The Purpose for You to Practice Seatedmeditation, Simply Speaking, Is to Clean Your Heart

松山副住職による座禅に関する英語での解説部分テキスト

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The purpose for you to practice seatedmeditation, simply speaking, is to clean your heart or to clean your mind.

We are living in a very stressful world. We have many works to do, and you have many assignments and many deadlines. So our heart is almost full of worriesat any time.

There is a wordofwisdom in Zen Buddhism, whichreads “Muyo-no-Yo.”In direct translation, it means “need of the needless.” For example, if you want to drink something --juice, milk, beer, or anything, you pour the liquid into the glass. But if the glass is already filled with waterand you pour the new liquid, it will spill over and you can’t drink it. The vacancy or emptiness is very important for glasses.

Today, I would like you to practiceseated meditation and I would like you to empty your heart.This is avery important purpose to practice seated meditation.

（一部省略）

What is good posture? First, please widen your chest. And please imagine the ears come on your shoulder. It’s straight. Then, the nose comes on your very bottom. It’s also straight. So if you want to maintain this posture, widen your chest and stretch your back; and you have to draw your chin a little bit. It may be very hard for you because you are notused to sitting in this way, but this posture is very important when you practice seated meditation. Please keep this posture.

And the second important thing is technique. So what doestechnique meanwhen you practice seated mediation? Technique means deep breath. So please take a very deep breath, twice or three times per minute. If you can maintain good posture and take a deep breath, your heart gets cleared.

You will find it very difficult to clean your heart. For example, you will think, “What to eat for dinner, or what to do onnext holidays”. But if you think in that way, your heart cannot get cleared. So I recommend whenyou practice seated meditation, concentrate just on counting numbers. Of course, we cannot speak out, so please count numbers in your heart with your deep breathlike this. Breathe in from the nose and breathe out of the nose and concentrate just on counting numbers. And your heart gets cleared.

Okay! So, let’s start!