About Zen — Counting the Breath
The Most Profound Dharma
[Illustration from sharonsalzberg.com]
About the time I discovered Zen through Alan Watts and D.T. Suzuki, I overheard a conversation in which a guy I worked with said, “Spiritual practice? I’m not going to count to ten for the rest of my life.” The cynic was not far off.
I have spent many of my moments counting to ten. Zen meditation, or zazen, is built on it. An American Zen Master of the previous generation said that zazen practice begins with counting the inhalations and exhalations because this simple, natural, and familiar rhythm supports the mind as we sit in meditation. The Master recommended that students move on to more advanced methods of breath awareness, but counting breaths remains forever effective and reliable.
An American Zen teacher of the present generation calls counting the breath the foundational practice in Zen, taught by generations of ancestors. It’s an efficient way, she says, to quiet discriminative thought and bring the mind to single-pointed concentration. It is the most profound dharma — all thoughts, actions, and moments come out of it.
Our active, discursive mind constantly generates every form of thought. We watch the thoughts come, we let them flow by without attaching, and we go back to counting our breaths. We choose to point our awareness to the beautiful rhythm of the breath — in, one; out, two; in, three; out, four… available to us not just during zazen, but always.
