Meditating 10 Hours In A Day - November Zazenkai

This talk goes over my experiences meditating 10 hours in a day at a Zazenkai, which is a one-day sitting in the Zen tradition. The first part of the talk will go over the overall schedule of the sitting and the second part will go over my experiences hour by hour! Hope this inspires you to keep sitting on your cushion and check out a meditation retreat in the near future, even for just a day!

Transcript

Hey what's going on,

This is Ish.

I recently just came back from a Zazankai,

Which is a one day Zen meditation retreat.

And I meditated close to 10 hours,

So I wanted to talk to you about my schedule and how it went,

And then my personal takeaways and what I experienced.

So the way it was set up was it was from 8am to 8pm,

And that's actually pretty late considering,

A late start,

Considering most Zen places when they do a Zazankai is usually really early in the morning,

Like 5am or 4am,

But luckily for me it was 8am.

And the way it went was that it started off with Zazen,

Which is a seated meditation,

Then it went Kinhin,

Which is walking meditation,

For about half an hour,

Then it went back to Zazen,

Kinhin,

Zazen again,

And then there's like some chanting,

And then a Dharma talk.

So this Dharma talk is teachings of the Buddha,

Which the Zen priest there would explain more in depth,

So you'd understand Zen Buddhism just a little bit better.

And after the Dharma talk we again did Kinhin,

Which is a walking meditation,

Then Zazen,

And then it kind of repeats like that.

And after that there was a noon service,

So this is where we did a bit of chants,

And then we broke out for lunch.

But I consider the lunch also meditation as well,

Because if you know anything about Zen it's very strict and formal.

So throughout this whole process there's no talking,

And you would receive your food,

There's a certain way to hold your plates,

To put your utensils in a certain place,

And all is done without talking and you're mindfully eating.

And while you're doing this you are trying not to make any kind of sound or noise,

And you have to finish everything on your plate.

So it's very strict in that sense,

It's almost like continuing your meditation.

And then after the lunch was over,

We had a little 10 minute break or so,

And then there was a work period.

And I consider this part like a walking meditation or movement based meditation,

Because you're going very mindfully and doing different tasks.

So for me for example in this Zazen Kai I was raking the leaves for fall,

And this was done very mindfully as I was making little circular motions and doing all of that.

And after that we went back into the whole routine of seated meditation Zazen,

And then also walking meditation which is Kin Hin.

So that basically repeats over and over again for a couple hours until the evening time.

So now about like 6pm or so,

This is when they start to do the evening service,

So more chants and then break out for supper,

So that's like 10 minutes or so before you break out for supper which is like an hour.

And again for dinner there's that whole process of the meal which is called Orioki by the way,

And that's the process of putting plates in a certain way and then not talking and then moving very mindfully.

So again you have that.

And then that's followed up with Zazen,

Kin Hin,

Zazen again,

And then just some closing chants.

So I counted up on the schedule,

I was kind of counting up how long we were doing Zazen,

Kin Hin and all that.

So with Zazen you're looking at over 5 hours of just seated meditation,

So this is just sitting in your cushion and meditating.

And then with Kin Hin that's almost close to 3 hours,

So it's kind of shocking how there's a huge emphasis on the movement-based meditation.

And mind you it's still something you bring a lot of concentration to because when you're in Kin Hin you're focusing and you have to follow the same stride as the person in front of you and you're still bringing forth that concentrate of powers of your seated meditation.

So it's not something to gloss over.

And I was kind of surprised looking back now on how much movement-based activity meditation there was,

It's almost close to 3 hours.

And then I counted the Dharma talk and that was about 45 to 50 minutes of the talks.

And then the lunch and dinner were 2 hours altogether,

So 1 hour each.

And I consider that personally meditation because you're not just out on the subway eating on your phone,

It's very straightforward and strict and there's a lot of rules in place and you're eating very mindfully.

So that was basically the whole schedule when I'm talking about my kind of day to day with that or my personal experience.

So during the first Zazen and Kin Hin in the morning,

So this is I guess between 8 to about 11 or so,

I felt pretty good just because I have a daily practice of about 2 hours a day now,

So that was totally fine and that's pretty much how long that was.

And then towards the afternoon,

So this was around 3 o'clock to about 5,

This is when I started to get really icky and I started to complain a lot because this was kind of now going past what I normally meditate,

So this is now into hour 3 or 4 of just straight up meditation.

So this is when I personally experienced just getting angry at like,

Why am I here,

Why am I sitting for so long and I had all these complaints.

And then after that,

Once I kept persisting through my meditation,

That complaints kind of dissolved,

So all the resistance that I built up kind of just went away and I started to experience really deep states of calm,

So it went even deeper and deeper.

