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Zen, spontaneity and practice

I find that students who seek out the zendo as a sanctuary from social pressures may tend to object to the emphasis on compassion in Zen practice. I believe this reveals the self-centered nature of their original motive for doing zazen. Unless this self-concern is turned about, there can be no maturity.

Compassion takes practice, like any other kind of fulfillment. I am often told that compassion should flow naturally. This is true. Also, Mozart should flow naturally from your fingers when you sit at the piano. It is important and essential to understand that Zen is not simply a matter of spontaneity. It is also practice. By practicing zazen, you do zazen. By sitting with a half-smile, you practice enjoyment. By smiling at your friends, you practice the great compassionate heart. The act is practice. The practice is the act. Sitting when you do not feel like it - that is zazen, that is the rare udumbara flower of Buddhahood. Smiling at your friends when you do not feel like it - that is compassion, annihilating greed, hatred, and folly, and giving life to the healing spirit of Kanzeon.

- Robert Aitken Roshi, A Zen Wave

Filed in Buddhism on July 28, 2011. 0 comments. Edit.