Note:These rules are exerted from one-day Zazen experience at Rinzai Sect Temple.Other sects or temples may pose different rules.GENERAL RULES:∙Do not speak in Meditation Hall, Main Hall or in Dining Hall.Keeping quiet is a part of the training.∙Cover your one hand with another hand on your chest when you walk out, andput your palms together in gassho(the praying position) when you go back in:Neverrelax your arms.∙Do not step on the wooden border at the end of the raised seat,because it is your table when you eat and your pillow when you sleep.∙During Zazen (seated meditation), straighten your posture.Imagine as if you have a pipe going straight from the top of your head to your bottom.∙Breathe in the under-belly button area, which is called Tanden. Do not breathe in your chest.∙Keep your eyes half open like Buddha statues do, and vaguely look at the floor in front of you, and breathe very slowly.∙Once a meditation session has started, we shall not make any move.∙You can make a movement only after you are hit on the back, while the priest is front of you and watching you.∙To ask the priest to hit you, make gasho position, bow and wait.∙Eat with full appreciation to lives that sacrificed for the food.∙Zazen is not the only form of meditation. Works such as cleaning and gardening also are.SEATED MEDITATION: (ZAZEN)∙Right Posture -> Right Breathing -> Right Mind∙The priest initiates a meditation session by a wood slapping sound and four chimes.∙Put one of your feet on your other thigh. Do both legs if you can.∙Straighten your posture. Imagine as if you have a pipe going straight from the top of your head to your bottom. Imagine that anything thrown into the pipe would go straight down to the bottom.∙Hold your left thumb with your right hand, cover your right hand with your left hand and place both hands as they are under your belly button. (Circle-like hand position as seen in the illustration is suited for more advanced practitioners.)∙The under-belly button point is called Tanden, which is where you breathe. Do not breathe in your chest.∙Keep your eyes half open (Hangan) like Buddha statues do, and vaguely look at the floor about 4-5 feet ahead of you.∙Breathe slowly: Experienced priests can breathe as slowly as twice a minute. (Note: The lecture of the older priest was about the importance of breathing right for the most part).∙Count your breathing from one to ten, and then go back to one and repeat it: when your mind does not focus, you tend to count more than ten or lose the number before you reach ten.∙Once a meditation session has started, we shall not make a move even if you have a runny nose or a mosquito bite.∙If you need to change your position or change legs, ask the priest to hit your back with a bamboo stick (Keisoku). You can make a movement only after you are hit on the back, while the priest is standing in front of you and watching you.∙To ask to be hit by the Keisoku, do gassho when the priest approaches you. Once he has stopped in front of you, bow in gassho position, then bow lower with your arms crossed under your chest to show your back, and wait.∙The priest first knock on the left side of your back and then hit it harder twice. Next he will do the same to the right side of your back.He will hit right on the spot so that it would not injure you or leave you with a pain. So, do not be afraid.∙Gassho and raihai (meaning “thank you”) to show your appreciation to the priest after he hits you.∙ A meditation session lasts for a length while a piece of incense burns out, which is about 30 minutes.∙The end of a session will be also announced by the chime, and the priest will say, “Niben Orai”, which means “you may go to the restroom now”.∙During the meditation session, the priest may come to hit you by his decision. When he stops at you and knocks on your shoulder lightly with his bamboo stick, get ready position to be hit.∙There are four occasions when the priest decides to hit you when:You look too tight or nervous -> to loosen you upYou look sleepy -> to wake you upYou are losing focus -> to remind you what you are doingYou are doing great -> to remind you can be even better∙After the meditation session in the morning, you’ll walk around the hall to relax your legs and to go to restroom without interruption.BREAKFAST MEDITATION: (KAYU-ZA)∙Always keep the bowls and plates in the same order (from left to right, porridge, sub-dish, pickles and chopsticks).∙The chopsticks should be placed with their tips sticking out of the table edge toward you so that they would not mess the table.∙When porridge servers comes, put the rice bowl onto their palm with your both hand. Watch how much they pour and scrape your hands to make a sound to notify them to stop.∙While porridge is being served, chant the “Hannya-shin-gyo” sutra.∙Before you start eating, take five to seven pieces of rice at the other edge of the table from you: This is an offering to all living creatures and will be collected by the scrapers and offered to birds later.∙Before start eating, we swear five things (in the sutra booklet):∙We thank all others who have contributed to bring this food in and all lives sacrificed to make this food.∙We deeply appreciate that we have this food here, although we are so imperfect that we do not deserve such food yet.∙While eating, we will not have any greed or dislike of food.∙We are aware of that this food is a medicine to make our lives longer and healthier.∙We swear to work hard and do good things in exchange for the food we are consuming.∙While eating, never make any noise even when you bite those crunchy pickles and place the dishes on the table. This is because eating quietly is more polite and because we should not damage dishes and tables too much.∙Hold each bowl or dish when you eat; e.g. you should not extend your chopsticks to the pickles while holding the rice bowl. (This is a general manner for the traditional Japanese cuisine).∙Leave one pickle so that we can use it for cleaning the dishes later.∙When rice refill servers come, everyone should stop eating and wait for the refill to be served to everyone. If you want a refill, gassho without bowing. If you don’t want a refill, bow with your hands on your thighs.∙We should not leave any food. Take only what you can eat.∙If you would like the server to pour the porridge slowly, rub your hands, and then scrape your hands to stop him/her.∙When the bucket comes, throw your plum seed quietly into it.∙When the tea servers come, hold up your rice bowl to receive the tea. Three people should hold up bowls closer so that tea can be served easily and quickly.∙Using your finger, dampen the rice offering mark on your table with a little bit of tea so that the table can be cleaned easily.∙Use your chopsticks as a guide; pour some tea into two other plates. After washing the plates with the slice of pickles, and drain the tea back into the rice bowl (it will help the dish washing).∙Eat the pickle quietly, and drink up the tea, which now taste like a cup of soup. (We should not throw any food).∙Put two plates into the rice bowl (sub-dish plate on top, pickle plate at the bottom). Put them away when the collectors come.∙Put away tables as quickly as you can.∙Leave the dining hall in a row in the same order.CONVERSATION WITH ZEN PRIESTS AFTER THE SESSION:Q: How do you become a priest?A: Buddhist priests were not allowed to get married before, until about 100 years ago. At that time, there were many surplus children in Japan and they were often given to a temple, where they worked and get trained to be a priest. In later time, there came fewer children therefore temples got short of successors, priests began to be allowed to marry so that they can make their own children to take over our temple. Nowadays, a priest’s child can choose a different profession, or people from common family can become a priest.Q: Do priests have holidays?A: While we are in training, which usually lasts six to ten years, we are not allowed to go out of the temple therefore have no holidays. We are basically repeating all day what you experienced for one night. Even after we get a job, most of priests have to have a second job to make living, therefore we don’t have days off very often. Think twice if you want to have a priest boyfriend.Q: Why are some priests so fat if you eat such healthy meals?A:It is OK for the priests to eat meat and fish in Japan. (Don’t translate this into English because we do not smear other people’s dreams!). However, we are not allowed to leave, or waste, any food because this is to waste another’s life. That is, we have to eat everything served. When we visit people’s home to pray for their ancestor and so on, they treat us nicely with a lot of food. That’s why some of us get really big.Q: What is enlightenment?A:Personally I cannot answer because I have not got one yet. However, I suppose enlightenment is to find, or realize, a little new something in your everyday life.。
