What is termed "sitting meditation" is a technique of meditation that has existed for more than four thousand years and still is as effective, if practiced correctly, in restoring levels of balance and harmony at different levels of consciousness and within the unconscious.
The Japanese Zen master Eihei Dōgen (永平道元, 1200–1253, a student of Chan in China with Mingquan (明全) of the Cáodòng Zong (曹洞宗)) declared, "To study the Buddha Way is to study the self, to study the self is to forget the self, and to forget the self is to be enlightened by the ten thousand things."
The ten thousand things are all the phenomena of the world, the illusions. Thus knowing the illusions one opens the door to a greater understanding.
One cannot study one's “self” actually, for that self does not really exist, but one can begin by studying the illusion of self, of which we are almost continually conscious.
We tend to see body, breath, and mind as separate phenomena, but they are really arbitrarily divided illusions generated by the mind. Nevertheless we will attend first to the illusion that is the body and its positioning for meditation.
Exactly how one sits or walks in meditation is secondary. The idea is to establish a firm base so those with difficulty can use whatever seated position they can handle best while at the same time being stable, with the back straight allowing for best diaphragm movement and air passage. This is essential, for it provides essential oxygen transport. The upper torso leans neither forward nor back.
Once positioned and prepared, the mouth is kept closed lightly with breathing accomplished through the nose. Unless you have some kind of a nasal blockage, breathe through your nose. The tongue is pressed lightly against the upper palate. This reduces the need to salivate and swallow. The eyes are kept lowered, with your gaze resting on the ground about two or three feet in front of you. The eyes should be shut and then opened halfway... Do not shut them from an open position.
Your eyes will be mostly covered by your eyelids, which eliminates the necessity to blink repeatedly. The chin is slightly tucked in. There should be no tension in the body.
The word Qi in Chinese means "natural energy," and derives from breath and good nutrition.
Breath is the vital force; it's the central activity of our bodies. Mind and breath are one reality: when your mind is agitated your breath is agitated; when you're nervous you breathe quickly and shallowly; when your mind is at rest the breath is deep, easy, and effortless.
Begin rocking the body with a gentle rhythm back and forth, slowly, rather like a pendulum, in decreasing arcs, until you settle at your center of gravity.
WALKING WHILE SITTING
In Chan the idea of sitting in meditation has been badly understood... The “sitting” refers to the sitting of the mind, not the procedures mentioned above. Just as the body has been positioned, so the mind must be positioned with regard to the activation of cognitive processes and the flow of the stream of consciousness.
Thus, the mind can be “sitting” while walking and even when performing simple tasks.
There is no meditation, including meditations in movement, that doesn't use this pyramid as its base
This pyramid is an essential solid structure in sitting meditations. What we refer to here is the fact that the base of the pyramid rests on three faces: a correct Pre-programmation, Breathing with One-pointed Attention, and the establishment of Defensive Sensorial Qi.
With this as a foundation, all meditations may succeed when accompanied by the gradual development of calm, patience, initiative, introspection, determination and perseverance.
PRE-PROGRAMMATION
Nobody speaks of pre-programmation in meditation, and yet it is an important part of successful practices. Everyone fixes their view on the results of meditation, to the point where they stray completely by becoming meditators.
Buddha and the old Masters are good guides, and it is easy to check that they never mentioned anything about the need for pre-programming. Why?
Well, if we analyze the first requirement for pre-programming, it is the firm and steadfast belief that meditation to touch one's own nature is the most important thing in life, besides the basic needs of means of livelihood, food, shelter and belonging to a community without any identity attachment.
In the communities of old (sanghas), the act of leading a wandering life implied precisely this attitude and the confidence that a fully natural and healthy life was within reach.
Today, when the teachings of natural Dharma have spread in a stained version as religion and as a mental path caressed by cognitive intelligence, while communication networks are full of those who impart advice without having experienced the true light of this Dharma (one's own nature), there really are few opportunities to lead a wandering life without a home in the original spirit.
What is this pre-prgrammation?
Have you ever seen a high-jump athlete who seems to rock back and forth before launching into the race with great concentration? That is pre-programmation. It is to imagine with great precision where you are going to step, your strides, the impulse that lifts you, the body's turn in mid-air, in fact all you plan to do. It is not an intellectual review; the athlete is imagining feeling himself as if he truly were in the midst of all these actions.
