“Hakuin gave us the instruction for susokkan, which has the truly great function of clearing the mind. He said:
‘In any case do not be attached to the outside world, and within our minds do not think of this and that. To have our minds precisely concentrated only on what we are doing, this is what is called deep samadhi. For those who wish to enter deep samadhi, it is best to put down thick cushions, sit in full lotus and wear loose clothes. For those who wish to enter deep samadhi a thicker cushion is best. For someone who is only going to sit for ten to thirty minutes a thick cushion may not be so necessary, but here at Sogenji we may sit for as many as twelve hours, and if we continue this for a week of osesshin, a thin cushion will not be sufficient. Therefore it is best to sit down on a thick cushion.
Put your legs in full lotus. For zazen there is both half and full lotus. If at all possible full lotus is preferable. Putting up both legs carefully and tucking them in deeply is best. It's best because your legs don't move out of position. For those doing half lotus it is easier to injure your legs. If you sit for a long time your legs may hurt and you will want to move them. If you move your legs your body's center line becomes crooked. If you sit in a crooked way for an extended time your balance becomes lost and in extreme cases your legs become and remain numb. In the end it becomes impossible even to do zazen. This happens because people don't put their legs up deeply and carefully into the correct position. When you tuck them in deeply you may feel pain at the beginning. Zazen is one form of yoga, and you must not go against your muscle structure. If you want to sit in a way in which your legs do not go against your muscle structure, you must tuck them in deeply. To put your legs up loosely will not work; they must be tucked as far up on your thighs as possible. Push out your lower abdomen (tanden) as far as possible and sit with your hands in front of your abdomen, one on top of the other and thumbs touching.
To sit in loose clothing is preferable. If you constrict your body in any way your breathing becomes difficult. People who wear tight belts or tight trousers should loosen them as much as possible. Straighten your backbone and stretch it up toward the sky. A line between your knees forms one side of an equilateral triangle. Put your pelvis at the opposite apex of the triangle and stretch your spine up from that point. In this way you make your spine erect and set your neck and head on top of the spine. Tuck in your chin and poke the top of your head straight up into the sky, and the heaviness of your head will decrease. If you do this your balance will improve. If you sit like this your abdomen will naturally be pushed forward, and also because your backbone is straight, your abdomen will move forward.
Hakuin further instructed, saying:
Make your spine straight and your posture erect but comfortable. This is the best way to sit. People who see you sitting zazen should naturally feel a refreshed and bracing feeling. If you stretch up too much it looks uncomfortable. If the way you sit gives a person who is looking at you a messy and uncomfortable feeling, this is not the right posture. People who see you should get a refreshed and vibrant feeling.
Hakuin instructed his disciples saying:
Begin by doing susokkan, the best possible way for entering deep samadhi, focusing your ki in your tanden.
These words are from Hakuin's very own experience, and because Hakuin's susokkan is a way of breathing with the tanden, it is the same as the way of breathing taught by the Buddha. Of course Hakuin was not the first to discover this! In India from ancient times until today it has been continued. In the practice of Zen, susokkan was never given much emphasis. Considered as something obvious, it was not thought of as something that was needed to be taught. From doing extreme training, Hakuin had problems with his sympathetic nervous system. His ki would rise to his shoulders and he would become emotionally unstable. He discovered that by doing susokkan he could settle his mind, and in this way he realized that susokkan could be practiced to develop ki. He taught susokkan to everyone from beginners to well-ripened people of longtime practice. This susokkan must be well developed. So, Hakuin instructed:
Begin by doing susokkan, the best possible way for entering deep samadhi, focusing your ki in your tanden.
He makes it sound simple, but there any many types of samadhi. In yoga there are many ways of entering samadhi, but among these the best way to enter samadhi is sussokan. Hakuin has taught us this from his own experience. Everyone who comes to Sogenji is taught susokkan as the base of their practice, and for those who work with it using it in their daily life is a matter of course. One can easily forget the correct way to do susokkan, so it is best to review it constantly and thoroughly.
