Sitting Like a Frog
This week we bring our attention to the experience of breathing, as we breathe. We often talk about the benefits of medtiation - helping to manage stress, improve health, create healthy habits of mind, increase our ability to respond with wisdom and kindness… These are outcomes of meditation, but when we sit, they are not our goal. To have a goal during meditation is to be stuck in our small self, our relative self. It is to resist what is our current moment experience, wishing it to be different, rather than giving it the space to be as it is. Moreover, when we sit with the hope of attaining something, we lose our connection with the present moment. As Shunryu Suzuki says in Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, “Because your attainment is always ahead, you will always be sacrificing yourself now for something in the future.” Instead, he says, “Sit like a frog. Just sit. Don’t think about sitting.”
If you become frustrated when you sit, this is a good indication that you are not just sitting like a frog. When this happens, you can smile and remind yourself that you have nothing to do in this moment except sit exactly as you are and observe your breath exactly as it is.
We hope that you can join us this coming week as we “sit like a frog”, with nothing to do in those moments, but observe our breath with curiosity and kindness.
Did You Know?
Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, first published in 1970, contains a collection of talks given by Shunryu Suzuki during his time at the San Francisco Zen Center. Suzuki, widely considered to by one of the most influential Zen teachers of his time, offers the core teachings of Zen Buddhism in a warm, practical, informal and engaging language. The lessons contained in this short text will be relevant to anyone interested in learning about Zen Buddhism, and anyone who wants to deepen their meditation practice, whether it is secular, Zen or of a different tradition.
May all beings everywhere, without exception, understand their wholeness in the present moment,
The CMP Team
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Community Mindfulness Project
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