Frequently asked questions

There are two things here: first, in Zen we're not trying to empty our minds. That's like trying to stop thinking — the very effort will make you think more! We're just spending some time without external stimulation to watch what happens and allow It to come through. What is It? Well, that's a well-known koan (object of meditation) that can be very interesting.

But there need be no opposition between meditation and doing. When running mindfulness courses, which require quite a lot of practice homework, people found that they actually got more done in the time when they weren't meditating — even though in theory their days had an hour less. You could think of it as taking the car out of gear, then finding that helps it work better when the gears are engaged.

Every day is good if you can. But some days you have more time than others — if you're working, you might spend more time over breakfast at the weekend than the hurried piece of toast you manage on a workday. So it is with meditation. For starters, try five or ten minutes every day, at roughly the same point in your day. The main thing is to find where it fits in the sequence of your day — then it becomes like cleaning your teeth: you don't question it, you just get up early enough to make sure it happens. Best to allow at least an hour after eating before you sit.

Build up to at least one 25-minute period every day. If you want to do more, try five minutes of slow walking ('kinhin') round your room, then come back and sit some more. If your main sitting time is in the morning, you could add a short sit before you go to sleep at night, and vice versa.

Very few people in the West do this. There are various options depending on your flexibility. It's fine to sit on a chair, though you need to sit upright, with your ears above your shoulders and your shoulders above your hips. Wedge-shaped cushions placed on the chair can help you stay upright.

If you want to use a meditation cushion called a zafu (on its side) or a meditation stool, then you sit in seiza, a kneeling position, which naturally puts your back into a good position without any effort. Another popular position is the Burmese, where you sit with the cushion flat and your knees on the ground, legs crossed one in front of the other. If you can manage it without too much discomfort, half-lotus is fine.

However your body is arranged, the hands should be in the 'heaven and earth mudra' — the right hand on your lap, palm upwards, and the left hand, also palm upwards, on top of it. Thumbs should be just touching — this works as really good biofeedback. If you are dozing off, the thumbs will fall away; if you're trying too hard, they will push up against each other. Eyes should be just open, gazing slightly downward; this helps prevent daydreaming by keeping you in the room.

No! Anyone can benefit from practising meditation, irrespective of your religious affiliation. Buddhism doesn't actually require you to believe anything anyway, so you can stay with whatever belief system works for you.

Some people can, but it is quite rare. Imagine you wanted to build a table, and all you had was a cut-down tree and some tools you'd never seen used before. Surely it's easier to go to someone who has had some education in carpentry — it might save you a lot of time.

For most of us, it takes a while for our minds to settle down. Daily practice is great, but after one or two sits you might still be largely concerned with what's going to happen at work that day, or what you're going to have for dinner. Having a few days out of your normal schedule can really help you go deeper. You also get interviews with a teacher, and who knows — they might say something helpful in a Dharma talk (teisho).

In Zen, unlike some other schools of meditation, we say that nothing is missing to begin with. What is needed is to realise that experientially; so in a way it's not the enlightenment that's missing, it's the realisation. And then what is realised needs to be actualised — put into practice in your life. I guess we're all working on these things.

Of course there are what we call 'opening' experiences (kensho), but as the famous sutra 'The Identity of Relative and Absolute' says, "To encounter the Absolute is not yet enlightenment." How long before opening experiences? There's no rule; many factors influence what happens to a person when they start meditation — in shorthand, we could call that karma. It's not a competition.

I would say that this is a sign that you're working hard and wholeheartedly; sometimes people use meditation as a way of avoiding their feelings. That's called 'spiritual bypassing' and it's not a good idea. But if what comes up is too much, then speak to your teacher about it, and if necessary get professional help. I'd been sitting for a few years when the brown stuff hit the fan, and I sought psychotherapy, which was very helpful; I came back to my meditation practice about nine months later.

Not much. Actually, I would regard mindfulness, in its Western secularised version, as potentially a 'gateway drug' to Zen! The emphasis in mindfulness is on standing back from your mind-contents (thoughts, feelings and so on) so that you are no longer in their grip. This frees you up to enjoy the moment and have a deeper experience of your life. For some who just take an eight- or nine-week programme and stop there, that's as far as it goes — perhaps one has a slightly more flexible ego, not a bad thing at all.

With sustained practice, and more emphasised in Zen, is what's expressed in the old joke: "What did the Zen student say to the hot-dog man? Make me one with everything!" Of course, notice it's the student who is asking this — the teacher would say, "You are already one with everything!"

This, if you like, is the added dimension that Zen brings: going beyond the illusion of a separate, unchanging self, increasing the porosity of this 'skin bag' and opening up a greater sense of connection with it all. There are some mindfulness practitioners and teachers who also realise this, but it is not usually emphasised in the formal programmes.

These are called rakusu, and represent the Buddha's robe. When students receive the Buddhist precepts, they get one of these (although they will have sewn it themselves, which is part of the practice), which reminds them, when they put it on, that they are Buddha too!