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    Zen Naikan: The ancient energy alchemy of the Rinzai Zen monks. Including 21 Traditional Exercises
    Zen Naikan: The ancient energy alchemy of the Rinzai Zen monks. Including 21 Traditional Exercises
    Zen Naikan: The ancient energy alchemy of the Rinzai Zen monks. Including 21 Traditional Exercises
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    Zen Naikan: The ancient energy alchemy of the Rinzai Zen monks. Including 21 Traditional Exercises

    By Leonardo Anfolsi

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    While we have invented technological prostheses external ourselves, thanks to the current materialist mentality, Zen Naikan encourages us to become our own internal source of passion, strength, awareness and freedom. The word naikan was used by Master Hakuin Ekaku only three centuries ago to define expressly a method of cultivating energy associated with a new concept of dynamic meditation practice, suited both to laymen leading a life active in society as well as to practicing monks. Zen Naikan brings to those who practice it harmonious well-being, continuous joy, and the most solid aid to healing, encouraging the highest form of spiritual realization. Zen Naikan is a gift of the Rinzai school of Zen Buddhism, from the monks and laymen dedicated to developing spiritual, mental, and physical strength.
     
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherFontana Editore
    Release dateOct 15, 2018
    ISBN9788898750535
    Zen Naikan: The ancient energy alchemy of the Rinzai Zen monks. Including 21 Traditional Exercises

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      Book preview

      Zen Naikan - Leonardo Anfolsi

      Maestro zen Leonardo Anfolsi Reiyo Ekai

      ZEN NAIKAN

      The ancient energy alchemy

      of the Rinzai Zen monks

      Including 21 Traditional Exercises

      Translation by Gay Hsiao-Lin Bardin

      Editor’s Preface

      While preparing this text, uniquely precise and clear among its kind, I spoke at length with the Author. It is distinguished by being the only book revealing and explaining the use of the techniques taught by Master Hakuin Ekaku.

      Master Leonardo Anfolsi Reiyo Ekai possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of the field, as well as extensive personal experience, having long practiced these techniques with - as he stressed to me - a precise and definite aim: for a Zen Master, satori is the ultimate goal.

      Within the initiatic context of Rinzai Zen Buddhism, such an endeavor is unique. The books describes a dynamic zen practice - which in truth has its thousand-year-old history and tradition of transmission - but for the modern practitioner. For today’s practitioner, for whom understanding Master Hakuin’s work, and figuring out its possible applications to today’s context may be difficult, this book is a precious resource.

      Some of the techniques are clearly interlaced with known Tantra yoga techniques. For this reason, the reader could easily misunderstand their use within the Zen context, and how Zen provides a different approach to what would seem to be familiar material.

      An impassioned practitioner myself, I have had the precious opportunity to ask Master Leonardo Anfolsi Reiyo Ekai some essential details concerning the techniques directly. This has reiterated for me how personal the practitioner’s relationship with his practice must be, and how important it is to have direct oral transmission from Master to Disciple.

      Nevertheless this book is an incomparable resource for anyone practicing alone, even though - personally - I strongly suggest participating in one of the Master’s workshops. The very act of putting oneself in relation with the Master is per se already a koan, essential for anyone who wishes to know zen, or oneself, at the most fundamental level. It is a very simple relationship, direct yet personal, in which the shared interaction is live and unmediated. Much of the initiatic knowledge related to these techniques may be transmitted solely through direct personal teaching, and cannot be recorded or published.

      Rocco Fontana

      About the Author

      Leonardo Anfolsi received his training from Master Engaku Taino, under the aegis of Master Taishitsu Yamada Mumon. The most beloved Buddhist Master of contemporary Japan and President of the Imperial University of Hanazono, Mumon ritually welcomed Anfolsi as a young monk.

