Zen training : methods and philosophy

268 Pages·2010·27.02 MB·English

by  Sekida, Kazuki, 1893-

ZEN
TRAINING

Ph!

^vKiUsuki Sc^kicici

BQ
9288
.S4313
1975

THE LIBRARY

>.
. O^
NEW COLLEGE OF CALIFORNIA

^^-^^
50 FELL STREET
•AN rHANClSCO. CALIFORNIA MT02

A
manual
of self-instruction
in Zen?
Until

the appearance of the present book
the
idea

would
have
seemed
improbable.
But
Zen

Training manages to demystify religion without

debunking
it,
to
explain
hitherto
esoteric

practices
in
lucid,
everyday
terms.
It
offers

concrete guidelines especially to the sine qua

non of all Zen training-zazen, seated medita-
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Posture, breathing, the function of the ab-
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dominal muscles, muscle tone, and the mecha-
Sekida,
Katsuki

,

nisms of wakefulness and attention are clearh
^^^ ^O^LEGE
OF CALIFORNIA
(SF)

and scientifically explained, so that one learns

what actually happens
in doing zazen, why
it

leads to certain psychological experiences, and

what their significance is. There
is also a chap-

ter on koans that goes far to clarify what for

many has seemed one of the most frustrating

and baffling aspects of Zen. Again, the reader

is
told how
actually
to
deal with koans and

how they operate as catalysts of enlightenment.

Mental operations and
states of conscious-

ness are rationally examined as well. The au-

thor's
brilliant
analysis
of the mechanism of

cognition
in terms of the
interplay of three

kinds of nen or "thought impulses" sheds valu-

able light on mental activities, both normal and

pathological, and on the nature of cognition,

self-awareness,
and
levels
of
consciousness.

The author also draws many significant paral-

lels between Zen and Western philosophy and

psychology,
comparing
traditional Zen
con-

cepts with the theories of being and cognition

of such thinkers as Heidegger and Husserl.

Zen Training departs from the bulkol West-

ern Zen literature
in
its
critical
reevaluation

of the enlightenment experience called kensho,

which
the author believes has often been em-

phasized
at
the
expense
of other important

aspects of Zen
training. The aim of zazen
is

seen not as the achievement of such
experi-

ences as satori or kensho but as the attainment

of absolute samadhi,
that
condition
of utter
^

(continued on
inside back cover

j

This book
is available in both hard and soft covers.

^

DUE DATE

_ORNlA

-JO

BQ 9288
.S4313
1975

Sekida,
Katsuki
,
189i

Zen training

BQ
9288
S4313
1975

#14550

Sekida, Katsuki,
1893-
^,t«„„«v.^
Zen
training
:
methods and philosophy

/ Katsuki
Sekida
;
edited, with
an

introduction,
by
A.
V.
brimstone. —

1st
ed. — New York
:
leatherhill,

258
p.
:
ill*
;
22
cm.

An expanded English version
o:f
An

introduction to Zen lor beginners,
originally written
in Japanese.

Includes bibliographical references

(p. 253-254) and index.

CONTENIS.—Orientations — Zazcn

posture — The
physiology of attention

--
Breathing in zazen — Counting and

following the breath
Working on Mu
—
The
tanden^etx —
Samadhi —
K.oans
— Three
nen- n
a actions
and one-eon

_^rt
T'vic^te*
' nee and
moo*^ —

28 ISb
94
1592346
NF^Cxc SEE NFXT CRD

#14550 Reclass
$
•
.

ISBN 0-8348-0114-0
( pbk.
)

1.
Meditation—Zen Buddhism.
2.
Zen

Buddhism
Discipline.
I. Title

28 FE^ 94
1502346
NFVCxc
75-17573r89

ZEN TRAINING

ZEN

Katsuki Sekida

TRAINING

METHODS AND PHILOSOPHY

edited, with an introduction, by A, V, Grimstone

o

New York
• WEATHERHILL
• Tokyo

First edition, 1975

Second printing, 1975

Published by John
Weatherhill,
Inc., 149 Madison
Avenue, New York,

New York 10016, with editorial
offices
at 7-6-13
Roppon^i,
Minato-ku,

Tokyo 106, Japan. Copyright © 1975 bv Katsuki Sekida and A. V. Grim-

stone;
all rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
: Sekida, Katsuki, 1893—/

Zen training. / An expanded English version of An introduction to Zen for

beginners, originally written
in Japanese.
/ Includes bibliographical refer-

ences and index. /
1. Meditation (Zen Buddhism)
2. Zen Buddhism—Dis-

cipline.
/
1.
Title.
/ BQ9288.S4313
/
294.3'4'43
/ 75-17573
j
ISBN
0-

8348-01 11-6/ ISBN 0-8348-01 14-0 pbk.