The way to begin doing susokkan is as I have just explained:
First check your zazen posture. Then if your body is in the correct posture remove all tension and stretch the spine toward the sky. Remove all tension from the neck muscles and release all tension in your arms as well. When you do this you will just become like the skeleton hanging in the science classroom, tied from its head and with its body loosely dangling.
In this relaxed condition:
Quietly exhale, focusing your concentration on the exhalation from your tanden. Your tanden is that place approximately one and a half inches below your navel which you can feel if you press there. Here is the main center of the sympathetic nervous system. The source of human's ki can also be found here. If you work with this place thoroughly your ki will become fully developed.
If you are not centered in your tanden, your energy level falls easily, and your ki goes high up into your shoulders. It may continue into the neck muscles and your head may begin to tighten and hurt. Finally you may become dizzy, excited, and start crying for no reason or become irritated, finding it difficult to settle down. If this happens, your whole body starts trembling. From a disturbance of the sympathetic nervous system you may become neurotic. susokkan is the best way to keep the ki down.
Having relaxed all the tension in your body:
Focus on the lower abdomen, as if you were steadily blowing your breath from this place and, pulling your belly in, quietly exhale. Exhale for as long as possible, to the very end of the breath and until your belly becomes completely flat.
When you come to the very end of the breath, naturally, without thinking, the inhalation will follow and your belly will fill up and expand in front of you. As your belly expands the inhalation comes in naturally. There is no need to suck in an inhalation.
Very comfortably: Focus on a complete exhalation.
As your belly expands in front of you: Inhale accordingly.
It's just like an eyedropper. There is a rubber bulb on top of a hollow glass tube. When you press the bulb the air goes out, and when you put it into water and let go of it the water is sucked into the glass tube. This is how the eyedropper works. In the same way, flattening your belly completely is the way to exhale the breath, and the swelling out of your abdomen at inhalation is the same as letting go of the eyedropper's rubber bulb: air flows in naturally. When you let go of your exhalation your abdomen naturally fills up again and with that action you inhale. Don't suck in air. If you do it naturally there should be almost no tension in the shoulders whatsoever and the air comes in easily. In a short time sufficient air will easily be inhaled.
If you become too tense or too self-conscious it becomes very difficult. If you are tense in your diaphragm your breath gets stopped there. Almost everyone stops his or her breath at the diaphragm and almost everyone tries to force his or her breath further from there. Getting rid of this forced power is one of the big problems at the beginning of learning susokkan. At the beginning of zazen it helps to do this deep abdominal breathing up to ten times. To get rid of self-consciousness, you go out to the breath's final point as quietly as possible, and in doing this you work slowly on focusing and using your tanden.
As you breathe out: Add the counting of one, two three, up to ten. One count on each breath.
As you breathe out, count:
Ooooooooooooooone . . .
Twoooooooooooooo . . .
Threeeeeeeeeeeeee . . .
Keep going until the count of ten and then return to one again. Thus is susokkan…”
Hakuin concluded with:
If you then continue to practice zazen day after day, kensho will be realized as certainly as you hit the ground when you strike at it. Put everything you have into it. He said this not meaning to say how many years we must make efforts, nor how many months or days are necessary. According to each person's efforts and energy it develops. According to each person's power of concentration it deepens. There is no calculation that can be made. It can't be said that because we worked this many hours we will have these results.
Our consciousness being totally reborn is our goal. Heading toward that goal and using our total energy in its pursuit is what has to be done. Even if we make efforts and our goal is not realized, if is as if we strike the ground with our hand. Without fail enlightenment can be realized. We can, without fail, realize enlightenment. Hakuin teaches this from his own experience. Everyone, all of us, can realize kensho. Anyone can realize this state of mind and anyone can be reborn from this state of mind. In this way Hakuin teaches us.”
~ Morning Dewdrops of the Mind by Shodo Harada Roshi, translated by Priscilla Daichi