      Anfolsi obtained recognition as Master from the Tibetan Lama Gomo Tulku Sonam Rinchen XXII, and in fact received the secret teachings of Tibetan Buddhist Masters Kalu Rimpoche (1905-1989), Chőgyal Namkhai Norbu R., Nyoshul Kenpo R. (1932–1999), and the Böm Master Tenzin Namdak R.. In 1990, in Dharmasala, he received the complete teachings, or the the six Yogas of Naropa - which he practices assiduously - from His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

      Master Anfolsi teaches Buddhism and meditation in the American and Italian school systems, and lectures and gives workshops on the Zen Naikan technique he has imported from his own zen lineage. He has carried out institutional activities on behalf of the UBI, the Buddhist Union of Italy, under the protection of whom he is organizing the Mumonji Project.

      Anfolsi made his debut as a writer with an ironic spiritual autobiography (Banananda, 1989), an immediate bestseller edited and published by Franco Battiato in his L’Ottava Edizioni (reprinted by Fontana Editore); he shares his position in the series with the Nobel Prizewinner Natsume Soseki’s texts from the Sufi scriptural tradition, as well as Gurdjieff’s classic texts. Anfolsi continues his writings on Buddhism and zen; his lectures are appreciated internationally for their humor and erudition. He directs Nitrogeno, the international review of operative alchemy and the project relative to it in collaboration with Fontana Editore.

      Leonardo Anfolsi also collaborates with artists and entrepreneurs, guiding them and having served in that same environment as publicist, as for example in Opera Unica, co-authored with Marco Bagnoli, Alessandro Magini, and the editor Sergio Risaliti (Mondadori Arte Electa 2016). In 2007 Anfolsi participated as a multimedial artist in the space at the 52nd Biennale of Venice dedicated to the celebration of Joseph Beuys.

      Since the 1980’s Anfolsi has studied and practiced naturopathy, a discipline he combines with his role as minister of the faith. In the 1990’s he was called to direct the therapeutic division of the Bologna Naturist Association, at the time the most respected, well-articulated and advanced organization of its kind in Europe. The organization has produced several leaders in the world of physical education and physiatry, yoga, and contemporary medical philosophy.

      To contact the Master directly: contattoesterni@gmail.com

      Introduction

      "When one learns to be calm and tranquil, without turbulence, the ancestral energy adapts itself spontaneously, producing an all-pervasive and unbroken qi energy[1]. If I hold this energy within me, how can I possibly fall ill? The point is to keep this energy-qi inside us, pervading and providing support to the whole body[2] so that between the 360 points and the 84,000 pores, not even a hairsbreadth lacks it. Know that this is the secret to preserving life." - Hakuin zenji

      Zen Naikan brings to those who practice it harmonious well-being, continuous joy, and the most solid aid to healing, encouraging the highest form of spiritual realization.

      Zen Naikan is a gift of the Rinzai school of Zen Buddhism, from the monks and laymen dedicated to developing spiritual, mental, and physical strength.

      While we have invented technological prostheses external ourselves, thanks to the current materialist mentality, Zen Naikan encourages us to become our own internal source of passion, strength, awareness and freedom.

      Historically, Zen Naikan had various sources within the Rinzai school, and even today in China we have examples of this dynamic Zen teaching. The word naikan was used by Master Hakuin Ekaku only three centuries ago to define expressly a method of cultivating energy associated with a new concept of dynamic meditation practice, suited both to laymen leading a life active in society as well as to practicing monks.

      In 1977, at the age of 18, I had the honor of being received at sanzen - debate of Zen koan with the Master in the secret room - by Master Luigi Mario Engaku Taino at the Zenshinji temple. Two years later I was welcomed in sanzen also by Master Yamada Mumon. That was when I gained a clear understanding of what the power of the dantien can be in an eighty-year-old man, even one who had been ill since his youth. Everyone remembers Master Mumon for his inexhaustible energy, in spite of possessing only one functioning lung, and the stunning power he commanded with his ki-tentai, externalizing his qi[3].

      It is certainly thanks to the strength that Master Mumon manifested, as well as his humanity and open-mindedness, that he became not only head of the Rinzai school in Japan (Rinzai shu), but also president of the Imperial University of Hanazon[4]. Even more importantly, it seems to me, he was also the first Zen Master to open the dialog with the West and the Christian world, capable of receiving the first Westerners seeking monastic training. All of this Mumon accomplished earning fame as a calligrapher alongside all the other activities that caused him to become a landmark for contemporary Japanese lay society.

