Coaching practices for Zen Practice Zazen and Beyond with My Team
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Zen Practice Zazen and Beyond with My Team, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- My calm only lasts as long as the cushion
- On the cushion I can find that open, present quality, but the instant I stand up it evaporates
- Sitting alone, every single day becomes a negotiation over whether to skip it, and my practice keeps collapsing
- Every time I try to sit I end up fidgeting and aching, or I lock myself rigid and grit through it
- Every time I sit, the whole session turns into a fight with my back and knees
Practices that may help
- Zen Practice (Zazen and Beyond)
Zen centers on zazen — seated meditation — in two main forms: shikantaza ("just sitting" in open awareness) and koan practice (sustained inquiry into a paradoxical question). Alongside these sits "beginner’s mind," the attitude of meeting experience without preconception. These are traditional contemplative practices; some mechanisms overlap with studied attention training, but Zen’s specific aims and claims are largely experiential rather than clinically validated. - Work as practice (samu)
Bring full, wholehearted attention to ordinary tasks, treating activity itself as meditation.
Zen Practice (Zazen and Beyond) - Extending shikantaza to daily activity
Bring the same non-grasping, present awareness from formal sitting into ordinary tasks.
Shikantaza: Just Sitting - Practicing with a sangha (community sitting)
Sit with others regularly — group practice stabilizes individual practice in ways solitude cannot.
Shikantaza: Just Sitting - Zazen posture and breath
Establish a stable, upright seated posture and let the breath settle as the ground of practice.
Zen Practice (Zazen and Beyond) - Grounding in posture: zazen as the foundation
Let the body be upright, stable, and settled before everything else.
Shikantaza: Just Sitting - Koan practice and daily ethical conduct (sila)
Ground koan inquiry in the ethical precepts — insight without conduct is unstable.
Zen Koans: Inquiry Beyond Reason - Shikantaza (just sitting)
Sit in open, objectless awareness — not focusing on anything, not following anything.
Zen Practice (Zazen and Beyond) - Presenting understanding to a teacher (sanzen)
Bring your response to the koan directly to a teacher — not as a verbal explanation but as a live demonstration.
Zen Koans: Inquiry Beyond Reason - Shikantaza: Just Sitting
Shikantaza ("just this sitting") is the central meditation practice of Soto Zen, formulated by Dogen Zenji (1200–1253). It is objectless, open-awareness meditation: you sit with alert presence, not focusing on any particular object and not trying to achieve any state. Dogen taught that shikantaza is not a means to enlightenment but the expression of it — sitting is itself the practice. Benefits overlap with studied open-monitoring meditation, though shikantaza’s specific claims are experiential rather than clinically validated.
Related concerns
- Zen Practice Zazen And Beyond On A Budget
Zen centers on zazen — seated meditation — in two main forms: shikantaza ("just sitting" in open awareness) and koan practice (sustained inquiry into a paradoxical question). Alongside these sits "beginner’s mind," the attitude of meeting experience without preconception. These are traditional contemplative practices; some mechanisms overlap with studied attention training, but Zen’s specific aims and claims are largely experiential rather than clinically validated.
- Zen Practice Zazen And Beyond With Friends
Zen centers on zazen — seated meditation — in two main forms: shikantaza ("just sitting" in open awareness) and koan practice (sustained inquiry into a paradoxical question). Alongside these sits "beginner’s mind," the attitude of meeting experience without preconception. These are traditional contemplative practices; some mechanisms overlap with studied attention training, but Zen’s specific aims and claims are largely experiential rather than clinically validated.
- Zen Practice Zazen And Beyond With My Partner
Zen centers on zazen — seated meditation — in two main forms: shikantaza ("just sitting" in open awareness) and koan practice (sustained inquiry into a paradoxical question). Alongside these sits "beginner’s mind," the attitude of meeting experience without preconception. These are traditional contemplative practices; some mechanisms overlap with studied attention training, but Zen’s specific aims and claims are largely experiential rather than clinically validated.
- Sitting With Others Zen
Sit with others regularly — group practice stabilizes individual practice in ways solitude cannot.
Practicing with a sangha (community sitting)
- Zen Practice Zazen And Beyond After A Setback
Zen centers on zazen — seated meditation — in two main forms: shikantaza ("just sitting" in open awareness) and koan practice (sustained inquiry into a paradoxical question). Alongside these sits "beginner’s mind," the attitude of meeting experience without preconception. These are traditional contemplative practices; some mechanisms overlap with studied attention training, but Zen’s specific aims and claims are largely experiential rather than clinically validated.
- Zen Practice Zazen And Beyond At Work
Zen centers on zazen — seated meditation — in two main forms: shikantaza ("just sitting" in open awareness) and koan practice (sustained inquiry into a paradoxical question). Alongside these sits "beginner’s mind," the attitude of meeting experience without preconception. These are traditional contemplative practices; some mechanisms overlap with studied attention training, but Zen’s specific aims and claims are largely experiential rather than clinically validated.
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