Meditation - true form of the self
There are no difficulties in the heart of meditation.
Meditation, as practised in the Soto Zen way, is manifesting the true form of the self. As the true form of the self is formless, meditation is not limited to any particular posture, activity, situation or time. Hence, in Zen Master Dogen’s Fukanzazengi*, we have the line, “To live in this way is the same as to live an ordinary daily life.”, deceptively easy words that are quite challenging to make ring true.
When form and formlessness are together, many things are revealed. Among others, experience shows that there is no fixed basis on which any hindrance can gather and build. Internally, no part of a self can really obstruct another part, and nothing external can really restrict a life either. This activity only becomes vivid when true form is being manifested, and for that to happen it requires turning around and looking closely within, which is meditation.
If when sitting, and there is simply nothing but precisely just sitting, both the form and the formlessness of being are manifesting indivisibly. When pursued with enough diligence and focus, it becomes clear that this unimpeded existence can be realized everywhere at all times.
Meditation in this way is not a temporary relief, a coping mechanism or an improvement strategy, it is the immediate radiant truth of being outside of any judgement or even any viewpoint.
In this way of meditation, all things are possible and all things can be used appropriately in servicing the way of liberation, even illusory things at times. The only truly impossible things are fantasies, and fantasies lose their appeal in the dynamically still sufficiency that permeates everywhere.
When you are distinctly in your true position, all things are showing their true position also. All is tranquil and at ease and there are no buts to be found. That someone may be behaving egregiously or is frantically chaotic, while their true tranquil integrity is also clear, is not a but. Our own shortcomings are not buts. Injury and ill health are not buts when there is reliance on dharma nature through meditation. Death certainly does not constrain a self. Judgemental thinking does not reach this realization and idealism cannot contain it.
When you are serious about the great matter of life and death, it takes you seriously in showing its awesome real nature in detail. There is unquestionably a demand in this ordinary daily living, the demand is the inexhaustible fullness of it. What comes back to you, is always more than what you can give, a kind of everyday miracle under your feet. When tranquillity and ease permeate every detail of being, there is no contrivance – there is nirvana as you are and as the world is. In this there is a quiet, steadfast, joyful nature that doesn’t come or go, increase or decrease, and sometimes words are easy, and sometimes they are not.
In the heart of meditation there are no difficulties. The true form of the self is not subject to personal preferences, it is the warm and full bodied living of an ordinary daily life, whatever the day brings. It takes faith in practice to realize and have confidence in this, the formless true form of the self.
Willard Lee June 2024
*Fukanzazengi; Two translations of the title of this essay are; Rules for Meditation, Recommending Zazen to All People