And I found that as the day progressed,

It was almost like I was in a dream state because you're just so relaxed and calm,

So if you ever think of waking up right after a dream,

You're just kind of in this,

I wouldn't say groggy state,

But kind of like that.

This is when your brain's theta waves are the highest and studies have shown that in meditation you emit a lot of theta waves.

So it's kind of like that,

What you get,

You experience.

So experience every deep sense of calm which persisted throughout well into the evening.

And then towards the end,

The tail end of the practice,

So between like 6 p.

M.

To 8 p.

M.

,

So right when I was about to end,

I felt like really tired,

Like exhausted.

I think my eyes started to turn like red because I was just concentrating like so hard.

And that's been pretty normal.

My muscles kind of started to lock up and stuff,

But mentally I felt emptied out,

But it also felt like really calm and blissful.

And it was just crazy to see how things changed from the beginning of the day where I was still stuck in my head and I was kind of in the beginning part,

Even though I felt good physically,

My mind was kind of racing.

And then towards the end,

It kind of flip flopped.

So my joints were kind of achy obviously from either sitting too long or meditating and then walking too long.

But now my mind was like really calm and very deep.

And you think of Zen as like this very strict practice,

But something funny I found was on my way home when I was driving back,

I was just listening to some music and I just felt like such a flow,

I was just in the rhythm.

And that's when I started to see like the real like magic of the meditation practice because I've been sitting for most of the day and I was kind of in this like calm,

Peaceful state.

But then I wasn't exactly like a statue either because when I left,

I was able to have fun and it wasn't what people think of meditation because I was having such a good time and I felt such a bliss in my body,

Which was great,

Absolutely great.

And one thing that I found really interesting was they have what is called a Dokusan,

Which is where a experienced Zen teacher,

You have the opportunity to talk to them one on one.

They usually offer this in longer meditations.

And this was really great for me because especially during the pandemic,

It's 2020 right now,

I haven't been able to talk to a teacher.

So there was this older man who was very experienced.

He had over 30 years and he was a Zen teacher there.

It was really nice to sit with him face to face to really observe his presence.

And like I mentioned in a lot of my talks,

You can really tell the efficacy of a meditation practice or a lineage by looking at the teachers or the masters of the field.

And this particular teacher was just very calm and peaceful.

And I really liked his qualities that he had.

And I know that if I practiced just more,

Like more of these sittings,

I could eventually develop those qualities.

And it was really interesting to see someone who is kind of like me,

But is 20 years down the road or even 30 years actually.

And he taught me a couple of cool things.

Like in the beginning,

I was focusing on the more of a Vipassana style of bringing my attention to my breath,

The inhales and exhales.

And he told me in Zen,

It's more about bringing your attention to your Hara,

Which is a belly button area,

And more of that softness of opening and inhaling and exhaling.

So that was something unique that I learned.

And he told me not to force my breath as much.

So he gave me individual instruction,

Which was very important.

And I think that's important in any kind of skill that you endeavor in.

And one great thing he also told me about was for beginners.

So if you're a beginner watching this,

That you can,

When you're first starting your practice,

You want to focus on the breath.

So that's counting to 10 on your exhale.

So you breathe in,

One,

You breathe in and then exhale and then count one,

Breathe in again,

And then exhale,

Count two,

And then you go on to 10.

And then you'd count back down to one after you hit 10.

At any point during this time,

If you get distracted,

There's no judgment,

You would just bring your attention back to the beginning and go back.

So that's something cool he taught me.

And it was really nice,

Again,

Just having someone to explain how I was feeling and then gave me some advice.

So it was really nice to connect with someone like that.

But overall,

This was really great.

And he kind of encouraged me too,

Which is why I recommend finding a Zen teacher,

A meditation teacher,

Because he kind of saw my potential and was like,

Hey,

You need to come for longer sitting,

So come for a sashin,

Which is a five to seven day meditation retreat.

So I'm kind of working my way up to that because this whole day was about 12 hours.

So I just imagine that times like five and I'm kind of exhausted already.

I just keep going back home.

But I think that's something I can definitely work towards and something I'm going to be working towards.

But I'm definitely going to increase,

Going forward,

I'm going to personally increase my frequencies of attending these Aizen Kais.

In the past,

I would go to these maybe like once every couple of months.

But now I've started to see this practice and I really enjoy my deepening of my Zen practice.

So this is something I'm going to recommend you,

If you're watching this,

To at least attend one Aizen Kais.

And for me personally,

I'm going to attend some more and eventually work my way up to like a longer seven day sitting.

So anyways,

This was my experience and hope you liked it.

Thank you.

Reviews

Hi Ish, thanks for sharing and delivering so much details - really interesting! Joe

Really interesting insight, thank you 🙏🏼