Well, I'm not really dressed for it right now, but what is
Zen Yoga? Let's look into that a little bit. Well, I didn't even know the word yoga when I
came to study Zen first of all, and one of my abiding memories is coming to sit to practise
zazen (zen meditation) and how extraordinarily painful I found it. My hips were tight, my
shoulders were tight, my whole body was a mass of tension that I had no idea about before starting
to sit down to practice. And I met people in a practice context who started to teach me Zen yoga.
I've been looked into the term a little bit, and I think the person who actually used those
two words together first was master Oki over in Japan – Masahiro Oki – who was a Zen monk
for a part of his life, studied yoga both within Japan but much more broadly within Asia as well,
and brought back his insights to Japan. Within the Zen monasteries, I've come across
a number of stretching/movement practices to prepare the body for the zazen – for sitting
meditation. It isn't always called Zen yoga, it's quite often called Zen Taiso in Japanese,
which you can probably translate as something like 'Zen exercise'. Sometimes the term of
do-zen is used, which comes from the Chinese, which also incorporates a kind of massage work,
self massage – particularly Shinzan Roshi (my teacher over in Japan) he's quite a
proponent of self massage work, do-in work, but it also involves stretching and another
movement work. So this term Zen yoga is one which kind of encompasses what I've learned
my 20-odd years of study in the temples in the area of preparing, aligning the
body for greater functionality, both within sitting meditation and within life generally.
I see three major components: one of them being physical alignment. The Zen schools, and
particularly the Soto Zen school, lay great stress on physical alignment – how you are in your body
has a powerful effect on how you are in your mind. Physical alignment affects your whole body. We can
work on the physical alignment; we can stretch, we can work with the body to to create a state
of poise, of balance, of openness, pliability. Now, coupled with that, important, is the sense
of energy flow within the system. Underlying Zen – as underlying East Asian traditional culture
generally – is the sense of the human organism as an energetic phenomena. We're composed of energy,
called ki in Japanese, and this energy can be fostered, developed and enhanced. It can also be
reduced and dispersed. Now, this energy doesn't just move randomly. It's seen as moving through
particularly roots and particular channels. Now these particular roots and channels can get
blocked and closed and tight, and they can also be open free and flowing. Movement work can have a
powerful effect on this flow – or absence of flow – within the system and this has quite an impact
on the health of the system, the level of vitality within system. But also has quite powerful effects
on the consciousness of the system. All of these factors play into our work within Zen yoga.
The third component is the mind itself, and the mindfulness or 'nen' as its termed in Japanese.
When we apply focused, non-judgmental attention, when we bring the body and the mind together,
when we actually integrate body and mind, it has a powerful effect. This attention, this mindfulness,
is... the character that we actually give it in Japanese is made up of two other characters:
the top is the character for now – as in this present moment – and the bottom part
is the character for heart or mind. The heart or mind, or heart and mind,
in the present moment. Now when we bring these three components together – physical alignment,
a sense of the energetics, and this presence, then we've got something that can powerfully
affect body and mind to the good. We actually boost the health and wellbeing of the system,
and we can help the system move towards the non-dual awareness which is what
Zen is seeking to awaken. Both of these effects will happen with Zen Yoga practice.
you