True Adventures in Zen Meditation
Can it help you punch people?
In In his memoir Undisputed Truth, former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson mentions the books he read when he was a hungry kid learning the sweet science. As a beginning boxer, I couldn’t resist reading his recommendations in hopes they would help me land some punches. When it came to Zen and the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel, at least, I came armed with previous knowledge and experience.
My first encounter with Zen was in a course on Eastern religion in college. The course focused on the I Ching, Taoism and Zen Buddhism. In addition to texts by Zen popularizer D.T. Suzuki and all-round guru Alan Watts, we read Zen monk Shunryu Suzuki’s classic introductory text Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. The simplicity of this last’s teaching regarding zazen, or sitting meditation, struck a chord with me: sitting is itself enlightenment, no further dogma required. The next summer, I jumped at a chance to practice with Shunryu’s son and dharma heir Hoitsu Suzuki at Rinso-in Temple in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan.
I went early in the morning for personal instruction. Most of the time, we practiced sitting meditation in the meditation hall, but we also practiced standing meditation (ritsuzen) and walking meditation (hokōzen). It was devilishly hot and mosquitoes were everywhere. Suzuki advised me to let them drink their fill before moving on. Afterward, we looked out on the temple garden, had green tea, and discussed religion. He was patient with my questions but uninterested in dogma. If only this flexibility were as common in other religions.
A few years later, I attended a group lesson for foreigners at Chuo Temple near Sapporo’s red-light district. (On the way back, I passed a shop selling an aphrodisiac of pickled snake.) In the main sanctuary, the instructor spoke about life as a monk (he enjoyed getting out to see movies like X-Men), provided instruction in the basics of meditation, and answered questions. On this occasion, I was able to experience keisaku, which is when a monk uses a wooden slat to strike the shoulder of a practitioner to encourage concentration. It was another positive experience, but not all my experiences would be so positive.
A little later, I returned to Chuo Temple for a Sunday-morning session with the locals. It was in a claustrophobic cell somewhere in the bowels of the temple. The walls were a headache-inducing white, the artificial light was cold, and a sleep-inducing drone was coming from somewhere in the walls. This made meditation excruciating, completely aside from the full lotus position, but the end of meditation provided no relief. That was when the chanting of sutras began, followed by an interminable sermon by the presiding monk. Five hundred yen poorer, I left thinking, “Rinso-in, this ain’t!”
If I practice zazen these days, it’s at home with my iPhone alarm set to snap me out of it. I don’t demand that it improve my boxing: Zen should be without instrumental thinking. In the words of Shunryu Suzuki in Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, “When you sit, you will sit. When you eat, you will eat. That is all.” To these commandments, I’ll add another: “When boxing, you will box.” Out of your head and into the ring.
