Summertime: "Don't meditate. Don't try."

Lana Del Rey; Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Ananda (Dharma B Meditation) Wisdom Quarterly

Don't meditate? (Grace Kelly/Hollywood revealed in colorized photos (kaleandcardio.com)

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I got this. I can DO this. Check me out.

MEDITATOR: I want a regular meditation practice, but I don't know how to start. I don't know how to meditate.

INSTRUCTOR: Don't meditate. Don't try. You don't know how, so what would you be doing or trying to do other than what you think it is? It isn't that.

MEDITATOR: So don't meditate?

INSTRUCTOR: That's right. You can't meditate. You'll never be able to meditate. No one can. No one ever has. And no one will ever be able to.

MEDITATOR: What to do then?

INSTRUCTOR: We're going to set up the circumstances, the causes and conditions, for meditation to happen by itself. Meditation happens. We don't "do" it. No one does.

MEDITATOR: What are those things?

In the sensing, let there be just the sensing.

INSTRUCTOR: Here's an example. Can you grow plants in a garden? No, no you can't. They grow by themselves. What can you do? You can set up the circumstances for them to grow -- give them what they need, remove the hindrances to their growth. Then they grow great all by themselves. What do they need? Seed, soil, water, warmth, some sunlight, some shade. What hinders their growth? Weeds, pests, too much water, too little water, too much sun, too little sun, and so on.

MEDITATOR: But I do garden. I do grow things myself!

INSTRUCTOR: How do you do that?

MEDITATOR: I don't know. I just plant things, and they sort of come up by themselves. I follow the directions on the seed packet.

INSTRUCTOR: So you can't grow things? You don't know how. You don't even know how they do it, but they do do it. THEY do it themselves. You, for your part, just cultivate the causes and conditions for them to do it, right?

MEDITATOR: Yes. I guess I never thought about it that way. I thought I was doing it.

INSTRUCTOR: Yet when you didn't do it, they did grow, sometimes?

MEDITATOR: Yes!

INSTRUCTOR: Meditation is the exact same way. We can't make (create, produce) meditation, we can't force meditation, we can't do meditation. It can happen. It can arise like a magical sprout that grows into a fulsome, fruiting plant that flowers and produces wonders. When does it happen? It happens when we provide what it needs -- attention, silence, persistence, relaxation, removing the Five Hindrances to it, providing the Factors of Absorption. When those are here, it happens all by itself. So don't meditate. Know that you can't, and give up. Do not. Stop trying. Think of Yoda.

"NO! Try not! DO or DO NOT. There is no try." Yoda in Star Wars (eBay.com).

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Sit up. Sit still. Be comfortable (zmm.org).

MEDITATOR: I get it! What are the specifics I should do if I want meditation to happen by itself?

INSTRUCTOR: Good question! Sit in a comfortable position, spine straight but not stiff or straining. Relax. Breathe in deeply then let go. Place attention to the breath under the nose, where you know the body is breathing. Attend to the breath without interfering. Mind wanders? Bring it back gently, without scolding or despairing. Gone a million times, return it a million-and-one times. Start again. This will keep one in the present moment, as the mind doesn't know past breaths or future ones. There's only this one. Be with it from beginning to end, the full cycle of inhaling and exhaling, whether breathing in or breathing out. Keep the attention here gently, lightly, happily. There's nothing to do. Be. Be here now, awake, attending, and still.

MEDITATOR: I can do that! But isn't that "meditating"?

INSTRUCTOR: No. Gardening is one thing -- cultivating the soil, -- growing is another. It's a mystery. It happens by itself. It's effortless.

MEDITATOR: I get it. You're distinguishing the form from the, the?

INSTRUCTOR: From the meditation. Meditation (jhana, bhavana, dhyana, zen, kammatthana) is what happens when the causes and conditions for it to happen are present. It meditates. It happens to us. It is a function or result of calm, of persistent attention, of relaxing, as things cohere (come into coherence). Wanting, striving, efforting, thinking, stressing, struggling...all of these things get in the way. They aren't "meditation," but if you think they are, don't meditate. Stop it. Let go.

MEDITATOR: I get it, I think. I keep thinking I get it.

Three kinds of desire get in the way of meditation

INSTRUCTOR: It might be better to "Go Zen," that is, just sit, shikantaza. It's vital to remember the words of the enlightened Western Theravada Buddhist teacher Ajahn Sumedho (American Robert Karr Jackman), who teaches that there are three kinds of desire. All three get in the way get in the way of meditation and progress in meditation. So let them go. But continue to sit. And don't think that that sitting is meditation. It is not. That's preliminary. When meditation happens, you'll know and see that you were confusing forms with actual meditation, projections with the actual thing, thoughts and ideas about reality with reality.

Look, I did it! I look like a doll. I've achieved total lotus posing. But nothing's happening.

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Hey, Kids, sit like me. And you'll be a meditator.

MEDITATOR: So what shouldn't I do?

INSTRUCTOR: Don't meditate. Don't "try." Just cultivate the causes and conditions for it to happen by itself, without grasping, struggling, or trying to get something, get rid of something, or become something.

MEDITATOR: It sounds very Zen.

INSTRUCTOR: It sort of is. But don't begin to "stink of Zen." Zen is achievable by trying, by doing, by anything but allowing, accepting, letting go, and persisting in attention (mindfulness of this moment).

MEDITATOR: I get it! I think I really do get it this time! It was semantics that were throwing me off. It's like how you said the Buddha, when he was the Bodhisatta, realized that if he struggled, he exhausted himself, and if he did nothing, he sank. Somewhere between the two, between effort and exhaustion, between nothing and struggling, right?

Group meditation Mondays in Los Angeles.

INSTRUCTOR: Yes. Sitting in a group can also be helpful. There's more energy in a collection of coals than any single one until it gets going. When it gets going, the others may become a hindrance to it. Then having used the group for what it's good for, set it aside, like a raft that took us to the further shore.

• How To Meditate: Zazen Instructions – Zen Mountain Monastery (zmm.org)

Young master is just sitting zazen

(Wiki WQ edit) Zen means jhana. Zazen, considered the heart of Japanese Sōtō Zen Buddhist practice, means "sitting." The aim of zazen is "just sitting" (shitankaza), that is, suspending all judgmental thinking and letting words, ideas, images, and thoughts pass by [like little clouds across a clear sky] without getting involved in them. We avoid becoming distracted by distractions this way. Practitioners do not use any specific object of meditation, instead remaining as much as possible in the present moment, aware of and observing what is occurring [such as this breath] and what is passing through the mind. Dogen says, in his Shobogenzo, "Sitting fixedly, think of not thinking. How do you think of not thinking? Non-thinking. This is the art of zazen." More