      I came to appreciate Hakuin’s genius through my practice and study of zen methods both of the Rinzai (línjì) and Sōtō (caodong) schools, as well as of vajrayana and dzogchen. Hakuin was able to read the traditional Mahayana sūtras and decipher their densely codified, highly symbolic subliminal teachings. The reader may, if desired, consult the third part of the Orategama, where Hakuin hints at a deeper meaning of the Lotus Sūtra, and communicates this reading in a letter to a Nichiren nun. It is certain that Hakuin practiced meditations specifically meant as strong stimulation for not only his vitality but also his intelligence.

      This is the purpose of this book: to make those methods available to today’s practitioner, and to explain and comment on their application so as to present an operative introduction with useful techniques derived from both Chinese and Japanese Zen traditions, in preparation for further possible developments in respect of Hakuin’s desires. In certain instances, the Master’s explanations of how to execute the techniques are complete, but often they seem bare sketches, as if he were relying on the monks’ intuition - sharpened by the intense ascetic vows typical of the Rinzai - to bring them speedily to complete comprehension.

      Historically, Naikan has demonstrated three salient properties. It is able:

      to facilitate the understanding of zen practice by both monks and laypeople,

      to heal monks of the zen sickness - zenbyo - that causes the heat to rise and the water element to sink,

      to stretch the muscles, to heal, and facilitate life in general.

      Note that from what Hakuin says, naikan was taught also to laymen. This encourages us not to be tempted to keep this information secret, as Hakuin himself had no desire to hide it, but as the Dalai Lama advises[5], to offer the opportunity for self-development to those who are ready.

      The better WE are, the better a world we create.

      The contents of this book, over the course of two years, ended up inspiring and astonishing me. The most important thing is to continue reading, always, even if you don’t understand. Better to be patient and practice the exercises until you gradually penetrate the secret hidden within the teaching. It is well worth your trouble. I promise that, with the help of my most advanced students, I will answer all your questions on line.

      Zen Naikan, practiced by Chinese and Japanese zen monks, is a form of yogic ascesis:

      Mental, given that it operates through visualizations and the breath.

      Energetic, encouraging the flow of emotional/nervous/pranic energy and the bioelectric/respiratory power of the qi, and

      Physical, using particular movements and breathing techniques to develop the bioelectric and staminal forces. To use the current terminology, Zen Naikan integrates the principle of yoga, which works with the five prāṇas, with the essence of qigong, which works with the jing and the qi to realize the shen[6].

      By ‘staminal’ we mean the germinative, constitutional principle of living organisms of all kingdoms, from the vegetable to the animal all the way up to human beings. The word’s Greek and Latin roots evoke the concept of something ancestral, structural, tied to the idea of to stand, supporting structure, fulcrum, thread. Stem cells may truly be considered a primordial fulcrum, a structure or basic fiber of life. Just as the bioelectrical voltage differential acts as a fulcrum, the flow of electrical current lies at the base of life and our wellbeing as it moves every function at the cell, tissue, and organ levels.

      Let us add that the latest scientific discoveries pertaining to the extrapyramidal nervous system and the enteric nervous system, or epigenetics and the development of the concept of resilience only provide contemporary scientific confirmation of the principles guiding the ancient methods of Naikan.

      We may certainly state that the practice of Naikan strengthens our immune or adaptive capacity. It is a rapidly-applied technique allowing one to realize those tangible effects commonly termed miracles that I witness every day of my life. These experiences are certainly encouraging, but should not so much distract us from our inner seeking as nourish it, opening us to a sense of wonder at once innocent and responsible. We must think about this, consider where we are, what times these are, and how we must all - sooner or later - confront the mystery and how it constitutes the very breath of our daily life. In other times, neither better nor worse than today, this perception was an inborn part of humanity, although the human race was more ingenuous and instinctual.