Well, that is pre-programmation.
Remember when you were a child and pretended you were doing something wonderful? That is pre-programmation. What is fantastic about this pre-programmation is that everything is perfect, whereas in dreams it is the subconscious that has control... In pre-programmation, or should we say conscious imagination, natural consciousness does everything picture-perfect. So all we need to do is to imagine that we are meditating, and do it over and over again, wherever and whenever we can... Assiduous practice will make the meditation perfect.
Therefore, imagine that you are sitting and develop the becoming of consciousness perfectly, without any distracting thougths whatsoever.
The, when the tome comes to really do the meditation, there will be no problems, your breathing will be correct and there will be no impediments.
If the meditation doesn't work, then go back and insist on the pre-programmation. Thus you will be doing as the meditators of old used to do: when they were not meditating, they were practicing natural and correct Dharma, thinking of their meditations.
Now, within the pre-programmation, you must add two ingredients: the complete understanding of the subject of meditation and its development, along with the knowledge that there might occur experiences within the meditation which must never be interpreted or evaluated, but must be allowed to exist as illusions in themselves. Natural Dharma takes care of the rest.
You can see that is you do all correctly with much pre-programming, you don't have to do anything when you sit down to meditate or contemplate.
BREATHING
As a base we do not extend the breathing method beyond the one-pointed attention upon the breath, using at first a simple approach of counting. In more advanced meditations we advance into an area which we call the Becoming of Consciousness, but here we are interested in remedial action for everyday problems.
We begin breathing in and breathing out, noting the tactile experience of the breath passing the nostrils. When that one-pointed observation is well defined, then start counting the breath, counting each inhalation and each exhalation, beginning with one and counting up to ten, then starting again. This counting for a beginner helps control the thoughts as it will be easily seen that the mind begins to wander. It can then be drawn back to the task of breathing and counting.
When a thought comes just identify it as a thought arising from body sensations (discomfort, for example), an emotion or an abstract jump into some incident of the past or future. Acknowledge it, simply saying in the mind "senses," "emotion," or "thought" and then deliberately and consciously let it go and begin the count again at one.
When you're able to stay with the counting and repeatedly get to ten without any effort and without thoughts interfering, it's time to begin counting every cycle of the breath. Inhalation and exhalation will count as one, the next inhalation and exhalation as two.
When this is established then just let the counting go and concentrate just on the breathing, being constantly aware of "breathing in" and "breathing out."
In these applied meditations do not try to control the rhythm, just breath a naturally as possible. Normal breathing is about fifteen full breaths a minute. You may find that the rate of breathing diminishes. That is a good sign as the body and mind is more at rest and heart rate, circulation, and metabolism slow down.
When this has been established, then one can go on to the actual specific meditations.
Allow calm and patience to prevail without expectation or concern about your problems, directing all attention to the task at hand.
THE UNIFICATION OF DEFENSIVE SENSORIAL QI
The five principal organs of Sensory Defensive Qi are the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue and the sensors known as touch, which include those of pressure, pain and heat.
The true detectors are of course the rods and cones of the retina of the eye; the vestibular hair cells of the ear, which are stimulated by movement of fluid in the semicircular canals and the utricle and saccule; the olfactory bulb of the nose; the taste buds of the tongue; and the proprioceptive and other sensing receptors, including pressure and temperature.
While these sensors are the key to all receiving, the defense rests in the program components which deal with irritations to the system.
The main task of these sensors is to pass along that information to where the experiences are investigated through comparison with past experiences in memory. The essential task of the sensory team is to advise the system whether the irritation is new or has been encountered before, in which case it can be correctly identified as being a danger to the system, a benefit to the system, or a neutral event.
If the stimulus is new and unrecognized, then an alarm is sent out and further investigation is initiated.
The reception is a very complex process, and it works perfectly well if there is no interference to the system.
But in this simple meditative level we are interested in only one thing and that is the collective sense of all the tactile sensations, so that there is one body sense. That means that every part of the body where there is an experience of pressure, heat, movement, and even pain or discomfort must be brought together as ONE EXPERIENCE of the BODY... It appears as a general experience and may give you a sensation of being separate from your own body, of floating, of being inflated. It does not matter, as long as the body is experienced as one whole without any specific experiences of parts or places on the body.