a successful and unsuccesful metaprogram for zazen
Posted on April 13th, 2008 by jcl4ever
I had an idea that breath watching meditation is supposed to be to the exclusion of all other thoughts and everything else was to be blocked out. I had been fighting like a dog using this metaprogram for 1.5 days.
Today, after reading a bit of Lilly (with excellent translation by Beverly Potter), I used a metaprogram very similar to what Chogyam Trungpa once said… when meditating, 30% is on breath. 30% is making friends with yourself, etc.
So my metaprogram was:
- 10-20% of attention on counting
- 10-20% on catching thoughts but not chasing them
- the rest on coordinating those two processes
This was highly successful. I was not as absorbed as I wanted to be. But I did not get off course either.