Gary: What part does pain play in zazen? For most people their first experience isn't a blissful state.

Ekai Osho: [laughter] The most important part that zazen plays is that it forces us to face reality. We are often blinded to this or ignore it, either intentionally or unintentionally. That makes it very difficult to see reality as it is. In reality there is no such world as a world without pain [laughter]. It is hard to acknowledge that, and not only to acknowledge it but to accept it and let go. And not only to let go but to come to the spiritual crux of Zen: appreciation of that. Without that there is no life. So pain plays a very important role in different stages. The person who sits for the first time finds the pain as an enemy. But sometimes we say that an enemy is a friend that we don't yet know. Once you become friends with your enemy, or what you thought was your enemy, then best friends.

So the process of zazen is to become intimate with some of the blind spots and to learn how to relate. It is important that we make a right effort, and right effort comes through getting to know the pain. As long as we are always reactionary to something we don't like, such as pain, then we never become intimate. If we become more familiar or intimate then naturally understanding comes. Then right actions, the right response, becomes clear. I am explaining in an analytical way a slow process, but actually you don't need to think too much about it. You make a good effort each time.

When pain takes over you lose your balance and you can't sit. So before that you learn to stand up and do something else, walking or something. And again, back and forth. If you do this process again and again then you are learning how to be with the pain, accepting, letting go, without destroying ourselves [laughter]. We have a problem whether we destroy the pain or whether we are destroyed by the pain. A kind of fight is going on. I'm not practising right or I'm not doing zazen right. You become upset by it if you can't push or something. The more you are eager to sit, or if you have a strong will. Strong will can just be a strong ego. It is very hard to tell sometimes.

Gary: Often when you talk about zazen you use words like close and intimate. Close or intimate to what?

Ekai Osho: With zazen intimate is a term used to express that there is no conflict. There is an intimacy and there are no barriers. So in other words there is already a meeting point. Intimacy means more close, more face-to-face, a more direct connection. And more feeling of being involved. Closeness is more mechanical.

Gary: Closeness implies physically closer. 

Ekai Osho: Yes, but intimacy involves feelings. So it is on all levels. Not only on an idea level but on a feeling level and an experience level. Another way to say it would be that there is comfort. You are comfortable with yourself. You are intimate with yourself. If you are not intimate with yourself then you can never be comfortable. If you are comfortable with others then this means that you are already intimate with yourself. In the context of zazen, at the beginning we do not have this intimacy with our own body and mind, our own self. Because of that it is very difficult to be truly intimate with ourselves. If we develop intimacy with our own self, then we come to realise that everybody is just the same as ourselves. At the beginning we don't know it. But once you become intimate or comfortable with yourself then you become open to others. People are at different stages, trying to find this place. Sometimes people are in the wrong spot, just looking for comfort. People are drawn to a holiday spot and want that to last forever. I am not talking about that.

Gary: As you become more intimate and become more transparent to yourself, you see parts of yourself that you had hidden from yourself, and that arent particularly nice. Do you just accept those parts or do you say I need to change those parts. What do you do?

Ekai Osho: This has something to do with holding onto some idea of progress, or attachment. At the beginning we start to discover parts of ourselves and become more comfortable with them. This kind of experiences sticks and starts to become more solid. The tendency is to think that we can start from there and use previous experiences as a stepping stone to go further. Often that causes a problem because again, you are holding onto some experience or feeling, or the idea that you are getting better. Actually intimacy involves dropping this notion of achievement. Then we become more and more intimate. So always the effort in the practice is to let go. It is like the breath, as soon as you take a breath in you let go.

 

Gary: Is there a prescribed length of time or number of times per week that a person should sit?

Ekai Osho: I think a person who is interested in sitting should sit as much as they can [laughter].

Gary: I knew you'd say that [laughter].

Ekai Osho: [laughter] So the important thing is to generate an interest in sitting, not how much you sit.

 

Gary: It is very tempting when you start though to say "Right, Im going to sit every day for forty minutes." Then about four days later you've missed one day and you say I must sit tomorrow. You begin to feel guilty. Then tomorrow comes and you don't sit and the whole thing snowballs.

Ekai Osho: [laughter] The point is how to generate your interest in sitting, and then to sort out and arrange your life so that you are able to provide some space and structure. How much to sit is about how to structure your life. So the basic thing is first to generate interest, reading a book, listening to a dharma talk. Then you need to work upon a structure that allows the space. If there is too much that is demanding in your life then you are not ready to structure. The real work is how to arrange. Already then, in a broader sense, the practice of zazen has begun. You have started to engage in the process of zazen. Its almost a planning or preparatory state. This is not separate from actually doing zazen. We need to be aware of how to take care of our own daily life outside of the sitting place.

So the person who is able to sit more than others has done a lot of these things. They have simplified their life. Because their interest is strong they have made an effort to structure their life in such a way. So first we have to look around our own feet [laughter] and allocate time. For me, I have a family and kids so I am not like a single monk, alone in a monastery. So I structure my time. My structured time is pretty much the structured time of Jikishoan Zen Buddhist Community. So I enjoy the retreats, and sitting in Sunday Sanzen-kai [laughter]. I don't have much luxury myself[laughter].

Gary: Yes, its a difficult task to balance your normal life and setting aside time to sit.

Ekai Osho: Zen appears to be a very special activity to begin with, but as we practice more it becomes a very ordinary activity, and everybody accepts that it is something that you do, and you just do it [laughter].

Gary: [laughter] It seems a little anti-social at times: I'm going off to sit by myself.

Ekai Osho: [laughter] Yes. Yes. This kind of transition, as you begin to relate to the practice and other people see you relate to the practice, is work. The preliminary work or groundwork takes three years. If you are consistent and maintain interest then people say "Oh, he is serious" and start to accept it [laughter]. Three years is a good chunk of time and it shows some kind of commitment and seriousness. During that period if you continue to practice you become more familiar with your own body, the physical side, and the psychology associated with it. So you become pretty much stable. When you speak to others you are not fluctuating too much. What you said and felt yesterday is not a totally different thing to today. Gary, you said yesterday that you don't like sitting, but today you say sitting is great and that you want to do more. How does that work? I can't trust you [laughter]! 
Three years is a good time. It is required for us to know our own self, our body, breath and consciousness, and their relationship especially. Even the pain, at the beginning it is an energy we don't like and we want to remove it. If we continue the face of the pain starts to change. We begin to understand the quality of the pain. Some pain is okay and we know the consequences. You can't do anything about it. More intimacy comes.  So keeping the interest in the practice is important. This practice is in a way endless. It becomes more refined. We spend less time wondering about this or that, to do or not to do. We usually spend an awful lot of time thinking about doing or not doing [laughter]. Only thinking time, wasting time. Time is up [laughter]!!