Zen

As a beginner you sit perfectly still to make sure you don’t wake the mind, possibly starting in the quarter lotus position, with your eyes almost-but-not-quite closed. 

You begin with exercises on present moment awareness. You will be instructed to forget the past, stop thinking about the future, and concentrate only on the present moment. If you find this difficult, then you will count breaths until you can get the hang of it. You will be asked to count your breaths from one to ten. If your mind wanders, then you start again. If you get to ten, you simply start again. If you unconsciously count to 11, 12, 13 etc. then this is considered a lack of mindfulness. You persist in this practice until you have it cracked.

Then you may progress to an exercise called ‘catching the ox,’ which is about disciplining the mind, as well as practicing mindfulness; first on the body, then the emotions, then the mind, and then the objects of the mind.

Mindfulness of breathing (without counting) is also common. During this time, you will likely graduate to practicing while in half lotus.

You may also be instructed to practice loving-kindness, and if you stick with it, you will follow a ten-step, multi-decade path of perfecting your levels of mindfulness until you ultimately start practising something called Zen Koans, which are used to provoke the “great doubt” and test a student’s progress.

Finally, and with great mastery, you may then begin teaching what you have learned.

Zen is actually quite influenced by the Vedic knowledge base, via its Mahayana Buddhist and Taoist roots, both of which borrow heavily from Vedic wisdom.

As a result, Beeja meditation and Zen share some similar qualities. Neither’s sole aim is the acquisition of knowledge; they are both about living the knowledge through the attainment of present moment awareness. This, in turn, naturally helps and supports all the people you meet in your life.

They also both favour interaction with an accomplished master, which is an incredibly important aspect of learning high-level knowledge and progressing at a satisfactory rate.

However, there is one big difference between the two:

Ease

• Zen tends to be more of a strict monk-like practice, while Beeja meditation - which originated before monasticism became a thing - can easily be practiced by people with full and busy modern lives.
• Zen can be quite severe in its application. As you become more advanced, your present moment awareness will be tested by a master, who will attempt to sneak up to you and if you don’t notice his presence, he’ll whack you with a cane!
• The Beeja and Zen approaches also tend to differ in the effort one invests into trying to attain presence. Beeja is a very flowing approach, whereas Zen is quite rigid.
• Thanks to the personalised mantra, Beeja is an effortless technique which seems to bring considerably more benefit to your ability to stay in the present moment. This is backed up by a study at Harvard, which showed that Beeja meditation is four times more effective at developing present moment awareness than Zen meditation!