Streets, Zen and bodybuilding 6

Preview: 6:00 a.m.: Does Roshi know the answer? / 6:04 am: How did I get in here? / 6:05 am: I can taste my hunger... / 6:09 a.m.: ...hunger for the attitude / 6:11 a.m.: This is how the Buddha sits / 6:14 am: Breath counting and bodybuilding / 6:19 a.m.: »Find my mind« / 6:21 a.m.: Zen at the adult education center / 6:24 a.m.: We become Zen students / 6:30 a.m.: We imagine the world well / 6:32 a.m.: The monk / 6:37 a.m.: Why doesn't the barbarian have a beard? / 6:40 a.m.: We get up.

6.14 a.m.
The pain is still bearable. I still have the fighting spirit in me that Shakyamuni Buddha exemplified to me: »I will not get up until I have seen through the truth...«. I peer at the incense stick on the altar and try to estimate how much time has passed since the gongs have blown away: The sticks have been glowing for half an hour. Now I can still see the glow above the edge of the bowl. A quarter of an hour may have passed.
»Why do you want to know how much time has passed, Christian?«
»Because I want to have control over my life and my time! Because I'm bored. Because I'm hungry...«
»Is that zazen you're doing?«
»No, probably not. I don't know... we're not supposed to talk to ourselves, are we?«
»No! You should observe the breath without influencing it. And you should count it. You count your breaths from «one' to 'ten'. You have three ways of counting: Either you count both the inhalation and the exhalation, or you count only the inhalation or only the exhalation. You can choose which. When you reach 'ten', you start again at 'one'."
»Why should I watch the breath?«
»Breathing is more than just drawing in and blowing out air. Breathing is the fundamental activity that moves and sustains every life and connects body, mind and soul. In breathing you are physically close to the Even the closest. If you hold your breath, you'll feel what I mean.«
I hold my breath, but quickly gasp for air. The experiment convinces me.
»But why should I count it?«
»It's a way of learning to perceive the breath and calm the mind. Breath counting calms the mind, trains concentration and strengthens the spiritual body.«
»But counting is exhausting. Besides, we are supposed to practise «non-thinking', says Master Dogen. And isn't counting itself also thinking?"
»Well, yes, yes. But in the beginning it is impossible to achieve peace of mind without effort. As I said, counting breath strengthens the spiritual body. You have to make the effort to forget yourself. Without effort, the truth remains hidden. Master Dogen says:
 
'When a thought arises, notice it; when you have noticed it, let it go and do not nourish it...'
 
What Dogen means is: thoughts are always there, they come and go. You just shouldn't think after them. Counting helps you to do this; and you learn how your mind works: Thoughts and emotions come and you go with them and forget to count. As soon as you realize this, you return to «one' and start counting again, unimpressed and persistent."
My inner voice is right. I should count and not stare at the light bulb. I gently take my mind by the reins and guide it towards my breath.

Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Count!

One... I imagine a one, it comes towards me in three dimensions and says: »One«. I try to focus on the 1. I try to breathe the One in harmony with my exhalation. I let the breath flow out and await the turn of the breath. I let the belly soften, let the ribs relax, and it breathes me. I just let go, the air flows of its own accord: into my body, into my lungs, through the bronchi into the fine ramifications, right into the alveoli. An exchange takes place here, I can feel it, and the oxygen in the air changes into the blood and is brought into the whole body. I feel the flow of blood, I feel the flow of oxygen. I count the breath, observe the turn of the breath and feel the breathing crystal.

I exhale and count a pulsating »two«.

»Three.« I count the third breath of this morning period. I still have about eighty breaths to go if I manage my lowest breathing rate: I once practiced slowing down my breathing. I had read in a book that it was helpful to do such breathing exercises. I sat with a stopwatch and prolonged my breath until one amplitude lasted thirty seconds. I managed to maintain this frequency for thirty minutes. Sixty breaths in thirty minutes. A gymnastic exercise. I know that Roshi does not teach such breathing exercises: in our tradition, no value is placed on such things. The breath should flow freely and easily; we should allow the breath as it is innate and intrinsic to us. Nevertheless, I took detours and distracted myself with gymnastics. I have breathed for very intense periods of sitting in this way... but it is no more than a small feat. The ability to take two breaths a minute doesn't help me in zazen or in life. I have tried this out.

Normally I need about ten breaths per minute. That's four hundred breaths in today's forty-minute morning period. I'm supposed to use this compass to guide me through the jungle of my thoughts and emotions and feelings.

ONE. We counted one together. We counted a TWO. A THREE. But then we deviated. We thought about counting and breathing. We got lost in our thoughts and reflections about breathing. We didn't count. We are not able to count to ten, uninterrupted in time and in unison with our breath. We have lost our way. But we realized it in that moment. We have learned that in this case we should come back to 'one'.
How many times have we breathed since the gong struck? Twenty times? Fifty times? I have no idea. But we got to 'three' once...
 
To keep track of the breaths to ten for an entire period - you have to be a warrior. You must show indomitable perseverance and great concentration. You must not be fooled. Breath counting is an arduous workout, as arduous as weight training: in bodybuilding you also have to count from one to eight, nine or ten. But you've got the damn barbell in your hands. It's pressing one hundred and sixty pounds into your palms and arm muscles. You're supposed to lift it with your pecs. Bench press.

The classic, everyone knows what a bench press is: you lie on your back on a bench and press a long barbell with huge discs at both ends upwards. The barbell is really bloody heavy. You do it once, twice. You breathe in as the barbell sinks down. You stop the barbell directly above your chest. You push. You give it your all. You exhale and as you exhale the barbell rises again. THREE. Inhale - exhale. FOUR. FIVE. SIX. SEVEN. You no longer think. You only press the number in your mind, because you've set yourself 'ten'. If you let go, eighty kilos of iron will hit your ribs. So better get it up. Don't think about it. There's only eight left. And eight is pain in the chest muscle. Eight is: push push push. Eight is: no more thinking, just push and get to the top.

ATTENTION!
No thinking.
NINE
TEN

Let go, the dumbbell falls into its holder.
 
With the same effort to sit, That is the challenge. To give everything. To throw out everything that is not part of the task. To give my whole body and lift exactly the weight that I can lift ten times. Then my muscles will grow. Counting makes my spiritual body grow. Strange... counting from one to ten means growth!
Zen is no more or more difficult than counting from one to ten? So why all the meters of Zen literature in libraries if it's just about counting from one to ten?
Well, there are other tasks. For example, the teacher asks: »What is Mu?« There are whole books about this. Because this question is just as difficult as counting from one to ten. Because I can't manage to count from one to ten, the teacher asks me: »What is Mu?« There is, of course, a story about this. It's called »Jôshû's dog« and goes like this:
 
A monk asked Jôshû in all seriousness: »Does a dog have Buddha nature or not?« Jôshû said »MU!«.
 
»What is MU?«... »Show me MU!« demands the Zen teacher. »Show me Buddha nature!« And I sit in front of the teacher and don't know what he wants, and I can't even count to ten... ME, ME, ME.
MU is as difficult as counting. That's why there are meters and meters of Zen literature on the bookshelves, because so many people want to learn to count to ten, because they want to get to know themselves in MU. I also like reading this literature because it's mysterious, the puzzles, and there's always the feeling that you're not that far away from the solution, that you've probably had the key all along.

And so I sit here, the first breaths of the black morning period, completely obsessed with sitting and possibly having possessed everything from the beginning?

I breathe in, I breathe out. One ... and ... two ... and it itches under my right nostril.