      The zen monks of the past were taught - as standard practice - that ecstatic states, the manifestation of powers or even having thoughts was makyo, or demonic. In this way they prevented the most serious and dangerous errors. Today however similar affirmations would be considered undue, exaggerated and even condemnable - today, when our inability to generate ecstasy, or psychic and magnetic energy places us at risk of developing all those maladies provoked by an over-crowded, extremely complicated existence and where, in contrast with the past, everything is monitored, rushed and held maniacally under control.

      This mistake is not yet understood by those who still possess the instinctual force of our ancestors but have been captured by the new religion of Science, which allows them to identify themselves in a freer, more literate and cultured world, or so it appears to the senses, free of the fideistic obscurantism of the past. And yet since Science, like religion, is a mass phenomenon, for most it becomes an experience of standardized identity, bearing nothing in common with the lofty ideals of those minds which truly are more open and more accepting of possibility. In this way we subscribe en masse to that need to identify ourselves in something, forcing us to apply our faith to discoveries, assumptions, and theories, the same that tomorrow will be rejected as unfounded, if not foolish or even criminal.

      This is how the mandate of the seekers of so-called Truth, whether religious or scientific, betrays itself. From the Zen point of view, in contrast, the disinterest in truth is definitive. Buddhism deals with reality, and what is real must simply be recognized, adhering to what is for what it is, and thus on a level that is at once pre-verbal and usable. This occurs in silence, listening and returning to that place from where all knowledge stems, that moment of glorious enlightenment rarely attained by either religious or scientific genius, and rarely recognized when it occurs, as its brilliance surpasses the possibilities of its historical time. In general, Buddhism has this unique capability: it does not permit anyone to own the truth, or even to nurture the vaguest idea of a similar hypothesis. This principle remains constant, even though someone has tried to contest its parameters every century. Even Pure Land Buddhism, which sustains the possibility of salvation, is only a method and is expressed as such to its followers, who thus share the responsibility of salvation through a method, a concept totally alien to the monotheistic religions. For Zen in particular, the methods, well-applied, force us to accept that even though the execution may be perfect, it comes into being only in the moment in which we abandon ourselves to the evidence of reality.

      And the evidence, which Buddhism considers innate, precedes all concepts: the very silence of meditation itself. Thanks to this, Buddhism teaches us to see everything and understand it for what it truly is, silent, nude, with no intromission of ideation-idealism-ideology. Buddhism as it is practiced is an innate religion that does not require the revelation of some absolute truth by some invested person. It is a religion from which background one can understand quantum physics, or other religions, or certainly admire them, without being understood by anyone who has not trained himself in that extreme, unexpected and sustained form of liberty called meditation, or encountered those undefinable, unfathomable individuals called Masters.

      The Naikan we present in this introductory document is not the Naikan of Yoshimoto Ishin - who has all our respect - but the alchemical training taught for thousands of years in the Rinzai School of Zen. The tradition is clearly traceable back to the teachings of Hóngrěn, the fifth Chinese patriarch, continued in Rinzai’s day and - either in accordance with his desire or that of his descendants - represented in the figure of Master Puhuà. We may recognize this continuum through two historical moments in which the Rinzai school gained eminence, first through its influence on the samurai class and finally with Hakuin Ekaku. Maestro Hakuin, true cornerstone of the Rinzai tradition in Japan, authored the two fundamental texts on Naikan that we include at the end of this volume. More recently, we rediscover Naikan in Kōno Dakei and Kawaguchi Ekai. Kawaguchi Ekai was the master of Yamada Mumon Roshi, who in turn taught Engaku Taino, who is my direct Master. This teaching thus arrives to us through an unbroken line of transmission from Hakuin Ekaku, who rediscovered it thanks to his boundless scholarly zeal.

      Among the principle studies on the material mentioned above relative to the Rinzai school, we find the research realized in part by the prestigious scholars of the University of Hanazono - for many years directed by Mumon Roshi himself - and a few studies and translations of texts into Western languages[7]. A note on the transliteration of names in Chinese and Japanese. We have chosen:

      to use the pinyin transliteration for names of people or places, and also dharma names, in accordance with typical academic usage today.

      to leave the transliteration from the Chinese used in

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