Presentation Information
[SY-70-04]Settling the Body, the Breath, and the Mind: Zazen Meetings as Group Therapy
*Francisco Figueroa Medina (Kyoto University(Japan))
Keywords:
Zazen Meetings,Group Therapy,Postwar Japan
Neuroscientific research has mainly focused on the individual therapeutical benefits of zazen or seated meditation. In this paper, we will show that Zen practice does not consist merely of zazen and that zazen is not merely an individual practice. We will do this by analyzing Recommendations for Zazen Meetings, written by Yamada Mumon and Shibayama Zenkei. In this text, Yamada and Shibayama explain how to organize zazen meetings. According to them, zazen meetings include not only the collective practice of zazen, but also other interrelated practices like one-on-one encounters with the teacher, dharma lectures, chanting scriptures, tea ceremony, meal etiquette, and manual labor. Furthermore, they re-think zazen meetings as a form of group therapy, while arguing that these meetings have a special characteristic individual psychotherapy lacks: it allows a practitioner to expand himself to include others. When the participants bring their minds on a single thing, Yamada and Shibayama explain, their individual selves are absorbed in the collective self. Through this experience, the individual’s concern will begin to head not only towards himself but also towards others. At this stage, it is advisable to assign a kōan to a practitioner, so that he can discover the individual that encompasses the whole, that is, his true nature, through one-on-one encounters with his teacher. This continuous discovery, Yamada and Shibayama argue, is a truly healing experience. Finally, we will argue that a multidisciplinary perspective that combines history, anthropology, and neurobiology is necessary to determine when and how zazen meetings began to be understood as group therapy and to determine whether and how they can help an individual to expand himself and include others and transcend his ordinary self.