Contents

Preface
7

Editor's Introduction
9

1
Orientations
29

2
Zazen Posture
38

3
The Physiology of Attention
47

4
Breathing in Zazen
53

5
Counting and Following the Breath
60

6
Working on Mu
66

1
The Tanden
83

8
Samadhi
9/

9
Koans
98

10
Three Nen-Actions and One-Eon Nen
108

11
Existence and Mood
128

12
Laughter and Zen
147

13
Pure Existence
160

14
Pure Cognition and Kensho
]73

15
Kensho Experiences
193

16
A Personal Narrative
^^^

17
Stages
in Zen Training
^^^

Reference Notes
^^^

Index
^^^

Pref;ace

I SHOULD LIKE to cxpress here my thanks to all those who have helped

and encouraged me in the writing and publishing of this book. Parts

of
it originally appeared
in Diamond Sangha,
the publication of the

Zen group of Honolulu, and
I must first express my feeling of gratitude

to Mr. Robert Aitken, who
initially edited my articles and prepared

them for publication in Diamond Sangha, and to Mrs. Anne Aitken,
who typed my manuscripts and generally spared no effort in the work

of getting them printed. Without
their helping hands,
encourage-

ment, and the hospitality of the pages of Diamond Sangha, those arti-

cles would never have appeared. This also
is the place to express my

gratitude to the readers of Diamond Sangha for their steady encourage-

ment;
it has meant much
to me.

The articles that appeared at that time were independent of each

other and were published separately.
The work of organizing those

articles into book form,
of editing the
material that
I added
later,

and of writing the introduction was undertaken by Dr. A. V. Grim-

stone, in Cambridge, England.
I wish to thank him most warmly for

the care he
has devoted
to the
task, and
for his many helpful sug-

gestions. He has worked on the book as
if it were his own.

I also wish to thank Miss Debra Graynom, of the Maui Zendo, who

helped me by typing some parts of the manuscript, and more generally

I want to express my gratitude for the encouragement given me by

the members of the Zen groups of Honolulu and Maui, and the mem-

7

PREFACE

bers of the London Zen Society. Among the latter
I particularly want

to thank Mr. Geoffrey Hargett for suggesting Figure 20.

I hope that this book will be of interest and help to those who wish

to study Zen. Good luck in your Zen practice!

Katsuki Sekida

Kochi Prefecture, Japan,
1975

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author and
editor wish
to
express
their
gratitude
to the
fol-

lowing for granting permission to reprint published material
: Chatto

and Windus, Random House, and the literary estate of C. K.
Scott-

Moncrieff for extracts from Scott-Moncrieff's
translation of Marcel

Proust's
Svvann's Way and
Within a Budding
Grove; the University of

Illinois Press for a figure from the American Journal of Tsychology; R. D,

Laing and Penguin Books for an extract from The Politics of Experience

and The Bird of Paradise, © 1967 by R. D. Laing; David Magarshack and

Penguin Books for passages from the former's translations of Dostoev-

ski's I^e/Jiot and The Devils, ©^9S3, 1955 by David Magarshack; A. C.

Guyton and W.
B. Saunders Company
for material from Function of

the Human Body;
Iris Murdoch and Routledge and Kegan Paul for pas-

sages from
The Sovereignty of Good; Manchester University Press and

the University of Chicago Press for an extract from Karl Jaspers' Gen-

eral Psychopathology, translated by J. Hoenig and Marian W. Hamilton;

and Macmillan Publishing Company and Allen and Unwin for a pas-

sage from Edmund Husserl's Idea of Phenomenology , translated by W.

P. Alston and G. Nakhnikian in Readings in Twentieth-Century Philosophy.

Editor's Introduction

The author ofthis book, Katsuki Sekida, was born in Kochi, a town

in the southwest of Japan, in 1893, He began the practice and study of
Zen in his early twenties, in circumstances that are partly described

in
chapter
16 of this book,
and
has continued
this uninterrupted

ever since. His experience therefore extends over almost sixty years.

Although
his study and practice of Zen have been intense and pro-

found, and although he
lived and studied for some years
in
a Zen

monastery, Ryutaku-ji, he has always remained a layman, earning his

living
as
a schoolteacher until
his retirement in
1945.
In
his
later

years he has become greatly respected as a teacher of Zen. These few

biographical
facts are important to the reader,
I believe,
since they

help to establish that this book is the work of a man who can write of
Zen with the authority of prolonged experience and deep study.

