The Zen experience must be direct and in a psychophysical level. We absorb that realization through our bodies, not intellectually with our minds. The methods used to experience this so-called “wisdom” differ, although the most common one is zazen or seated meditation. Any of us who have spent a significant amount of time on the cushion, have had such experience, however briefly, while sustaining hours of knee pain, backaches, watery eyes, and sleep deprivation during long sitting sessions. There is no doubt such experience has the power to transform us, and we know that, but the minute we leave the cushion the experience dissipates.
One may ask what the purpose of Zen practice is. Why endure such intense training methods? According to Moore Roshi, author of The Rinzai Zen Way, the many practices of Zen have three main functions:
- To remove obstructions to seeing our true nature
- To actually point out our nature, causing us to awake (kensho or enlightenment)
- To help us clarify, actualize, and embody that awakening
In short, formal Zen practices such as zazen, chanting, and koan training aim at accomplishing the purpose of Zen practice which is to remove the obstructions that prevent us from seeing our true nature and become enlightened, and therefore carry the enlightened experience in our daily activities, day to day, moment to moment. Such an embodiment of an awakened person, someone with a strong spiritual foundation, should manifest in compassion and love.
Is it possible, however, to have such a powerful Zen realization in normal daily activities?
There are many daily actions in our lives that we can use as vehicles to get us to that state of meditative absorption where there is no separation between us and the activity of our bodies, and thus we can truly experience that sense of unity.
In the book, Zen and the Art of Calligraphy, Omori Sogen Roshi explains that “there are many vehicles for Zen training; some are formal disciplines…but any daily act- cooking, raising children, working with tools or a pen, walking, standing, sitting, lying – can be an instrument of spiritual forging.” Omori Roshi explains that his training methods are Zen, calligraphy, and swordsmanship, merely because that’s what he knew best.
Natalie Goldberg, the author of Writing Down the Bones, says in her book that her Zen teacher, Dainin Katagiri Roshi, had to always explain Zen to her from a writing point of view otherwise she wouldn’t understand his teaching. One time he asked her bluntly: “Why do you come to sit meditation? Why don’t you make writing your practice? If you go deep enough in writing, it will take you everyplace.”
Every semester I ask my culinary students, what are you doing here? I don’t mean it in a mean way or to make them examine their decision to pursue a college degree in cooking (although that is helpful in some cases). Instead, I ask them such a simple question to help them cut through all the bullshit excuses they carry with the hope that they realize that all they’re doing is cooking. If they can understand that the only activity we take part in is just cooking, then everything else that arises from that activity is easy to accomplish. They like to say that my favorite answer to most of their questions is “figure it out in the kitchen.” I give that answer because I want them to return to the activity of cooking so they can understand basic things as seasoning, flavor, slicing, dicing, butchering, etc. Reading about how to make soup is not going to teach them how to make a soup. Only the process of making a soup, over and over again, can show them that, therefore most of their questions can only be answered cooking in the kitchen, not when intellectually trying to understand a recipe.
In 2015 I decided to start running. I’ve been running on and off since and just recently got back to it. I find running to be a profound vehicle to experience Zen. Like zazen, breath and posture are critical to being able to activate the vital energy (KIAI) needed to affect the delusional mind and connect it to our bodies. While running, mind and body have to become one, and in sync otherwise, we collapse, mentally and physically. At the peak of this experience, one realizes that there are no legs, nor arms; there are no lungs, nor thoughts, road or miles, there is only running happening.
It seems that the quality of the Zen experience that comes from such daily activities as cooking, writing, calligraphy, or running is similar to the one that comes from sitting on a cushion. However, this is in no way an excuse not to use the cushion as an essential vehicle for Zen practice. I can attest that the reason why I recognize the Zen experience in daily activities is that I have met such experience before while sitting in zazen. Omori Roshi, in his book An Introduction to Zen Training, warns us of students who practice Zen without sitting. He explains that to experience Zen in such activities we must become so integrated with the activities itself that there is no possible separation between the self and the activity. The ability to integrate with activities in a such a profound and unified way is only possible once we have learned how to forged our self-integration in zazen. He cautions us that unless we can sit for at least 45 minutes, then we are doing Zen without sitting, which is a deluded perception of Zen realization.
Hakuin Zenji writes in the Song of Zazen: “As to Zazen taught in the
In conclusion, the idea of experiencing Zen in daily activities is not true for everyone. Zen is not something that is separated from us, therefore, caught while engaging in such activities and then let go once the activity ends. Instead Zen is within us. Consequently, unless we train in Zen, through formal methods such as zazen, it is quite difficult or impossible to experience it in daily activities.