Sitting Buddha: Zen Meditation for Everyone

Sitting describes the fundamentals of the practice of zazer Buddha or sitting meditation. It gives a detailed description of the physical and mental elements of the practice followed by an inquiry into the nature of our perceptions and how they determine experience the world and, therefore, our suffering. Our lives are radically changed by learning how to be still within the events of life and experience things as they are, with nothing added or taken away. Daishin explains how such acceptance opens up the realization of one's true nature. In describing the inner experience of meditation, he writes:

"All my volition needs to be taken up with the act of looking/being. I can- not stand apart from what is seen and name it; I can only be it. I can be the sitting person and that person is sitting Buddha. This involves letting body and mind fall away, that is to let go of all my perceptions of myself and the world and just sit. What is left is zazen doing zazen... When you know who is sitting, you know sitting Buddha."

REV. MASTER DAISHIN MORGAN is a Dharma heir of Rev. Master Jiyu- Kennett, who founded the Order of Buddhist Contemplatives, a Western Buddhist order in the Sötő Zen tradition. He is Abbot of Throssel Hole Buddhist Abbey in Northumberland in the UK and has been teaching Buddhism in the West for over thirty years.