year

  • "professional"-class -- multiple hours a day of practice, integrative with other practices like yoga, journaling, self-therapy, etc

Where do I sit in this?

Talking about the 10000 hours thing from Gladwell's Outliers... Something to be said for mastery and getting there "better to finish, smoothly"...

Important to remember/consider the sangha and that group I meditate with as part of my lineage or tradition. certainly feel it with the connection I have gained with Kevin...

What do I think about this practice over the long term?

I plan to keep on it, I want to keep meditating, I already find myself reaching for an hour or more a day when I have the 'bandwidth' for it and I have the time for it right now without the responsibilities and distractions that would keep me away from the practice. Why shouldn't I?

even a small change in trajectory can make a big difference over long periods

Evaluate on daily, weekly, annual scales to make sure i'm "pointed" the way i wanna go

How do i maintain a daily practice? how do i get to 100 days?

  • keep a zoom going with kevin (and swathi?) seems smart + easy

  • put it on my fucking calendar and hold myself to it even when my mind is "elsewhere"

  • 25 days of scan, 25 days of breath, some metta when I can bring it in and i'm there.

  • join one of the online meditations i see tasshin or so put out

  • reintegrate Weekly Review and Monthly Review practice to track how much i'm meditating

What hit home during the course?

  • importance of even a token accountability, of the sangha

  • the need to be somewhat able to sit with discomfort & grow with/through it

  • made a good close friend connecting over this practice, i can surely do that more/again

  • daily practice is so important for a shift in to a "normal" mindfulness, and i love having that mindfulness seep in

  • the amount of time & work necessary to reach my goals, not just in meditation but overall, is massive and i can't "think my way" towards them

What did you like _least_?

  • the intensive breath counting to ten meditations, too ... forced?

  • scan is hard but valuable

  • self gratitude is hard, but probably valuable

  • presence practice is still hard, i feel like i'm fighting "my nature" here...

Footnotes

[fn:1] This is an immature understanding and should be kept apart from any real teachings, imo...

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