Learn to sit zazen
Try a spiritual practice that’s thousands of years old
What is meditation?
Meditations are approaches to inquiring into an observation, a challenge or difficulty, or even fundamental existence. There are many different approaches to meditation, and in a general sense, meditation is the act of ongoing contemplation and reflection. It’s something we all do regularly and is a basic human skill. It’s just something that isn’t usually used for a purpose other than getting a specific task done or solving a problem.
Zen, along with many other practices involving our mental and spiritual growth, has refined this human capacity for meditation through specific methods for specific purposes.
In Hollow Bones Zen, meditation plays a central role.
Beginner Resources
Meditation 101
Learn about the different styles of meditation, and how to begin them.
Reading List
Dhyana – The Perfection of Meditation
Learn about the progression of meditative states.
Samadhi
Learn about this culmination of single-pointed concentration.
Why do we meditate?
Zen is dedicated to the realization of wisdom and compassion in the experience of being in the world. In particular, zen can help us resolve the psychological and emotional suffering in our lives–the places where we just seem stuck, feel gnawing anxiety, grinding depression, or cavernous emptiness. All the places where we look at what just happened in our lives and go, “WTF?!”
Our practice tradition has identified that suffering like this comes from our strong, innate (and evolutionarily very helpful!) desire for things to be other than as they are, and having strong attachments or aversions that drive this desire.
If we release ourselves from our attachments and aversions and come to know how things simply are, as revealed through meditative practice, then we can step into our lives in ways that resolve suffering.
For most of us, this means identifying reactive patterns within ourselves that have negative impacts and becoming empowered to choose new responses to the same situations. Over time, this transforms our lived experience into one of freedom and joy.
