Ed,
Well, some zen teachers will start beginners with practices involving the
breath (breathing). Counting the breath; following the breath.
Or some may perhaps later, or even early-on, have a student put all attention
on the tan tien, the tanden, the hara, as another type of physically-based
concentration like the breath practices.
Sheng Yen taught us 7 or 8 different practices as beginners. On retreats, we
would use the method we came there with, and he might switch us to something
else, as a mid-course correction, depending on how things were going with us.
Often he'd give us the first kung-an, "Wu".
My "favorite" (most natural-seeming to me) method in early days was his
beginner's method of "Cat and Mouse", which was to sit as if you are a watchful
cat, and any thought that arises is like a mouse, which the attention of the
cat forces to remain in its mouse-hole. I practiced this with fierce
attention, and it would wear me out, and cause me to sweat even in winter.
Then, in the same sit, while worn out and tired from the exertion of the
cat-and-mouse effort, the method would disappear, or could no longer be
grasped, and I would sit in an indeterminate state for a long time with no
passing thoughts and in really extreme comfort. It was not yet samadhi, but
definitely a self-sustaining and pretty imperturbable state.
Later, I could see that the Cat-and-Mouse method was a bit like
Samatha-Vipassana, or stopping-and-insight, or chih-kuan-da-dzo, or shikantaza.
For mature practitioners, Sheng Yen taught mostly the methods of kung-an, and
Silent Illumination. He had some students aligned with Pure Land practice, and
for them he had them recite the Buddha's name silently.
--Joe
> "ED" <seacrofter001@...> wrote:
>
> Bill, Mike, Joe and all,
>
> I know of koan practice and shikantaza in zen. Do Zen teachers ever
> recommend other types of meditation, or the attainment of jhana states?
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