Brad Warner disses sitting zazen in chairs -- "Zazen is a physical practice. To sit in a chair and call it zazen is incorrect. It's not that sitting on a chair will lead you to Satan and cause your eternal soul to burn forever in Hell. It's not evil. It's just not zazen."
He goes on to say that most westerners who are afraid to sit on a zafu are just being big babies about discomfort. "Sitting on a cushion with your knees on the ground is not that hard," he says, although he concedes that there might be an occasional individual who has physical issues and just can't manage to sit any other way but in a chair. But even then, he says, it's not zazen.
For those of you who haven't sat zazen -- it's probably different for those who begin sitting while they are still young and supple, but if you are past 40 or so and the osteoarthritis is already setting in, you're likely to find zazen physically uncomfortable. This is true even if you aren't twisting your legs into a full lotus; few in the West do.
Spine, arms, hands, shoulders, neck, and head still are to be in a precise position, no matter what you do with your legs, and then kept still. In some zendos, even a small shifting of weight or a quick scratch of an itchy nose will draw a reprimand from the monks. If you are sitting a sesshin, you spend several hours a day in this way, and for some this can be as big a physical challenge as labor (of childbirth) without anesthesia. And I am speaking from experience with both sesshin and childbirth without anesthesia.
I don't want to frighten anyone away from zazen. I think most people who use one of the traditional positions on a zafu or seiza bench find it more than worthwhile, and many appear to have no pain at all.� Many do yoga and exercises to condition the body for more comfortable sitting.
But then there are the rest of us.
I've known more people who would sit through excruciating pain rather than surrender to a chair, than the other way around. But I've sat in places where people were really, really discouraged to sit in a chair. It was a peer pressure thing. I've also known places in which people proved their worth as zen students by sitting through kinhin, which is the short walking meditation done every 30 to 40 minutes.
And yes, there's a point at which it gets a tad masochistic, and I submit that isn't zazen, either.
That said, sitting on the zafu and on a chair are different. I don't know why, but they are. So I don't entirely disagree with Sensei Warner. I would be the first person to encourage you to sit on a zafu if you can. But there's a point at which it gets counterproductive. You're the only one who can know where that point is.
I came to associate zazen with pain, and I started having panic attacks during sitting periods. Sitting still through a panic attack is a dreadful experience. I'd sooner volunteer for an afternoon of labor-without-anesthesia than that.
So, these days, I sit in a chair. Last time I went to sesshin, I even took my own seat-back cushion to make the chair sitting easier. I have moderate spinal stenosis, and sitting in a "bad" chair makes it worse. So the back gets whatever the back wants. I don't argue with it.
And I am re-learning zazen. It's not the same zazen, but it's still a whole-body practice.
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