Zen Meditation

Many people in our culture are drawn to explore their spirituality through forms of Buddhism that emphasize meditation practice, such as Zen and vipassana. Zen Buddhism is perhaps the non-Judeo-Christian faith tradition that feels the least foreign to Westerners, in part because as a non-theistic tradition it does not have God imagery that conflicts with Western God imagery and also because its meditation practices are so easily adapted by those of other faiths.

At the time that I entered seminary I became deeply interested in Zen meditation. Up until then I had felt that there was something missing in my Christian faith: I desperately wanted to do what Jesus said, to love my neighbor as myself, but I didn’t know how, and nothing I learned in church seemed to provide the answer. When I began practicing Zen meditation, it seemed to provide me with a missing piece of the puzzle. I felt that transformation was really beginning to take place. I began to feel myself changing in ways that I didn't fully understand until after they had occurred. After a week-long silent meditation retreat, I found myself able to be intimate with other people in a way that had not been possible before. I began to be able to see myself more clearly and to understand how I had been getting in the way of my desire to become more loving.

Zen asks me to focus on my breath, letting go of all thoughts. Thoughts of course do arise, and I am asked to accept their presence and let them go. In accepting these unwanted thoughts, I slowly learn to accept all of myself, including troubling thoughts and emotions, qualities that are not in keeping with my self-image, and my own limitations. Parts of myself that I previously rejected begin to be integrated and I start to feel the same tenderness towards my own weaknesses that I might feel for the weaknesses of a child. In this atmosphere, it becomes easier to stop looking for "the answer" and just become who I am.

As I begin to accept the contradictions that seem to exist within myself, allowing doubts and conflicting beliefs to co-exist, I also become better able to accept new ideas from outside myself, to allow the thoughts of others that are not immediately reconcilable to my own to live within me. I become able to hold more and more difficult and unresolvable material. I am more ready to enter into dialogue.

Before I began to meditate, Christianity seemed to be about moral precepts representing far-away, unattainable ideals. The moral precepts made it sound like I needed to become someone who was only half of myself, the good without the bad. In my Zen practice, I learned to look at myself with a clearer view, seeing my own behavior with all its eccentricities, yet also accepting it all more thoroughly. As I accepted my own "bad" parts, I saw that it was not just the good in myself that allowed me to love others, it was the parts of myself that felt failed and defective that allowed me to identify with the aspects of others that were less than perfect, and thus to feel connected with them. Trying to accept all of myself enabled me to become less judgmental towards both myself and others; moral, loving behavior seemed to arise out of me more organically.

At the time that I began to meditate, it was helpful to me to practice within the Zen tradition where there were no images of God. I felt judgmental towards myself in part because I believed without realizing it in a judgmental God. As I became more accepting of myself, it became easier for me to experience God as a loving, merciful presence. At a certain point, I became ready to re-enter Christianity more whole-heartedly. I embraced the practice of centering prayer, which is quite similar to Zen meditation in that it is a silent, contemplative practice that helps us to become more loving and accepting, but is different in that the presence of God is its most prominent feature. Zen meditation was a silent, healing place where I could learn to accept myself.

It is a profoundly powerful practice that is available to anyone who would like to develop spiritually regardless of their belief or lack of belief in God.

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