Spiritual Attunement through Meditation
Aug 21, 2026 · 24 min · 8 segments
Spiritual Attunement Through Meditation. Episode #138: Sitting Za-zen Today I’ll be sharing information from the 1999 book, Meditation, The Complete Guide, by Patricia Monaghan and Eleanor G. Viereck…
Today, I'll be sharing information from the nineteen ninety-nine book, Meditation: The Complete Guide by Patricia Monahan and Eleanor G. Viruk.
"To know what Zen is, and especially what it is not, there is no alternative but to practice it, to experiment with it in the concrete, so as to discover the meaning of which lies underlies the words." To describe Zen in words is by definition impossible, because Zen is experience, unique and individual, embodied yet timeless.
We say primary experience rather than meditation, for to the Zen believer, to sit Zazen is not to practice a sitting meditation, but to experience sitting.
Just that.
For Zazen must be purposeless and without intention.
It is arguably not a form of meditation at all, though most people who practice it find benefits similar to those experienced by others in meditation.
But if one sits Zazen in order to lower blood pressure, one is not really sitting Zazen.
If in sitting one's blood pressure diminishes, that is simply an observable fact.
The purpose of sitting must be simply sitting.
But to strive for that goal is to miss the point, for it is in the elimination of striving that the goal can be reached.
Today, I'll be sharing information from the nineteen ninety-nine book, Meditation: The Complete Guide by Patricia Monahan and Eleanor G. Viruk.
"To know what Zen is, and especially what it is not, there is no alternative but to practice it, to experiment with it in the concrete, so as to discover the meaning of which lies underlies the words." To describe Zen in words is by definition impossible, because Zen is experience, unique and individual, embodied yet timeless.
We say primary experience rather than meditation, for to the Zen believer, to sit Zazen is not to practice a sitting meditation, but to experience sitting.
Just that.
For Zazen must be purposeless and without intention.
It is arguably not a form of meditation at all, though most people who practice it find benefits similar to those experienced by others in meditation.
But if one sits Zazen in order to lower blood pressure, one is not really sitting Zazen.
If in sitting one's blood pressure diminishes, that is simply an observable fact.
The purpose of sitting must be simply sitting.
But to strive for that goal is to miss the point, for it is in the elimination of striving that the goal can be reached.
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