Zen Question-Answer 13, Part 1
Zen Question-Answer 13 Part 1:
Zen Question-Answer 13 Part 1:
Question 13:
During the wonderful Zen course you trained us to enter Zen in a seated position and you emphasized quality over quantity, suggesting 5 minutes quality daily practice is sufficient.
Please could you discuss how a Zen practice might develop as a student's attainment develops, from the perspective of physical position, duration or other relevant factors? Please could you highlight any indicators or milestones that can verify progress and provide reassurance that the student is practicing correctly?
Matt
Answer:
One of the hallmarks of our school is that we focus on quality over quantity, which is a manifestation of our cost-effectiveness. For example, we claim, with justification of course, that our students derive more benefit in six months than most other students in three years. At the Zen course in entering Zen in a seated upright position on a chair, we achieved better result in five minutes than many other students in an hour or two in a lotus position.
Understandably, other people not exposed to our practice and therefore unaware of the benefits we get, may think that we are boastful. But actually we are modest. In reality, our chi kung and kungfu students get more benefit in six months that what most other chi kung and kungfu students get irrespective of how long they may practice, be it thirty years or their whole lifetime. Our Zen students get more benefit in five minutes of meditation than what most other Zen students get no matter how long they meditate.
Why is it so? It is because we focus on quality, while others focus on quantity. In chi kung and kungfu, not only we practice the genuine arts, we practice them at a very high level, whereas most other people only practice their outward form and miss their essence.
Our chi kung students can generate an energy flow and our kungfu students can apply their kungfu for combat, which are the basic benefits of these arts. How may other chi kung and kungfu students can do this after thirty years? Our Zen students feel peaceful and mentally fresh after five minutes of meditation. How many other students can have these basic meditation benefits after meditating for two hours?
To be peaceful and mentally fresh is the main objective for our meditation practice in our Zen courses. With these benefits, as well as other benefits we get from other practices in our Zen courses, such as being simple, direct and effective, we will have better results in shorter time irrespective of what we do. This is a main aim of the courses.
If we can realize our objective in five minutes of meditation, it is not only unnecessary but actually unwise to meditate for an hour. Indeed, I believe that many meditation students have become dull and depressed as a result of their meditation practice, instead of being fresh and cheerful which meditation is meant to bring about, is because not only they have practiced wrongly but also they have prolonged their wrong practice.
It is ironical that some meditation students, who are obviously depressed, boast of their meditating for hours, just as some martial artists boast of the scars and injuries they have sustained. They do not realize that these are indications that they have failed in their training.
It is also pertinent for our students to be reminded that while we enjoy and value supra-mundane experiences like expanding beyond our physical body or being in touch with the Supreme, we practice Zen for mundane needs, like being peaceful, happy and energetic so that we can better enrich our lives and the lives of other people here and now in this phenomenal world.
During the wonderful Zen course you trained us to enter Zen in a seated position and you emphasized quality over quantity, suggesting 5 minutes quality daily practice is sufficient.
Please could you discuss how a Zen practice might develop as a student's attainment develops, from the perspective of physical position, duration or other relevant factors? Please could you highlight any indicators or milestones that can verify progress and provide reassurance that the student is practicing correctly?
Matt
Answer:
One of the hallmarks of our school is that we focus on quality over quantity, which is a manifestation of our cost-effectiveness. For example, we claim, with justification of course, that our students derive more benefit in six months than most other students in three years. At the Zen course in entering Zen in a seated upright position on a chair, we achieved better result in five minutes than many other students in an hour or two in a lotus position.
Understandably, other people not exposed to our practice and therefore unaware of the benefits we get, may think that we are boastful. But actually we are modest. In reality, our chi kung and kungfu students get more benefit in six months that what most other chi kung and kungfu students get irrespective of how long they may practice, be it thirty years or their whole lifetime. Our Zen students get more benefit in five minutes of meditation than what most other Zen students get no matter how long they meditate.
Why is it so? It is because we focus on quality, while others focus on quantity. In chi kung and kungfu, not only we practice the genuine arts, we practice them at a very high level, whereas most other people only practice their outward form and miss their essence.
Our chi kung students can generate an energy flow and our kungfu students can apply their kungfu for combat, which are the basic benefits of these arts. How may other chi kung and kungfu students can do this after thirty years? Our Zen students feel peaceful and mentally fresh after five minutes of meditation. How many other students can have these basic meditation benefits after meditating for two hours?
To be peaceful and mentally fresh is the main objective for our meditation practice in our Zen courses. With these benefits, as well as other benefits we get from other practices in our Zen courses, such as being simple, direct and effective, we will have better results in shorter time irrespective of what we do. This is a main aim of the courses.
If we can realize our objective in five minutes of meditation, it is not only unnecessary but actually unwise to meditate for an hour. Indeed, I believe that many meditation students have become dull and depressed as a result of their meditation practice, instead of being fresh and cheerful which meditation is meant to bring about, is because not only they have practiced wrongly but also they have prolonged their wrong practice.
It is ironical that some meditation students, who are obviously depressed, boast of their meditating for hours, just as some martial artists boast of the scars and injuries they have sustained. They do not realize that these are indications that they have failed in their training.
It is also pertinent for our students to be reminded that while we enjoy and value supra-mundane experiences like expanding beyond our physical body or being in touch with the Supreme, we practice Zen for mundane needs, like being peaceful, happy and energetic so that we can better enrich our lives and the lives of other people here and now in this phenomenal world.
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