Taking a break: Breathing and Zen

I often need to create space and change things up a bit to counterbalance the "busy-ness" of work, submerged in emails, chats, and the stress that comes with the daily sense of urgency. Luckily, it's not all screen time and I get to do a decent amount of public speaking, which means I get to meet plenty of interesting people face to face.

Today I needed a break from all things digital and to feel more grounded. I would usually go for a run or yoga to clear my mind, though after some persistent pain due to injury and 3 days in a row of practice I decided to postpone that for a day.

So instead I attended a short lecture by Toda Seizan, the head priest of Daiji-in Daitokuji temple, part of the Zen Buddhism Rinzai sect. As I often find with Zen monks, they have a contagious sense of humour and playfulness that disarms the false expectations of seriousness that people have about Zen.

Toda Seizan started as an accountant and after five years he enlisted to become a Zen priest. Funnily enough, when asked why he decided to become a priest, he candidly explained how he married a woman whose dad was a Zen priest so that was it: "I became a monk because I married a woman". (Laughs)

We talked about the Heart Sutra and its importance in Zen practice. I became acquainted with it years ago when I started to practise Sōtō Zen and we would recite it as a chant at the end of Zazen. While I don't chant it as often now, I do listen to it after my daily meditation practice (the lightly musicalised version by Kanho Yakushiji).

Towards the end of the talk, Toda Seizan shared how his own ascetic practice of the tea ceremony (Sado) is more about gathering the fellow priests together to share a cup of tea and less about the formality of the ritual as codified by most tea schools today, where it's seen more as an art form than as people sharing a cup of tea.

It was Kūkai, considered the creator of what evolved into today's Japanese tea ceremony, who 12 centuries ago wanted to move away from the formality, exclusiveness and lushness of the tea tradition that had been imported from China and go back to the essential practice of gathering wood to make a fire, boil water, prepare and share tea with others.

Samadhi, that meditative state of mind that arises during Zazen, often compared to the calmness that makes ripples of water settle in a turbulent pool, was an important topic of the discussion too. Our desires prevent the achievement of Samadhi, and eventually act as an obstacle to Satori, enlightenment.

Toda Seizan referenced the 5 commandments of Buddhism (do not kill, do not steal, do not lie, do not have sex and do not drink alcohol) and how we all do them (laughs). But these rules exist because our desires take us away from Samadhi.