Question
Hello, Kosen Sensei,
I hope you will not mind an introduction before I get to the point. A few years ago, I had an episode of acute delusions that led to ten days in a psychiatric hospital. It took the form of negative, even nightmarish thoughts imposing themselves on me very rapidly and going in every direction, along with bizarre interpretations. For a long time, until recently, I saw a psychiatrist and a psychologist who considered me neither schizophrenic nor psychotic. I resumed zazen without problems, alone at home, but once in a dojo, two years after that episode, the crisis returned during a single zazen session. I was petrified. My thoughts were completely disjointed, and I wanted to run out of the dojo, though I did not. No matter how I tried to concentrate on the posture, nothing worked. My heart pounded, I sweated abnormally, and nothing was controllable. No one noticed, and during the second part the problem was gone. In the following months, I was afraid to put my backside on a zafu again.
My question is: can zazen worsen a condition or bring it back, and what can we do to get out of it while in the posture? Can we stop? In the dojo I did not dare because of “DON’T MOVE!” even though we can move, but not for long. Can we inhale through the mouth, or are there other techniques for calming down?
I have been long-winded; please accept my apologies, but I had not dared talk about this until now.
DOSEN
Answer from Master Kosen
If you can let go, abandon body and mind, all delusion will stop.
Kosen