Body-Mind Integration

The point of Zazen is not to integrate two things which are originally separate. Body-mind integration is our original state and our natural state. But for most of us it is not our habitual state. So we need to make intentional effort to get back to it. This effort is not intention to achieve a balance, because balance is not something that I can achieve; it is intention to allow something to balance me.

Because of our stupid desire to explain the unexplainable, we call the intention to allow "mental" and we call that which is brought back to balance "physical"--I refer you back to Nishijima Roshi's posting about balance of the autonomic nervous system.

So in Zazen I intend to allow a space (so-called mental effort) in which my body can liberate itself from the habitual holding tendency (so-called physical effort).

I do this very badly. My intention is usually muddled by miscellaneous worries. So I sit badly, but I hope gradually less so--taking two steps backward for every one step forward.