Day 4: Putting it all together

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Today try to marshal a little more time. Sit for 10 or 15 minutes, walk for 5, sit for another 10. Bow to your cushion before you sit down. This time walk indoors if you have some uncluttered space in which to do it. Hold your hands with your fingers interlaced at the lower abdomen. Try to maintain the same focus and tranquility of mind as you have learned to do in sitting zen. If your walking space is small, walk very slowly (e.g., one half-step as your breathe in, another as you breathe out) ; walk slowly but more naturally if your space is larger. Sit again. Then place your hands together and bow to the universe before you get up.

Suzuki Roshi, a Japanese master who taught in California in the 1960s writes:

When we practice sitting zen our mind follows our breathing. When we inhale the air comes into our inner world. When we exhale the air goes to the outer world. The inner world is limitless, and the outer world is also limitless. We say “inner world” or “outer world,” but actually there isn’t just one whole world. In this limitless world, our throat is like a swinging door. The air comes in and goes out like someone passing through a swinging door. If you think “I breathe,” the “O” is extra. There is no you to say “I.” What we call “I” is just a swinging door. . . When your mind is pure and clear enough to follow this movement, there is nothing: no “O,” no world, no mind nor body, just a swinging door.