In 1963, Mr. Sekida accepted an invitation to go to Honolulu to

join a Zen group that had been founded there at the initiative of Rob-

ert Aitken, and he remained
in Hawaii until 1970.
It was in Hono-

lulu that Mr. Sekida began working on an expanded English version

of a book he had written in Japanese, An Introduction to Zen for Begin-

ners, and early drafts of various chapters of this book were circulated

with a newsletter. Diamond Sangha, published by the Honolulu Zen

group.
I met Mr. Sekida in 1968, when
I was working in Honolulu

for a time, and again in 1971, when he came to England for several

months at the invitation of the London Zen Society. At that time he

asked me if I would assist him in the final preparation of his manuscript

9

EDITOR
S INTRODUCTION

for publication,
I gladly agreed to do this, since
it seems to nie that

his ideas are interesting and important and his book is a most valuable

one.
I can claim no profound knowledge or experience of Zen myself,

but
in the course of my professional
activities
as a scientist
I have

acquired a certain experience of writing and editing, and it seemed to
me that it was this that Mr. Sekida chiefly needed, rather than a deep
knowledge of his subject. Mr.
Sekida completed
his manuscript in

1972, and the final version is now before the reader.

Mr. Sekida also asked
if, in addition to editing the book,
I would

write an introduction to it. With some diffidence,
I agreed to do this.

The book is,
I believe, well able to stand by itself, and the reader will

lose little if he proceeds straight to chapter
1. However, Mr. Sekida's

view of Zen
is different in many respects from that which has pre-

viously been presented to Western readers, and a few words of ex-

planation at the outset may help some readers to orient themselves in

unfamiliar territory and to relate what
is said here to what
is to be

found in other books. In particular,
I think
it may be useful to state

explicitly some of the things that Mr. Sekida takes for granted and

does not comment on.

For Mr. Sekida the unquestioned basis of any serious practice of Zen

is zazen, the exercise in which the student
sits and learns to control

his body and mind. A substantial part of the book
is devoted to de-

scribing how zazen
is performed and what
its
effects
are.
Perhaps

for some readers this concentration on zazen will need justification,

for in DaisetzT. Suzuki's writings, which were chiefly responsible for

introducing Zen to the West, no such emphasis
is to be found, and

this inevitably influenced those introductory books on Zen that were

largely based on his work.i Suzuki wrote about Zen
largely from
a

theoretical and cultural viewpoint and was not much concerned with

the practical aspects of Zen training.
Traditionally,
the practice of

Zen has been taught to students personally,
usually in a monastery.

Suzuki took this for granted and perhaps assumed that it would always

be the case. At any
rate,
his books contain
little mention oi zazen,

and certainly nothing by way of instructions on how to perform
it.

It needs, therefore,
to be emphasized at the outset that the experi-

10

EDITOR
S INTRODUCTION

ences and insights that Suzuki described are, and always have been,

gained by the assiduous practice ot zazen.

This point has already been made by PhiHp Kapleau,^ whose book

went further than any that had hitherto appeared—in the West,
at

least—in describing how Zen
is actually practiced.
Kapleau's book

is undoubtedly
a most valuable and interesting one. Largely consist-

ing
of translations of lectures and other material by contemporary

Zen teachers, some older Zen
texts, and autobiographical accounts

by a number of Zen students,
it comes nearer than any other book

in English to describing how Zen functions as a religion. But still
it

falls short of being the book that
is so badly needed
in the West

:

nowhere does
it give the reader the kind of precise
instructions for

performing zazen that he will need if he is to practice—as most West-

erners
inevitably
will—without
the
guidance
of
a Zen
teacher.

Like Suzuki and the writers of the classical Zen texts, the authors of

the material that Kapleau translates did not see the necessity of giv-

ing highly detailed practical instructions of this kind. As far as
I know,

such information has not so far been published in any European lan-

guage. The first great merit of Mr. Sekida's book, then,
is that it tells

us exactly how zazen
is to be performed.

When we read what Mr. Sekida has to say on this topic, however,

we discover that he
is not content to confine himself to the essential

practical
requirements. He goes
far beyond
this,
for he undertakes

a remarkable analysis of the whole exercise of zazen, conducted large-

ly in physiological terms. Posture, breathing, the function of the ab-

dominal muscles, muscle tone,
the mechanisms of wakefulness and

attention—all are discussed in detail in the language of the physiolo-

gist. The value of this,
it seems to me, is twofold. In the first place,

it helps the student to understand what he is trying to do when he sits

doing zazen. He
is not merely instructed to
sit and concentrate on,

shall we say, counting his breath or saying "Mu," but is told precisely

why,
if he manipulates his body in certain ways, he will find himself

better able to carry out such an exercise.
Secondly—and for some

people this will be even more important—Mr. Sekida's analysis, logi-

cal and scientific as it is, helps to make the whole matter of practicing

zazen more reasonable. For many people, and especially those with any