Okay,
So the first thing we need to establish is our posture.
So coming into a comfortable seated meditation position,
Making sure that whatever orientation of the legs you choose,
You're able to sit up nice and upright and aligned and balanced.
So reaching up through the crown of the head and imagining you're holding something like an orange or a soft ball in towards your chest,
Just tilting the chin down and in slightly so that the back of the neck be long.
And then once we have this uprightness in the body,
We can let the rest of the body soften and relax,
Softening the eyes,
Either looking down towards the ground in front of you,
Or you can have your eyes completely closed,
Softening the rest of your face,
Your jaw,
Your lips,
The tongue resting broad on the roof of the mouth,
Shoulders soft,
The hands resting comfortably in your lap,
Belly relaxed,
And the breath soft and relaxed.
Allowing your attention to move into the body deep down into your belly.
There's a particular energy spot,
Two fingers width below the belly in the centre,
Halfway between the front and the back.
In Japanese they call it the Tandon.
Just allowing your attention to centre in this spot,
The geometrical centre,
Halfway between the top and the bottom,
Front and back,
Left and right.
And you can view your breath from this spot,
The breath expanding like a balloon outwards from the centre of your belly as you breathe in,
And then releasing in towards the centre as you breathe out.
Then we're going to introduce a colon into this Tandon spot in the centre of your belly.
Now a colon,
This Japanese word,
Means literally a precedent or a case.
And it's a kind of vignette from the past,
From a situation in the past where a monk or a group of monks or students gain an insight into the reality of their situation.
So the story goes that the monks from the eastern hall and the western hall were quarrelling over a cat.
And in walks the master,
His name was Nansen,
And the master took one look at these quarrelling monks,
Went into the centre,
Grabbed hold of the cat,
Held it up and said,
Look,
Give me a word of Zen and you will save this cat.
If not,
I will cut this cat in two.
And the monks looked at each other,
Dumbfounded,
Couldn't help it.
So Nansen cut the cat in two.
So then later in the kitchen,
Nansen was relating this situation to his most senior monk Joshu,
Who'd been away on a shopping trip at the time.
And Nansen said to Joshu,
How would you have answered?
Joshu took off his sandal,
Put it on his head and walked out.
And at that Nansen said,
Well,
You would have saved the cat.
So this story sounds crazy.
A little bit mad,
Perhaps.
How do we work with it in our meditation?
So necessarily we ask and we inquire from our head,
From our intellectual mind.
But we need to explore it from our Tandon,
From the centre of the belly.
The two sets of monks were quarrelling.
They were at conflict with each other.
Like two kids saying,
It's mine.
No,
It's mine.
Or indeed as an adult.
Any situation where we find ourselves in conflict and we end up in this sort of hardened stance,
Nansen comes in and says,
Look,
What are you doing?
You're supposed to be students of Zen.
Give me a word of Zen to save the cat.
So what he's asking for is an expression of the truth.
He's asking the monks to break out of their hardened self-centred stance.
So here's the crux.
How do we express Zen at this point?
How do we express our truth when we're in the point of conflict?
So what would you do?
That's what he's asking.
How would you express?
Joshu later expressed it in his very idiosyncratic way,
A little bit weird perhaps,
But nevertheless very direct,
Not getting involved in the arguments,
Not taking sides,
Just doing.
So he provides an example to us.
So now dropping your attention back down into your belly.
How would you express your truth?
How can you express your truth right now?
How can you be your truth?
How can we let go of these fixed ideas,
These solidified stances?
I'm right,
You're wrong.
Can we take a different view?
What does your belly say?
What does your gut say?
Sometimes a gulf can open up so wide that it feels like it's not just the eastern and the western halls,
It's the eastern and the western side of the world,
Or the eastern and the western side of the universe between two people who are in conflict.
The gap becomes so large it's almost insurmountable.
But that gap is only a matter of perspective.
You over there and me over here is just a perspective.
Because when we just tweak our camera lens and see the world from a different view,
We realise that you over there and me over here are not actually separate.
We're both manifestations of this one universe.
We are one together.
What would the left hand say to the right hand when the left hand acknowledges that it's connected to the right hand?
So with this view,
Can we answer Nansen when he says,
Give me a word of Zen?
Step into that place where there is no gap between you and the other.
The conflict of the other is your conflict.
The suffering of the other is your suffering.
So our job now is to embody this place in our sitting.
So that when we do find ourselves in a place of conflict,
We're already very familiar with this perspective and we no longer fall into the trap of thinking that you over there and me over here and I'm right and you're wrong.
We can apply what Nansen is asking us to do and express a word of Zen in that moment with your difficult colleague or your wife or your next door neighbour or your dad or whoever it might be.
Maybe you don't want to take off your sandal and put it on your head and that would look very weird,
But maybe for you you have your own way of expressing your truth.
So,
Very gently swaying the body a little bit from side to side and maybe take a deeper breath if you like and letting your eyes lift when you feel ready.
And that.
.
.
