A Zen Master and his three disciples were once meditating by the side of a river. There was a flag (on a pole) nearby that was fluttering in a strong wind. The novice visibly disturbed remarked, “The flag is flapping.” The junior monk smiled on hearing this, and with his eyes closed, replied, “The wind is flapping.” The senior monk on hearing this, retorts, “The mind is flapping.” The Zen master visibly annoyed: “Mouths are flapping.”
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April 25, 2008 at 12:13 am
stumped
i didnt understand this…..could u please elaborate……
April 25, 2008 at 12:42 am
Vishal Lama
During zazen (sitting meditation), the emphasis is on complete acceptance of the present moment without imposing one’s mind/ego on the nature of reality around oneself. All the three disciples, instead of living in the moment, reacted in their own respective ways on hearing the flag flutter in the wind. The Zen master simply brought them back to the present moment by uttering those words! (I think Todd may be able to say more on zazen.)
Thanks for reading!
April 25, 2008 at 5:38 am
stumped
Thanks for the explanations. Are there any good books on Zen. i have read only one book called the Flower does not Talk by Shibayama.it was very nice.
April 25, 2008 at 4:54 pm
Vishal Lama
You may like Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki.
April 27, 2008 at 6:31 pm
stumped
Thank you for the recommendation. Will check it out.
May 12, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Todd Trimble
I also like some of the books by Chögyam Trungpa (coming from a Mahayana or Vajrayana tradition in Tibet, but of course Zen is also a branch in the Mahayana line). For example, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism is a pretty interesting book.
For books on actual Zen practice: I’ve always liked The Three Pillars of Zen by Philip Kapleau, which is a classic. If you want to try zazen, the best thing is to find a good sitting meditation group where you live; if that is impossible, the next best thing is to pick up a good no-nonsense book (like Kapleau’s) and give it a try!
As Vishal says, through zazen one cultivates the practice of fully attending to each moment, but in reality this is unbelievably difficult! So over the centuries, various forms of zazen have been developed to foster that. One of the basic forms of zazen is “following the breath”. First the body must be arranged in a posture appropriate to zazen (upright spine, buttocks elevated on a cushion, legs folded in a lotus position or “Burmese style”, hands cupped together in the lap with thumbnails lightly touching): the body should be immobile and in a state of “relaxed alertness”. Then, one way to “follow the breath” is by counting “one” on the first outgoing breath, “two” on the next, and so on up to “ten”, and then starting over at “one”. Ideally one’s full attention is on the counting; in reality, one finds at first that one’s mind is all over the place, following daydreams, discursive thoughts, passing sensations and distractions. You may even find yourself losing count at “two”, or counting up to “fifty” without realizing it! No matter: when you catch yourself in a state of distraction, simply bring the mind back to following the breath, starting over at “one”.
It takes a lot of practice. Initially, you might want to try it for just 5 or 10 minutes (one thing people often find, especially in the West where it is not usual to sit still and upright with legs folded in lotus or Burmese style, is that the legs “fall asleep” or otherwise become very uncomfortable). A typical session in meditation halls is perhaps 25 minutes long, followed by a period of kinhin or walking meditation, where one’s full attention is placed on the act of walking (which may be in a circle in a group, or back and forth across the hall). In monastery settings or in many zendos, there is also chanting of sutras (often in classical Chinese or in Pali) — again, one tries to do this with all one’s heart, and again, just to do this takes a great deal of practice!
October 21, 2009 at 6:47 am
sophie
Have you done it? Do you still do it?
June 10, 2008 at 11:36 am
Sune Kristian Jakobsen
I was wondering: If you spend a lot of time suppressing every distraction, isn’t there a risk that it affects your creativity?
June 10, 2008 at 4:48 pm
Vishal Lama
Great question! I will answer it as best I can. I am sure Todd has more to say on this.
One of the ‘real’ purposes (perhaps, the only real one) of meditation, at least in the sense that the Buddha talked about, is to improve one’s ‘focus’ or ‘concentration’ so that one may employ this improved concentration to turn focus on one’s own mind. I guess one could say meditation is using the mind to study the mind! The real purpose of all the meditative practices is to reflect on the nature of reality both within and without us, and the Buddha had some very specific observations that he thought were very important to reflect upon. I won’t go into those for now.
So, how do we go about achieving higher levels of concentration for the purpose I just mentioned above? It is simply done by bringing the mind’s attention to the present moment! There are different ways of doing this, and one of them is by observing one’s own thoughts during meditation. You will notice that when you do so, the thoughts ‘dissolve’ by themselves, so to speak. However, one should note that ‘observing one’s own thoughts’ is not the same as ’suppressing every distraction’. Suppressing a thought means one is putting it aside for the moment in order to deal with other matters, but during meditation we do just the opposite!
June 20, 2008 at 1:54 am
Todd Trimble
I just saw Sune’s question and Vishal’s answer. I thought Vishal put it very nicely:
That’s right. In no form of zazen does one actively seek to “suppress” thoughts; they come and go of their own accord. But at the same time, one doesn’t actively chase after them either (as one normally might throughout the day). In the type of zazen I was describing in my previous comment, one may indeed catch one’s self in a moment of distraction; if so, one acknowledges the passing thought, but brings one’s self simply back to the breath. Over time, concentration becomes stronger and more stable, and in the process certain mental energies may be liberated (speaking to the question of whether creativity is affected: yes, in a positive way!).
In more subtle forms of zazen, as Vishal was saying, one observes the flow of thoughts — their comings and goings — more directly and precisely, but without getting attached to them. But one’s concentration needs to be plenty strong to pull that off!
I won’t say it’s quite like doing mathematics, but in both cases there is a kind of disciplined attention involved where there is not a lot of mental chatter distracting one, but there’s a kind of subtle and dedicated searching and sensing going on. My impression is that the most creative mathematicians (like Thurston or Grothendieck say) know how to focus and quiet the mind to an exquisite point, where one becomes very receptive to those half-whispered suggestions that may blossom into insight. In any event, although meditation and creativity in mathematics are directed to different ends, I don’t think they’re at odds with each other.
August 5, 2008 at 4:18 pm
stumped
Hi Todd and Vishal,
Thanks a lot for the detailed explanations………..
would like some more short Zen stories(kaons?) for the Zen illiterate people like me
those are short and really fun to read and set the mind thinking ……….
Thanks,
p.s: by the way , what do you guys do…….(please dont answer if this is getting personal) i am guessing you guys are professional mathematicians……..
August 20, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Todd Trimble
stumped, I used to be a professional mathematician as such, in the sense of teaching and doing research and getting paid for it. I received my doctorate in 1994 (Rutgers University). Now, I’m no longer a professional, but I continue to research as time allows — I just don’t happen to get paid for it. I’m a full-time parent now, but I doubt I’ll ever stop being a mathematician.
My full name anagrams to “pro math mind, bottled”. Hmm…
I plan to write up a little Zen short story for this blog, soon.
October 21, 2009 at 6:49 am
sophie
Hi Todd, you have a gift for writings, and conversing too. Don’t forget to post your Zen short story.