Question
Hello Master Kosen. I have been practicing since around the beginning of the year. I cannot do lotus, so I sit simply cross-legged and recently in quarter lotus.
I wanted to express several things.
Since the beginning of the year, my posture has not developed that much. I am told to focus on exhaling with expansion, but at the same time not to strain my belly. Yet when I breathe, my whole chest moves.
I reach a point where I do nothing but think in zazen, and I even have some fears about being alone in front of a wall.
For a long time, I believed zazen meant realizing we are thinking while remaining aware.
Today, through your online mondos, I see it is actually about concentrating below the navel while exhaling.
I had that intuition myself at La Gendronnière during a summer camp.
1- Why was I left in pain without explanations all this time, allowed to maintain a possibly incorrect posture and poor breathing?
2- Why do I myself find it difficult to submit to concentrating with my whole being on this point, the kikai, in the posture, even though I had that intuition?
gink
Master Kosen’s answer
I haven't the slightest damn idea??
Kosen