C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

Read on and discover the REAL connection between Zen and the martial arts! Taisen Deshimaru - the great Soto Zen monk of the 20th century - clearly taught that there was a correlation between martial arts and Zen.      There has long been a debate over how much, if any, influence Zen has had on the martial arts.  There has also been interest over the years as to whether or not mutual exchanges occurred between the various martial arts and the various Buddhist philosophies of silent/seated meditation - i.e.: Zen.  Zen is the Japanese translation of the Chinese "Chan", itself a translation of the Indian/Sanskrit word "Dhyana", which simply means "seated meditation" in English.  I write "philosophies" (plural) of Buddhist meditation because there are many "Zens".  Not only is Zen known as Chan in China, but it's also practiced as "Seon" in Korea, and "Thien" in Vietnam.  (Probably the most popular Zen monk in the wo...

 I have - on and off since my youth - practiced zazen.  But the sort of zazen that I was introduced to as a young man in the Isshin-Ryu dojo of my formative years was (as I have said before elsewhere on this blog) decidedly of a Soto-style nature.  Specifically, it was what is known in Zen as shikantaza , often translated as just sitting.  But "just sitting" can be a lot harder than it sounds. The following is from Japanese-American monk-priest Sokuzan, in a new book of his entitled "108 Meditation Instructions."  I admit to knowing very little about Sokuzan, despite typically being familiar with the American-Buddhist "scene", but what he has to say here has a depth to it that you don't typically encounter in American Zen. Enjoy! Kodo Sawaki sitting in Zazen Why do this kind of meditation (shikantaza) rather than shine or thaktong or samatha and vipassana?  Why not do creation/completion practices or deity yoga visualizations?  Or mantras?  Why no...

  The Way of the Samurai Selections and Commentaries from Yamamoto Tsunetomo's  Hagakure , the Classic Exposition on Zen and the Japanese Warrior Code of Bushido courtesy of Wikimedia Part Two: Become as One Who is Permanently Dead "I have found that Bushido means to die.  It means that when one chooses between life and death, one will quickly choose the side of death.  There is nothing else to consider.  One simply makes up one's mind and pushes ahead...  When one has to choose between life and death, there is no time to worry whether one's objective has been achieved.  All of us prefer to live, so we can always find a reason to stay alive.  If one lives as one intends to die, it is cowardice... If one dies when one intended to live, it might be regarded as a vain death or as craziness, but one will not incur any shame.  This is to be a real man of Bushido.  If every morning and every evening one dies anew, one will become as one perman...

  The Way of the Samurai Selections and Commentaries from Yamamoto Tsunetomo's Hagakure , the Classic Exposition on Zen and the Japanese Warrior Code of Bushido Portrait of Yamamoto Tsunetomo I. Everything is in the Present Moment "There is nothing outside of the present moment.  Life is nothing but a series of moments following one after another.  If one becomes aware of this fact, there is no reason to be in a hurry and no reason to be searching around for anything.  All one has to do is hold to the present moment and get on with life.  Yet everyone lets the moment slip from their grasp, believing that there is something else over and above the present moment and hunting all around for it, losing their awareness of the here and now.  It takes a lot of practice to learn to hold continually to the present moment and to not let it slip.  However, once one has found this realm, even if one cannot remain in it constantly, it is already the real thing....

  No matter who you are or where you are in life, you need tools for "living the good life", as the ancient Greek and Roman philosophers would have put it. First, I believe that you need to be grounded in a religion.  And by "religion", I don't mean the form of fundamentalism that some of you may have in mind.  I mean religion as a living Wisdom Tradition .  The two Wisdom Traditions that have shaped me throughout most of my life are/were Zen and Eastern Christianity. Even once you are "grounded" in a Wisdom Tradition, you still need tools for your daily living.  One of the best tools that I have found comes from the late (and great) Indian philosopher and professor of religion Eknath Easwaran.  Easwaran is most noted for developing what he called "passage meditation" where you memorize an inspirational passage and then use it in meditation to go deep within.  But it's not his passage meditation that I want to discuss in this post.  It...

 Happiness Sucks and the Zen Way to Contentment C.S. sitting on his zabuton as he prepares for meditation I once read of a study dealing with music and happiness.  The study had two groups of participants listen to a composition of classical music.  The first group was told to simply listen to the music.  The second group was told to listen to the music and to try to have the music cultivate a sense of happiness within them while listening.  Afterwards, both groups were asked how happy listening to the music made them feel.  Interestingly, it was the first group that said they felt really happy while listening to the music.  The sense of simple bare attention, without attempting to alter the atmosphere through "being" happy, was enough to create happiness without effort. We live in a culture - and this is especially true if you're like me and deal with the "health and wellness" community - that is in the middle of a "happiness boom".  But the trut...

  Nothing Special: Everyday Zen and the Art of Lifting In her seminal book, 'Nothing Special: Living Zen' by Charlotte Joko Beck, Beck writes, "Beyond the meditation cushion, where do you ultimately find the profound clarity, presence, and simple joy of Zen? Where it has always been - in everyday life, whether it's raising our kids, working in the office, or even cleaning the house." Or, I might add, in the simple joy and surrender of lifting weights. There's nothing special about lifting weights, not really.  It's a very simple exercise.  Pick weights up, put weights down, repeat - that's about it.  Of course, its the sheer simplicity and very Zen-like nature of lifting that does  make it special, and therein lies its true worth.  And after doing it for a length of time, it simply becomes something that one does, but also something that one cannot but  do. Some posts ago, I wrote something very similar to this on the Zen-like practice of lifting weigh...

Entering Deeply into Practice Bodhidharma (a.k.a. Da Mo), first patriarch of Zen*       “ While you are continuing this practice, week after week, year after year, your experience will become deeper and deeper, and your experience will cover everything you do in your everyday life.  The most important thing is to forget all gaining ideas, all dualistic ideas.  In other words, just practice zazen in a certain posture.  Do not think about anything.  Just remain on your cushion without expecting anything.  Then eventually you will resume your own true nature.  That is to say, your own true nature resumes itself. ” Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind      In a past blog entry on Zen, martial arts, and building muscle mass, I made a brief mention of entering deeply into practice .  But what does this mean, to “enter deeply into practice”?  First, and for some odd reason this seems to be a poi...

"Technical knowledge is not enough.  One must transcend technique so that the art becomes artless art, growing out of the unconscious."  -Daisetzu Suzuki When the founder of Kyokushin Karate-Do (one of the primary arts that I trained in as a young man), Masutatsu Oyama, came off the mountain (it was a very literal, and at the same time, figurative, mountain), he defeated all in the martial world who came within his path in the dojo, felling almost every opponent he met in a quick, effortless manner.  The tales of Oyama has become the stuff of legend.  Even though his exploits are recent in the history of martial arts, it's still hard to tell what exactly is fact and what has already faded into myth.  But one thing is for certain: Oyama's mountain-top training was the difference between him and those who he dismantled so quickly. Oyama's training was founded upon three integrated aspects, combining martial arts practice, zazen, and hard, physical training (...