When people consider meditation they often respond with "I need to do that but I can't sit still for 5 minutes!" or "What happens when you meditate?" Seiju is a Zen monk and the Shika, or manager, of the Rinzai-ji Zen Center in West Adams. He has been studying and practicing in this community for 39 years. He graciously agreed to sit down with TNN and patiently explain the ideas behind the deceptively simple art of sitting and breathing.
TNN: How long have you been meditating?
SEIJU: First I’ll say, we don’t meditate. The term meditation is used in a number of traditions, Eastern and Western. There is Christian meditation, Jewish meditation, Hindu meditation, Buddhist meditation. Other groups not associated with the traditional religious or spiritual lineage, that do meditation. Rinzai-Ji is a Rinzai Zen Buddhist practice center. The practice that we do here is Zen practice; the thing that most people would call meditation we just simply call Zazen, sitting practice. The common idea of meditation implies that a subject, oneself, is going to contemplate, meditate, think, investigate a concept or an idea - God, love and compassion. This is a fine practice but it’s not the practice that you do when you do Zen. I’m not disparaging these other traditions but just that Zen practice is very specific in what we do. In Zazen the instructions are simply to sit and breathe. The caveat is that the instruction is to sit and breathe completely and it’s where you engage the term “completely” that you make a distinction between just sitting around and perhaps day dreaming or idly ruminating over something and actually being engaged in your life.
which seats 1,200 people and houses a large (and still functioning) pipe organ. As these things go, by 2009, the congregation had dwindled to about 20 members and selling the property became inevitable. As luck would have it, The Art of Living Foundation, an international spiritual organization whose programs have impacted 30 million people, was looking for a Los Angeles headquarters and bought the building with the intention to restore it.
Founded in 1981 by spiritual leader and humanitarian Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, The Art of Living Foundation is a nonprofit, educational and humanitarian organization and a United Nations non-governmental organization engaged in stress-management and service initiatives. The organization operates globally in 151 countries and is guided by Sri Sri’s philosophy of peace: “Unless we have a stress-free mind and a violence-free society, we cannot achieve world peace.” The primary purpose of the Foundation is simple. Help individuals get rid of stress and experience inner peace and joy through the use of breathing techniques, meditation and yoga. These programs have helped millions around the world to overcome stress, depression and violent tendencies. Several thousand people have participated in the Art of Living personal-development programs in Southern California over the years. They have also provided specialized programs for inner-city and other high school students, college students, programs for inmates and juveniles in detention, HIV/AIDS programs, and programs for corporations. They have provided service in war-torn Iraq, and to survivors of the Haiti earthquake, the South Asian tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, and the September 11 attacks, with many participants reporting that it was the first time they were able to smile.
Living’s 25th anniversary in a 243-acre airfield in Bangalore, India. The organization drew more than 2 million people and included prime ministers, presidents, royalty, members of Parliament and 700 spiritual leaders sitting next to each other and participating in the largest group meditation in history.
responsible for?” and “What do we want to be happy and when will we be happy?” and “Who am I, what am I and where am I?” We talked about the difference between being reactive and being responsibly responsive. The underlying theme was simple. Once you have chosen happiness as the default experience, how do you let it be? We were encouraged to stop ‘trying’, want nothing and stop fueling an identity other than….I am. And of course…remember to breathe. Consciously. We were taught a special breathing technique called Sudarshan Kriya which was the heart of this experiential workshop and something we could take home. Since that weekend I have to admit a shift of sorts. When I am reactive I focus attention on my breath and amazingly it gets me back to balance. Best of all I’ve been allowing myself to simply feel good. Allow myself to default to “happy” and strangely I’ve found happiness....breeds more happiness. It’s addictive.
