Walking

I think that walking is natural and healthy. With mindful walking we can have an experience that can be found no other way. Zen walking, can be any walking when we are mindful of everything. This 'everything' depends on our consciousness. Everything even includes nothing...the spaces inbetween the individual things. So how many individual things and nothings make everything? The more the merrier, in my opinion. But everything in it's totality is the zen experience.

Zen is often translated as meditation, but I'm not sure that zen is what the English word meditation means. But zen is being quiet and still...zen is living our connection to everything and interacting from this place of being.

We call this Nin-Gen-Kan-Sei (to be a human being...to be a complete human being...some say even, to be a perfect human being)...but isn't being human mean not being perfect? What is it that makes us human? What elements of us are reserved only for humans, and not other animals? But aren't we animals too? All of reality counts.

But zen is also a practice, a practice of being here and now...in this moment. And in this moment quiet and still, these questions fade away and we are left knowing what it is to be human. Sit, Stand, lay down, Walk...be in this moment only, fully, and completely...and know you are...

7 Principles of Zen

The 7 Principles of Zen are:
1. Fukinsei (Asymmetry)
2. Kanso (Simplicity)
3. Koko (Austerity)
4. Shizen (Naturalness)
5. Datsuzoku (Unworldliness)
6. Yugen (Subtlety or Mystery)
7. Seijaku (Silence)

A couple of the kanji used in these is quite interesting. Shi-Zen for instance is made of the kanji for self and to be, or being. Datsu-Zoku is to take off or strip off, and the other is vulgar or common. Sei-Jaku is is quiet and lonely.

Where did these come from? These ideas all eminate from the notion of Mujo (impermanence). Mujo is our realization that everything changes. We truely understand Mujo when we come face to face with our own mortality.

zazen - seated meditation

Although I am 'Zen Man Walking', I am a big believer in zazen (seated mediation). Afterall at Kanzeonji we follow shikantaza (just sitting) style of zen practice. I think it is best to have zazen has the fundamental practice, then from there find ways of extending this practice into our daily lives. Walking Zen can be a method to help us extend our sitting practice into our daily lives. Tai Chi, Yoga, Kyudo, and other similar practices can be a bridge between our walking practice and our daily activities as well.

But walking is so simple, so basic to our human condition of walking upright, that I really really like Walking Zen. There's nothing to learn, just walk. Of course, mindful...upright...walking is especially nice for bringing our sitting practice along with us.

It's healthy; take a walk around the block today...I did.

Walking around the block

One of my Buddhist teachers, is also my kyudo (japanese archery) teacher (Hirokazu Kosaka Sensei). He once told me that the only exercise you need is kyudo, that the movement, done properly, gives us both a resistance exercise with the bow and without the bow all of our chemicals move and our blood flows smoothly. but later I discovered that dispite this pronouncement he takes a daily walk around the block. I decided to copy this example and take a daily walk as well. It didn't take long to see the meditative mind can be used while walking to a great effect both in speed and efficiency of the walk. Though I hadn't started at the Zen Temple yet, I think this is when I became 'The Zen Man Walking'.

Zen is often thought of as just zazen (sitting meditation). It's thought that zen practitioners only sit. Indeed, Shikantaza (just sitting) is the style of Zen we practice at Kanzeonji in Mt. Washington California. But Master Dogen Zenji had told us that the experience of sitting must be experienced in our daily lives. Kinhin helps us do just that. It's a stepping stone from our sitting to our daily lives.

There is a term Gyo(u)ju-Za-Ga (Walking-Sitting-Lying Down). This means that no matter what we are doing we should do it mindfully; in this way we take our mindful sitting to our mindful lives. If we can live mindful lives, perhaps this will also help us live thoughtful lives as well.

Speed and distance

Kinhin (walking around, about: walking meditation; often done between bouts of seated meditation) can be done at a variety of speeds and various lengths of time, but it is always done mindfully. I've been to sesshin ('collecting the mind': intensive trainings) where we began slowly, but then increased the speed till we were almost running, and then decreased the speed until we we arrived back at our cushions to sit some more.

At our zendo in Mt. Washington we always take a slow pace for Kinhin. We are mindful of every change in pressure on our feet, mindful or our breath, and mindful or our heartbeat. Breathe in and step forward....left..... right, breathe out step forward... left.... right. In some zendo we've gone around the room 2 times, or three times; at our zendo we go around only once. We're in tune with eachother but we don't really 'try' to be. We're in tune with our own breath and heartbeat, and this is similar and tied to eveyone else's in the room, so we draw eachother around the room.

Many think the kinhin is a break from the sitting, and I suppose it can be. But more than that we are taking our sitting into walking, and this is practice for taking our sitting into our daily lives. Sitting alone, is never enough....we must interact in the world in a 'sitting' way, in a mindful way.

Of course, there are spiritual, philosophical, and mystical energies at work in Kinhin, but these are best discussed with your roshi when the two of you are ready.

Zen & Walking

There is a great history between Buddhism and Walking. The 'takuhatsu', carrying the bowl or begging rounds, could be up to 3 hours of walking door to door. 'Angya', going on foot or pilgrimages, are a tradition that also goes back to the beginning of Buddhism with the wandering medicants. Some traveled to follow the seasons, others to find another teacher to guide them on their way.

Also, in Zen we have Kinhin (kin = walking about, hin = around). We usually use this to mean the walk around the sitting area between zazen (za= to sit, zen=mediation). But we contrast this with Ruten (Ru=float, ten=circle) but ruten is floating aimlessly from life to life without ever finding the path from this circle of lives.

So Zen walking, though it has no goal, is not aimless.