Here’s How To Meditate With Your Eyes Open
You don’t need to close your eyes, Zen Buddhism and other traditions meditate with open-eyes.
“I forgot to tell you the basics of Zazen,” said the monk as we walked into the ritual room of a small Zen Buddhist temple in Tokyo, “sit in lotus on the cushion, spine straight, eyes open, gazing down and ahead of you.”
“Keep my eyes open?” I asked curiously. I’d never done that before except for moving meditations.
“Yes,” replied the monk. “You will face the wall. Keep your eyes relaxed but open.”
After that, I sat all day practicing the Zazen technique used in Zen Buddhism for the first time. And I struggled. I wanted to go back to my familiar practice of eyed closed that I had done for thousands of hours.
Sharing my story with a friend frustrated with the lack of progress in her own meditation practice, I hoped to explain how we all face challenges. But she connected with something else I had said,
“Wait,” She jumped in, “you can meditate with your eyes open? I should try that. Whenever I close my eyes, the darkness overwhelms me and I get kind of weirded out.”
Many people tell me they fall asleep when they try to meditate. If that happens, you should probably…
