Things About Meditative Absorption and Zen Awareness

When people think about meditation, they often pictured a monk sitting with a lotus position. That's only what appears to be for people haven't learn about what meditation really mean. There are more to it.

From Indian Dhyama to Chinese Zen, there are several basics, and common practices. First of all, meditation is only a technique, which helps better understand your own body, and your own mind. There are several steps in the original Indian Yoga, and Dhyama is only the 7th step. The other steps are

1. Yama (Follow the disciplines) 

2. Niyama (Be aware of practices)

3. Asana (Prepare the body)

4. Pranayama (Prepare the breath)

5. Pratyahara (Prepare the mind)

6. Dharana (Focus the mind)

7. Dhyana (Absorption)

8. Samadhi (body and mind become one)

In Zen absorption, we generally regard the first 6 steps as principle preparations. We have already talked about a basic way of prepare your breath - "abdominal breathing". As regarding how to prepare your body, there are several ways of doing that, and the famous lotus position is only the most difficult one. But until now, it's all about physical preparations.

Some people may say that you need to count your breath, or focus on your breath only, but that's all about prepare your breath, until you can put down and forget "the thought", in order for you to move on to the next part - "prepare the mind". The harder part, and the core meaning of meditation comes after you prepare your mind. 

The first step towards your mind, is how you calm your mind. Think of if you want to paint a painting, you need to prepare a good piece of paper. So you need to prepare your mind first. In Zen absorption, we do not separate preparing the mind, and focusing the mind. They are one and the same, if you can focus your mind, then you are well prepared. (Prepare the mind is important in Yoga, because you need separate your sensations before you can focusing. But in Zen absorption, we tend to think of this as finding a quiet and comfortable place before you entering the natural state of the body and mind. And then gradually tune down your sensations.)

There are several ways of focusing your mind, and you can continuing the counting breath method, but it's not the best way for everyone. The thing is that different people have different level of concentration and everyone has a different mind. Some people find numbers are easy to focus, then counting numbers or breath is a good way.  Some people love art, so they find it easy to focus on colors, even a painting itself. It's crucial to find the best way of focusing for each individual. A good teacher should help you find it.

After all the preparations above, we can now finally talked about Zen Absorption - or Dhyana. Traditionally, we said there are 4 steps of Zen awareness, and later another 4 steps of meditative absorption. Hence the name Zen Absorption (四禪八定).

We have briefly talked about some basic things in Zen absorption. Next time, we will talk more about the differences in each steps.